Examines 2 different and often opposing worlds of in vitro fertilization: the public's political, legal and ethical concerns surrounding the technique, and the personal, pragmatic world of the individual patients who come to the centers seeding a cure for infertility. This book provides a objective analysis which answers many perplexing questions.

Ever since Dolly, the Scottish lamb, tottered on wobbly legs into our consciousness-followed swiftly by other animals: first, mice; then pigs that may provide human transplants, and even an ordinary house cat-thoughts have flown to the cloning of human beings. Legislators rushed to propose a ban on a technique that remains highly hypothetical, although some independent researchers have announced their determination to pursue the possibilities. Political scientist and well-known expert on reproductive issues, Andrea L. Bonnicksen examines the political reaction to this new-born science and...

In his 2006 State of the Union speech, President George W. Bush asked the U.S. Congress to prohibit the "most egregious abuses of medical research," such as the "creation of animal-human hybrids." The president's message echoed that of a 2004 report by the President's Council on Bioethics, which recommended that hybrid human-animal embryos be banned by Congress.

Discussions of early interspecies research, in which cells or DNA are interchanged between humans and nonhumans at early stages of development, can often devolve into sweeping statements, colorful imagery, and confusing...