The anti-abortion coalition headed into the president's announcement unanimously agreeing on the principles that life begins at conception and that even a microscopic embryo is a human life.

There were no signs other than a late period, but she knew it deep down in her bones, as if on some level her body was communicating with the microscopic embryo it harbored.

Stem cells, extracted from microscopic embryos, have the ability to grow into any cell or tissue in the human body.

In Confucian and Buddhist societies, there are fewer religious inhibitions to the destruction of microscopic embryos.

To the Editor: You argue that blastocysts (microscopic embryos used to derive stem cells) "bear none of the attributes we associate with humanity."

Unfortunately, the research is also controversial because the stem cells are extracted from microscopic embryos, which are destroyed in the process.

The alternative bill embraces various new concepts, including carving one or two cells from microscopic eight-cell embryos to be used for research, while allowing the embryos to continue to develop.

One of the ways in which the embryonic stem cells are obtained, Dr. Parens said, is through the discarded microscopic embryos in fertility clinics that were never implanted in a uterus.

Embryonic stem cells are extracted from microscopic embryos that are no bigger than 200 to 300 cells.

Those lines were extracted from microscopic embryos, no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence, that were inevitably destroyed in the process.