Dorrit Moussaieff, former First Lady of Iceland, has announced the intent to clone her dog Sámur, RÚV reports. While this would normally pass off as a personal decision by a pet owner, the fact that her husband, former President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, chose to share this decision with listeners of the radio programme Morgunkaffið on Rás 2 has opened the subject to public discussion about what cloning means and who it is for.
Ólafur told listeners that Sámur is now eleven years old, and being in these advanced years, Dorrit decided to send a DNA sample to a company in Texas in order to clone him. Kári Stefánsson, the CEO of genetics company deCODE, clarified for RÚV what is entailed in the cloning process.