The Cloning Debate

The first attempt in cloning was conducted in 1952 on a group of frogs.

The experiment was a partial success. The frog cells were cloned into other

living frogs however, only one in every thousand developed normally , all of

which were sterile. The rest of the frogs that survived grew to abnormally large

sizes. In 1993, scientist and director of the in vitro lab at George

Washington University, Jerry Hall and associate Robert Stillman, reported the

first ever successful cloning of human embryos. It was the discovery of in-

vitro fertilization in the 1940’s that began the pursuit to ease the suffering

of infertile couples. After years of research, scientists learned that "in a

typical in-vitro procedure, doctors will insert three to five embryos in hopes

that, at most, one or two will implant" (Elmer-Dewitt 38). And that "a woman

with only one embryo has about a 10% to 20% chance of getting pregnant through

in-vitro fertilization. If that embryo could be cloned and turned into three or

four, thechances of a successful pregnancy would increase significantly"(Elmer-

Dewitt 38).

The experiment the scientists performed is the equivalent of a mother

producing twins. The process has been practiced and almost perfected in

livestock for the past ten years, and some scientists believe that it seems only

logical that it would be the next step in in-vitro fertilization. The procedure

was remarkably simple. Hall and Stillman "selected embryos that were abnormal

because they came from eggs that had been fertilized by more than one sperm"

(Elmer-Dewitt 38), because the embryos were defective, it would have been

impossible for the scientist to actually clone another person. They did however,

split the embryos into separate cells, as a