Human Cloning

    Do you think that human cloning is impossible? If you do then you're wrong. South Korean scientists where the first, and only, to successfully clone a human embryo and harvest stem cells from it. This procedure may one day lead to replacing tissue to treat diseases that have destroyed certain parts of the body, like diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

    The South Korean scientists extracted 242 eggs and were able to create 30 early stage embryos each containing 100 cells.  From those they harvested one colony of stem cells. 

    The stem cells are unspecialized cells, meaning that when they develop they can become many different cell types to form skin, organs, bones, or other parts of the body. Scientists and doctors hope to take advantage of this property to replace all kinds of tissue and cure some diseases. 

    Previous attempts to clone a human embryo have failed, see failed experiments page for details.

    An international conflict has erupted over whether or not to ban human cloning completely, or to allow some form of therapeutic cloning. The U.S. has called for a total ban on cloning, Britain was the only European country that would allow it.

    Canada is almost the last country not to vote on this subject. 

    The South Korean announcement that they had cloned a human embryo came in at the same time that Paul Martin reintroduced a bill ,or want to be law, that would ban human cloning and prohibit the sale of human sperm, eggs, and embryos. This bill would still allow stem cell research though.

    Some members of the British government are against the proposed bill because it will allow stem cell research.

    They say that embryos are the beginning of a new life and that they should not be tampered with or researched.