David Weldon: “I rise obviously to speak in support of this rule and in support of my underlying bill and in opposition to the…”

“I rise obviously to speak in support of this rule and in support of my underlying bill and in opposition to the substitute. Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by just talking a little bit about the basic science of all of this. What is shown on this poster to my left is a normal fertilization of an egg. Normal human cells have 46 chromosomes; the egg has 23, the sperm has 23. When united, they become a fertilized egg, which then begins to differentiate into an embryo. Here is depicted a 3-day embryo and then a 7-day embryo. Under the technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer, you take a cell from somebody's body. This could be a skin cell, depicted here. You extract the nucleus out, which is shown here. Then you take a female egg, a woman's egg. You remove the nucleus that was in there, which is shown here being discarded with the 23 chromosomes, so you have an enucleated egg. Then you implant that nucleus in there. This becomes a clone of the individual who donated this cell. From this point on, it begins to develop like a normal embryo. Now, there will be some discussion today, I anticipate, where people will try to assert that this is not a human embryo; that this somehow is, and this is somehow not a human embryo. I studied embryology in medical school. I am a physician. I practiced medicine for 15 years.”