Changing the perception of our own nature. On the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Robert G. Edwards

Abstract

Robert Edwards is the father of assisted reproduction techniques. Thanks to him, more than 4 million children have been born who possibly would have not existed had it not been for the development of these techniques. In vitro fertilization, a technique originally designed to overcome certain diseases that cause female sterility, opened the door to a whole series of new, associated technologies that, by putting at our disposal human gametes and embryos, have allowed us to interact with these biological entities of our own species in addition to modifying the concepts that, until that moment, had very clear and constant meanings: maternity, paterno-filial relationships, the beginning of life, and even human identity itself. These changes as well as those that followed resulted in a reassessment of our ethical values and legal concepts, which in turn has caused a genuine revolution in the way we view both ourselves as a species and the place we occupy in the vast panorama of nature.