A government minister has said the threat by some bishops to
excommunicate MPs who vote for state funding of IVF treatment in Poland
is the equivalent of “blackmail” - though the ruling Civic Platform is
not united on the legislation.
“It’s a pity that the Church does not assist [in creating
legislation] but threatens and blackmails,” said minister without
portfolio Pawel Gras.
The government is currently considering two rival bills which
would introduce state funding for childless couples who want IVF
treatment on the state.
The Gazeta Wyborcza daily writes that two thirds
of the ruling party’s members are for the more liberal variant of the
bill, drafted by MP Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska, which would allow IVF for
married as well as unmarried couples, and the freezing of surplus
embryos without recourse to their destruction.
The remaining third of Civic Platform’s MPs are in favour
of Jaroslaw Gowin’s more conservative project, which will permit
married couples only to have IVF treatment and a ban on freezing of
embryos altogether.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Donald Tusk is to answer this week a letter by bishops in which they call IVF the “younger sister of eugenics.”
“Eugenics was a method of interfering in genetics popular among
the Nazis and it has nothing to do with in vitro,” said Pawel Gras.
A vote of conscience
In Gras’s opinion, every MP should vote according to his or her conscience.
Gras thinks that pressure that the Church puts on politicians
will only speed up the process of implementing a bill on IVF. “I don’t
think the bishops will manage to block the bill, which might be passed
even this year,” said Gras.
Some MPs feel intimidated after Roman Catholic Church bishops,
however, claims Stefan Niesiolowski, a deputy speaker in the lower house
of parliament (Sejm).
Niesiolowski, a member of the ruling liberal-conservative Civic
Platform, doubts that under such intimidating circumstances Parliament
will pass a bill on IVF, though he is not afraid of excommunication
himself.
“I wouldn’t have enough courage to tell a married
couple who suffer because they can’t have children that I can’t help
them,” said the deputy speaker of parliament.
Church teaching
The opposition, conservative-national Law and Justice party,
though, thinks that the bishops’ letter merely sets out the teaching of
the Roman Catholic Church.
“It’s a good letter which indicates the
priorities of Christianity and the Church’s teachings are,” said Law and
Justice MP Boleslaw Piecha.
The Deputy head of the Democratic Left Alliance Katarzyna
Piekarska said that the bishops don’t understand that state funded IVF
will bring happiness to families who cannot have children.
“In vitro is not directed against the family as unit
but enriches family ties and makes it possible for people to become
mothers or fathers,” said Piekarska and added that bishops, because of
their profession, can’t understand it because they rejected family
happiness.
Polish MPs will debate the IVF bills on Friday.
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