ROME, OCT. 5, 2010 (Zenit.org).- In vitro fertilization has brought happiness to many couples, but at an “enormous cost,” says the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations in response to the inventor of IVF being chosen for the Nobel prize in medicine.
Robert Edwards, a Cambridge reproductive biologist, was announced as the winner on Monday.
“Although IVF has brought happiness to the many couples who have conceived through this process, it has done so at an enormous cost,” a statement from the federation (FIAMC) affirmed. “That cost is the undermining of the dignity of the human person. Many millions of embryos have been created and discarded during the IVF process.
“Not only were these human beings being used as experimental animals destined for destruction, especially in the early stages, but this use has led to a culture where they are regarded as commodities, rather than the precious human individuals which they are.”
The FIAMC statement affirms that the organization’s members, as Catholic doctors, “recognize the pain that infertility brings to a couple, but equally we believe that the research and treatment methods needed to solve the problems of infertility have to be conducted within an ethical framework which respects the special dignity of the human embryo, which is no different from that of a mature adult with a brilliant mind.”
