Government plans to allow prenatal genetic diagnosis of embryos before implantation in IVF procedures have been met with 'deep concern' by Doctors For Life, an NGO grouping pro-life doctors and activists.
Prenatal genetic diagnosis involves screening embryos for certaingenetic diseases. Embryos found to carry such conditions are in most countries discarded and thrown away, but Health Minister Chris Fearne said last week that in Malta they would be kept frozen and offered for adoption.
Doctors for Life (DfL) said in a statement on Wednesday that at the point of fertilisation, a new human life has begun, whether this happens naturally or in IVF. A human embryo is a human being at an early stage of its development and as such needs to be treated with due respect and dignity.
"Just because an embryo doesn’t look like a baby does not diminish its humanity or uniqueness and any attempts at dehumanisation are both misleading and superficial."
The NGO said any notions of adoption of the tested embryos was misleading.
Ever since embryo freezing was introduced in Malta, not a single one of the 388 frozen “normal” embryos had been adopted. Therefore the notion that these “genetically abnormal”, discarded embryos would be adopted was ludicrous, it said.
"DfL appreciates the difficulties faced by couples seeking IVF whose children may suffer from genetic conditions, especially those that may limit life expectancy or severely impact quality of life. We all strongly desire to reduce illness in children. However the current proposal does not eliminate illness but eliminates the ill. It merely identifies the sick ones and discards them."
The NGO said limited screening for genetic conditions could be done on the female eggs orova before formation of an embryo, with a method called Polar Body Testing which offers the possibility of detecting an abnormal number of chromosomes as well as maternal single gene diseases.
With this method, parental concerns would be addressed by screening for specific conditions; however this would be done before the embryos were formed, not after.
"Like this, we would truly reduce the burden of illness by preventing the formation of embryos that carry the conditions as opposed to the current proposal which merely identifies and permanently freezes ‘genetically abnormal’ embryos that are already formed."
It said that while the screening it had proposed was not as broad as PGD it avoided all the ethical burdens.