91.   Embryonic stem cells have been isolated in a number of animal species over the last decade, so their presence in human embryos was not a surprise.

92.   Embryologists feigned surprise, but those who had already experimented with human embryos must surely have expected this.

93.   Even so, the assertions this week by three separate scientists that they would soon try to clone a human embryo and implant it in a woman are appalling.

94.   Except that the human embryos in question already exist and are already being destroyed, even in the absence of stem-cell research.

95.   Experts in academia and industry said the experiment may be the first time in the United States that a human embryo has been created solely for research.

96.   Federal money cannot be used for cloning research involving human embryos, and so the experiments are restricted to the private sector.

97.   Fertilized human embryos like these, some consisting of as few as one or two cells, sit in frozen storage in many laboratories.

98.   For the most part, that requires manipulations that would be unacceptable with human embryos.

99.   Foes say cloning human embryos and then destroying them to extract stem cells is immoral and akin to murder.

100.   Four years later the question of cloning human embryos is even more unsettled than it was then.