[Daphne – Because they ARE the ones forking out the money. The government does not have a money-tree.]

Let’s try to help those who find themselves in difficult situations like single mothers and live on. Why do we measure our lives by passing comments about people in difficulty? Sometimes I suspect that these people are the ones who contribute least in society.

Yes you did.

“In vitro fertilization is done outside the women s wombs and therefore there is no chance of multiple pregnancies.”

I did not say that there is no possibility of multiple pregnancies. Sybil gave the impression in his post that chances of multiple pregnancies in IVF is normal and there is risks of a weaker baby. The norm is that only 4 fertilised eggs are inserted, if the couple are lucky enough of having 4 fertilised eggs in one cycle. The possibility of a quadruplets is very rare besides there is nothing wrong in multiple pregnancy I can assure you cause I m triplet myself :)

The success rate of IVF is 25%. Hence 4 ova are fertilised and implanted. However, 25% is just an average and so multiple pregnancies ARE possible after IVF.

Induced pregnancy is a result of Treatment given to a woman so she can produce more eggs, have nothing to do with IVF. In vitro fertilization is done outside the women s wombs and therefore there is no chance of multiple pregnancies.
St James have incubators but it has nothing to do with IVF treatment.

IVF is safe and has no risks its a simple procedure of inserting sperm into an ovum.

IVF procedure is also done on humans, the pioneers for this reproductive assistance technique were Belgians and they started this procedure way back in 1978. In Malta only St James Hospital do IVF , they has a very good track record which compare very well with other hospitals in Europe. Pregnancy rate is about 35% , St James started ten years ago.

Michael Debono: if you write about people, and politicians are people, then you have to be personal. Otherwise, what you get is the kind of obfsucation that has benighted our newspapers for decades. Read a few London newspapers (not the Daily Mirror) and you’ll see what I mean. Incidentally, the roles of teacher and columnist are completely separate and different. Columnists are not paid to teach, but to inform and above all, to entertain.

Your question about the confusion over the virgin birth: so as to translate a document faithfully, you have to know the precise meanings of words. We do not know whether the translators/compilers of what we know as the New Testament today were truly familiar with the idiomatic meaning of the scripts they translated. The word they translated as ‘virgin’ may have simply meant ‘young woman’. There is an embedded contradiction in talking about a ‘married virgin’, especially when the period you are referring to is 2000 years ago and it was the act of sexual intercourse that brought the marriage into effect. But there in no interest in researching this further because the virgin birth and the idea that Jesus was the son of God, not an ordinary mortal with exceptional charisma, underpins the entire religion. it does make for an interesting thought, though.

[Moderator – The Daily Mirror?]