Professor Robert Edwards, the scientist who pioneered the controversial procedure of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), has been awarded a Nobel Prize for Medicine.
The decision was announced by the Nobel Assembly, saying that his achievements “have made it possible to treat infertility, a medical condition afflicting a large proportion of humanity including more than 10% of all couples worldwide.”
Dr Mulkeen, director of research at the Medical Research Council, was supportive of the decision but noted: “The MRC didn't fund Edwards' work in the 1970s for a range of reasons, including safety and ethical reservations present at the time.”
Spare embryos can, under UK law, be frozen and used for research purposes.
Monsignor Carrasco, the Vatican's spokesman on bio-ethics, criticised the award, saying that the Nobel prize committee's choice of Prof Edwards was "completely out of order" as without his treatment, there would be no market for human eggs, "and there would not be a large number of freezers filled with embryos in the world", he told Italy's Ansa news agency.
Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said the award ignored the ethical questions raised by the fertility treatment. He said IVF had led to the destruction of large numbers of human embryos.
Andrea Minichiello Williams, Director of CCFON, commented:
“We question this award as IVF paved the way for untold millions of embryonic humans to be frozen indefinitely, experimented on or destroyed.”
Sources:
The Independent
BBC News
Official Website of the Nobel Prize