Malta faces pressure to legalize surrogacy

Labour politician Romilda Zarb has called for legislators to consider legalizing surrogacy in Malta.

Key Takeaways: 

• In vitro fertilization (IVF) was legalized in Malta in 2013; Zarb said the country should now consider legalizing surrogacy as well.

• Surrogacy is currently considered a breach of the Embryo Protection Act.

• Malta has long established itself as a country which protects life, and legalizing surrogacy would violate that.

The Details:

After legalizing IVF in 2013, Malta should now consider if its continued prohibition of surrogacy under the Embryo Protection Act remains justified, said Labour politician Romilda Zarb.

She further argued that the anticipated rollout of the first national Women’s Health Strategy, and the inclusion of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) together with endometriosis treatments in the state formulary, have each created new opportunities in their respective areas. 

“But if there is one topic that for me keeps reminding us that our work is not yet finished, it is the topic of surrogacy," she said. "Because if there's one thing the IVF experience has taught us, it's that politics should no longer shy away from difficult topics."

At the moment, surrogacy is considered a breach of the Embryo Protection Act. It was initially included among the broad legislative reforms put forward by the Labour government in 2018; however, it was ultimately removed from the final bill, with a commitment to address the issue through separate legislation, which has not yet happened.

A MaltaToday report quoted IVF specialist Christine Schembri Deguara, a medical director at HOPE Fertility Clinic, calling on lawmakers to reopen the surrogacy debate and to widen sperm donation rules, including changes that would permit lesbian couples to use the same sperm donor. This was presented as part of improving treatment options in Malta. 

Deguara said surrogacy should be permitted within a strictly regulated legal framework, particularly for women unable to carry a pregnancy, and for male same-sex couples. She also called for revisions to existing sperm donation regulations, so that donors are connected to families instead of individual parents, a change she said would enable lesbian couples to have children who are biologically connected to both partners. 

“I would really love to get the discussion of surrogacy going, both from a medical side and also from an equal rights side,” Deguara said, adding, “If two women are regarded as a family, then the sperm donor can actually be used by both women."

Why It Matters:

The latest development ignites familiar alarms about the commodification of women and children, the fragmentation of parenthood, and the further jeopardizing of safeguards for children already built into Maltese law. 

Surrogacy turns pregnancy into a transaction and the baby into the product of a contractual agreement. This practice reshapes the meaning of motherhood, fatherhood, and the child’s value as a gift instead of a commodity. 

The wider track record of Malta’s IVF debates reveals  that once legal barriers are lowered, further pressures follow. Previous coverage revealed that government changes to IVF already paved the way to sperm and egg donation, embryo freezing, and consultation on altruistic surrogacy, all while critics cautioned against the moral costs of regarding embryonic life and motherhood as technical problems to be dealt with. 

Reports on the Embryo Protection Act pointed out that Maltese lawmakers and commentators had debated over whether repeated or anonymous gamete donation could compromise a child’s biological identity and lead to long-term ethical problems. 

The Bottom Line:

Malta has long positioned itself as a country that treasures the protection of life in law. This reality makes it particularly significant for lawmakers not to trade away one human dignity in the name of another’s desire for a child. A pro-life society should address infertility with medicine that honors the dignity of both mother and child, not with policies that outsource pregnancy or break apart a child’s natural origins from his or her biological mother.