Vatican official: Nobel to IVF pioneer raises questions

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican's top bioethics official said Robert Edwards, who received the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for developing in vitro fertilization, opened "a new and important chapter in the field of human reproduction" but is also responsible for the destruction of embryos and the creation of a "market" in donor eggs.

Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, the newly appointed head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said awarding the Nobel to Edwards is "not completely out of place." But he said it raised a great number of questions, not least because his research didn't treat the underlying problem of infertility but rather skirted it.

The Vatican is opposed to IVF because it involves separating conception from the "conjugal act" and often results in the destruction of embryos. Church teaching holds that human life begins at conception, and must be given the consequent respect and dignity from that moment on.

In a statement, Carrasco nevertheless said Edwards "is not a figure to be underestimated."

Still, he said, "without Edwards there wouldn't be a market of eggs."

"Without Edwards, there wouldn't be freezers full of embryos waiting to be transferred in utero or, more likely, be used for research or to die, abandoned and forgotten by all," Carrasco said.

Carrasco stressed that he was offering a personal opinion, not a Vatican statement.