http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11465715
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11472753

Robert Edwards, a British scientist who devised in vitro fertilization, has been awarded this year's Nobel prize for medicine. (in vitro fertilization is a process by which egg cells are fertilized by sperm outside the body. The fertilized egg is then transferred to the uterus to establish pregnancy for women who are infertile.) According to the Nobel medicine prize committee, Edwards' work had "made it possible to treat infertility, a medical condition afflicting a large proportion of humanity, including more than 10% of all couples worldwide."

However, a Vatican official criticized the award choice, saying that the award "ignored the ethical questions raised by the fertility treatment," such as "the destruction of large numbers of human embryos."

What do you think? (This can almost turn into a discussion about abortion or stem cell research.)

I think the Vatican lost a great opportunity to keep their mouths shut... which has become usual lately, with the Pope compairing atheists to nazis and stuff like that.
After all, Robert Edwards didn't spend years of research to create a huge black market of human eggs! He did it to help infertile people to achieve the dream of having a child!
As for "the destruction of large numbers of human embryos.", maybe the Vatican should read about how common spontaneous abortions are and how many human eggs are spontaneously destroyed every month. So, will I go to hell because I had a miscarriage?
Also, I think it's too easy to criticize stuff when it doesn't affect us. I bet that if many of these religious people, or their close relatives, had a fatal disease which could be easily cured by a stem cell treatment, they would have nothing against it!

I think thats an amazing breakthrough and definitely deserves the Nobel prize. Whats with the hater Vatican Official?

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I think that the religious official's personal beliefs would never leak out to the media because they have to keep their image intact. It's this fine line between work like and personal life that they have to keep in balance.

I think these topics are what the Christian community are going to learn to compromise in the future as technology has really improves the lifestyle of humans by a long mile.

I think it's something great. The church ALWAYS has a huge problem with medicinal achievements. "If God can't heal you nothing can!" kind of stand to it is quite ignorant.

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Yay for test tube babies