Italy ? Pope Benedict XVI said Monday that embryos developed for in vitro fertilization deserve the same right to life as fetuses, children and adults – and that that right extends to embryos even before they are transferred into a woman’s womb.

The Vatican has long held that human life begins at conception, but Benedict’s comments were significant because he specified that even an embryo in its earliest stages – when it is just a few cells – is just as much a human life as an older being.

The pope made the comments during an audience with members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, who opened a Vatican-sponsored conference Monday on the ethics surrounding the handling of embryos before they are implanted during in vitro procedures.

The Vatican opposes in vitro procedures because embryos created in a laboratory are often discarded, whereas others are frozen and still others are created solely for experimentation or to create stem cells.