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Many scientists shared that surprise. For years they have talked about fertilizing the human egg in a test tube. But with every claim of success has come the inevitable countercurrent of doubt. Indeed as early as the 1940s, the eminent Boston gynecologist Dr. John Rock, a pioneer in development of the birth control pill, reported that he and colleagues had managed to fertilize an egg in vitro. But other scientists believe that the few cell divisions observed by Rock were nothing more than "parthenogenic cleavage" (division of the egg without the involvement of a sperm), probably induced by incidental stimulation of the ovum. Scientists were similarly skeptical of claims by Shettles in the 1950s that he had brought an externally fertilized human egg into the sixth day of cell division, and by an Italian scientist, Daniele Petrucci, who a few years later announced that he had kept alive an embryo in a test tube for 29 days. The embryo was destroyed, Petrucci said, because it was growing "monstrous." He dropped the work entirely after it was condemned by the Vatican.
Not until the mid-1960s did researchers learn how to fertilize mammalian eggs in vitro on a regular basis. The groundwork was laid by M.C. Chang of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in Shrewsbury, Mass., and C.R. Austin of Cambridge University, who had solved the problem of in-vitro capacitation of rabbit sperm, a process that enabled sperm to penetrate the egg in the laboratory. Until then, the sperm were notably ineffectual in that role. But these early successes 'involved creatures no higher than rabbits, hamsters and mice.
Finally, in 1969, Steptoe and Edwards announced that they had done the same thing with human eggs. The report caused a worldwide sensation and drew considerable fire, particularly from conservative churchmen. Trying to allay fears that he was actually attempting to create babies outside the womb, Steptoe insisted that his true goal was quite different. Said he: "All that I am interested in is how to help women who are denied a baby because their tubes are incapable of doing their small part."
In 1974, another English scientist, Dr. Douglas Bevis, casually dropped an even bigger bombshell. Not only had human eggs been fertilized in the test tube, said Bevis, but they had been successfully implanted in three women who subsequently gave birth. It was widely suspected that he was talking about his own work. When he proved unwilling or unable to document his claims, Bevis was so roundly denounced that he soon vowed to give up all such research. To this day, no one really knows whether Bevis was making phony claims or was a victim of the furious scientific competition between rival fertility researchers. In any case, the Bevis case sharply increased public concern and brought vociferous right-to-life advocates into the fray. They equated the fertilization experiments—and the frequent destruction of apparently live embryos in the lab—with outright abortions of far more developed embryos and fetuses in women.