Former Nationalist minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici has declared his opposition to the IVF law amendments, joining three other MPs who broke the party whip when they voted against the bill on Wednesday.
Mifsud Bonnici said he could not be in parliament to vote against the bill because he is currently positive for COVID-19.
Nonetheless, he declared, on Facebook, that he wanted to make his opposition clear.
"The amendments are not in favour of life. Rather they will permit the testing of life so that we can decide who should be born and who will forever be forgotten in deep freeze, shorn of any dignity and marginalised by society." he wrote.
Mifsud Bonnici said pre-implantation genetic testing promoted the idea that those who had a particular genetic condition had no right for life.
While nine specific life-limiting genetic conditions can be tested, Mifsud Bonnici argued that the list of such genetic conditions could grow.
This, the MP said, was creating the dangerous view that those who had a genetic defect should be sidelined.
"This will actually also change the way we look at people who have already been born and are undergoing these realities," he argued.
Mifsud Bonnici said his declaration was consistent with the views he had repeatedly made in the meetings of the PN parliamentary group.
The IVF law amendments were overwhelmingly approved on Wednesday with 66 votes in favour and three against. It was backed by all Labour MPs and most of the PN MPs also voted in favour. The only MPs to vote against were former Opposition leader Adrian Delia and MPs Alex Borg and Ivan Bartolo. Nationalist MPs Chris Said, and Jerome Caruana Cilia were not present.
The Nationalist Party had initially opposed pre-implantation genetic testing and later argued that prospective parents should have a choice and be offered the alternative of polar body testing which does not involve testing of embryos and is suitable for eight of nine genetic conditions which the bill says can be tested for. The only exception is Huntington's Disease, which can only be detected by testing of the embryos.