IVF Nobel prize 'out of order': Vatican

A Vatican official says the decision to award the Nobel Prize for Medicine to the pioneer of IVF is "out of order" because the procedure has resulted in the destruction of millions of human embryos, reports ABC News.

The Nobel Assembly announced in Stockholm overnight that Briton Robert Edwards had won the prize for developing the in-vitro fertilisation process.

The treatment has allowed millions of infertile couples around the world to have children, but the Catholic Church hierarchy has opposed it for decades.

The head of Pontifical Academy for Life, Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, has attacked the decision to honour Dr Edwards's work.
"Without Edwards, there would not be a large number of freezers filled with embryos in the world," he told ANSA news agency.

"In the best cases they are transferred into a uterus, but most probably, they will end up abandoned or dead, for which the new Nobel prize winner is responsible."