Vatican opens conference on ethics of IVF

A senior Vatican official today said there was no moral justification for discriminating between embryos used in in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedures, setting the tone for a Vatican conference on the ethical treatment of embryos before they are implanted.

Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, who heads the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Life, said the theory that an embryo created in a laboratory was merely a “pre-embryo” – and thus not worthy of legal protection and the right to life as an already implanted embryo – was morally wrong.