{"id":5002,"date":"2010-10-04T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2010\/10\/in-vitro-pioneer-wins-nobel.html"},"modified":"2010-10-04T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-04T09:00:00","slug":"in-vitro-pioneer-wins-nobel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/10\/in-vitro-pioneer-wins-nobel.html","title":{"rendered":"In-vitro pioneer wins Nobel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20101004\/ap_on_he_me\/nobel_medicine\">This news<\/a> won&#8217;t fill the Vatican with joy: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nRobert Edwards of Britain won the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for developing in-vitro fertilization, a controversial breakthrough that ignited sharp criticism from religious leaders but helped millions of infertile couples in the last three decades have children.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/capt.c535384b48814d72889c7798f7e04b4e-dc1f68e5b01b42d591716c2ff96c2229-0.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"capt.c535384b48814d72889c7798f7e04b4e-dc1f68e5b01b42d591716c2ff96c2229-0.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/212\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/10\/capt.c535384b48814d72889c7798f7e04b4e-dc1f68e5b01b42d591716c2ff96c2229-0-thumb-250x334-18240.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt\" height=\"334\" width=\"250\" \/><\/a><\/span>Edwards, an 85-year-old professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge, started working on IVF as early as the 1950s. He developed the technique &#8212; in which egg cells are removed from a woman, fertilized outside her body and then implanted into the womb &#8212; together with British gynecologist surgeon Patrick Steptoe, who died in 1988.<br \/>\nOn July 25, 1978, Louise Brown in Britain became the first baby born through the groundbreaking procedure, marking a revolution in fertility treatment.<br \/>\n&#8220;(Edwards&#8217;) achievements have made it possible to treat infertility, a medical condition afflicting a large proportion of humanity, including more than 10 percent of all couples worldwide,&#8221; the medicine prize committee in Stockholm said in its citation.<br \/>\n&#8220;Approximately 4 million individuals have been born thanks to IVF,&#8221; the citation said. &#8220;Today, Robert Edwards&#8217; vision is a reality and brings joy to infertile people all over the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>[snip]<\/p>\n<p>The work by Edwards and Steptoe stirred a &#8220;lively ethical debate,&#8221; the Nobel citation said, with the Vatican, other religious leaders and some scientists demanding the project be stopped. When the British Medical Research Council declined funding for Steptoe and Edwards, a private donation allowed them to continue their research.<\/p>\n<p>The Vatican is opposed to IVF because it involves separating conception from the &#8220;conjugal act&#8221; &#8212; sexual intercourse between a husband and wife &#8212; and often results in the destruction of human embryos that are taken from a woman but not used.<\/p>\n<p>There was no immediate comment from the Vatican&#8217;s top bioethics officials Monday to word of the Nobel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This news won&#8217;t fill the Vatican with joy: Robert Edwards of Britain won the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for developing in-vitro fertilization, a controversial breakthrough that ignited sharp criticism from religious leaders but helped millions of infertile couples in the last three decades have children. Edwards, an 85-year-old professor emeritus at the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>In-vitro pioneer wins Nobel - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/10\/in-vitro-pioneer-wins-nobel.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In-vitro pioneer wins Nobel - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This news won&#8217;t fill the Vatican with joy: Robert Edwards of Britain won the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for developing in-vitro fertilization, a controversial breakthrough that ignited sharp criticism from religious leaders but helped millions of infertile couples in the last three decades have children. Edwards, an 85-year-old professor emeritus at the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/10\/in-vitro-pioneer-wins-nobel.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-04T09:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/10\/capt.c535384b48814d72889c7798f7e04b4e-dc1f68e5b01b42d591716c2ff96c2229-0-thumb-250x334-18240.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jmcgee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"In-vitro pioneer wins Nobel - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/10\/in-vitro-pioneer-wins-nobel.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"In-vitro pioneer wins Nobel - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","og_description":"This news won&#8217;t fill the Vatican with joy: Robert Edwards of Britain won the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for developing in-vitro fertilization, a controversial breakthrough that ignited sharp criticism from religious leaders but helped millions of infertile couples in the last three decades have children. Edwards, an 85-year-old professor emeritus at the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/10\/in-vitro-pioneer-wins-nobel.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon&#039;s Bench","article_published_time":"2010-10-04T09:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/10\/capt.c535384b48814d72889c7798f7e04b4e-dc1f68e5b01b42d591716c2ff96c2229-0-thumb-250x334-18240.jpg"}],"author":"jmcgee","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/10\/in-vitro-pioneer-wins-nobel.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/10\/in-vitro-pioneer-wins-nobel.html","name":"In-vitro pioneer wins Nobel - The Deacon&#039;s 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