News - Pontifical Academy for Life
By NICOLE WINFIELD VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The Vatican issued a broad condemnation Tuesday of fertility treatments such as in-vitro fertilization, calling the destruction of embryos in the process a "massacre of the innocents."The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano published the final communique from the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life following a conference it hosted last month on "The dignity of human procreation and reproductive technologies: anthropological and ethical aspects."In the communique, the academy restated the Vatican position that any treatment that substitutes for sexual intercourse between a husband and wife - such as the creation of an embryo in a laboratory that is later implanted - is considered illicit because the embryo isn't the fruit of the "conjugal union."However, the academy gave its blessing to therapies that can "facilitate" the natural sex act.
