Poland's parliament launched debate on six draft laws on in vitro
fertilisation Friday, an available but unregulated medical procedure in
Poland, strongly opposed by the Catholic Church.
The drafts range
from a total ban punishable by prison to the authorization of IVF
including the freezing of embryos and its reimbursement by the state.
The
governing liberal Civic Platform (PO) party proposed that all six
widely ranging draft IVF laws be debated further in parliamentary
committees.
The opposition conservative Law and Justice (PiS)
urged the immediate rejection of drafts authorizing the procedure while
the opposition left-wing SLD called for the rejection of drafts
prohibiting IVF.
Parliament is to vote on the drafts next week.
Poland's
powerful Roman Catholic Church has launched a crusade against in vitro
fertilization (IVF), threatening legislators with excommunication if
they back proposals to authorize and fund the procedure.
The move has stunned both the government and medical professionals involved in the treatment.
"The
threats, attempts to pressure and blackmail are amazing," Pawel Gras,
spokesman for Poland's liberal government, told the private broadcaster
Radio Zet on Tuesday.
President Bronislaw Komorowski, himself a
Catholic and father of five, has called for a reasonable compromise that
respects Catholics' sensibilities and the needs of "many, often
desperate couples, seeking a way to have a child".
Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday that politicians were responsible to citizens, not the Church hierarchy.
Tusk
supports a draft submitted by his liberal Civic Platform party which
authorizes the freezing of embryos. An alternative draft does not allow
for this freezing process, making it less effective.
The Church
views the latter draft as less harmful because it prohibits storage of
IVF embryos and therefore their selection and destruction.
The Vatican
regards an embryo as a human being from the second of conception.
SIC: AFP/INT'L