66 replies to this topic

[thefirstimmortal]

As a person who could just as easily wipe his ass with the pages of the Bible as read them, attempting to argue against cloning because it's somehow against God's will doesn't hold much sway. I'm sure the same argument was being made when indoor plumbing was introduced to the world or when the electric can opener was invented -- or the can, for that matter. Can't you just hear somebody saying, "If God had wanted food to be in cans, he would have put it there himself." Personally, I think
Bible-thumpers should have to crap in buckets and wipe their asses with tree branches if they want to protest cloning.

Edited by XxDoubleHelixX, 27 May 2003 - 10:12 PM.

[Lazarus Long]

The only ethic involved with the debate against cloning is blind fear. Fear that the concept of designer characteristics will inevitably yield a competitor stronger, smarter, faster than the average homosapien such that most people can longer compete.

There is also the concept of envy: "I only got one chance so why should anybody else get more then one chance"? [angry]

Society objects to cloning less for religious reasons then is argued, most just object out the same irrational fears they possess for things like snakes. They fear what they don't understand and think represents some implied danger. That said, most cloning experiments are also pretty meaningless. And Cloning for plants has been going on for thousands of years. The only difference is that now we understand "Why" cuttings and grafting work.

The bible thumpers have been arguing for years that only God could create life and that was proof of creation so now that humans are getting close to doing the same they are trying to prevent this because they fear that this basic argument they have relied upon for so long will dissappear.

[caliban]

Just ranting about a topic without even doing so much as considering your opponents arguments seems to me an odd way to start a meaningful discussion. Actually there are a number of interesting arguments against human cloning, and the worldwide outcry against it in the wake of Dolly cannot be explained away or dismissed as religious fanaticism or hysterical anxiety about the future.

Lets start with:

1) When you clone somebody you do so with a purpose: To be identical to a sibling.
In that way you try to predetermine that persons fate. With Kant one could say, you are treating that person as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. This violates human dignity and is thus immoral.

[Lazarus Long]

Do you see me as ranting? What I said is that all the hew and cry wasn't religious either. A lot is based on visceral fear of what is not known but what is suspected of the worst motives. Some of these motives are serious concerns for clearly not everyone is benign in this. Organs for example are sold now on a global black market.

Caliban says:
1) When you clone somebody you do so with a purpose: To be identical to a sibling.
In that way you try to predetermine that persons fate. With Kant one could say, you are treating that person as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. This violates human dignity and is thus immoral.

We create people all the time to meet our purpose and no one thinks it is immoral. They are just called children and not clones. Eveything you say above is also found in any book on the subject of parenting, except the aspect of "Designing" those characteristics.

Well if I can prevent Taysachs, Down's Syndrome, Diabetes, Hemophilia, Lupus, and numerous other "Genetic Disabilities and Diseases" then why shouldn't I also decide to select for robust physical abilities like strength, intelligence, ability ot adapt to conditions defined for habitat, (altitude, heat, aquatic, diet, solar radiation etc.) If doing it for ameliorating a negative is acceptable then doing it to gain an advantage is not in oposition, it is just and extension of the same logic.

Making a child that is a clone of myself is not by any definition immoral. The child wouldn't be my slave, or organ donor, In fact it would just be me giving myself a better opportunity. It wouldn't even be necessarily treated better then any other children that are a part of my family. If I can differentiate between any then why couldn't said clone be included among siblings and know love and opportunity that for anybody is qualitiatively no different then the goal that has driven parenting for millions of years, "to give the next generation a better opportunity". It is just giving my genes a second shot at intermingling.

I think we would be better for having more of few people's genes back in the pool. I know the nurture versus nature argument and I stand by my claim. Or do you think that some "good" people wouldn't have been so without the environmental challenge that they had to overcome to be good? If they hadn't suffered then they might have turned out bad? Good be.

Bottom line this is the same thing all parents want for their children. I die old, but my progeny as my clone lives on with a better chance at competitive survival. This is not even cheating the rules of Natural Selection as most species that can already do this do so. Just most of them are asexual. We add a new nuance to the game.

[caliban]

just to make this clear: I thought we were talking about "simple" cloning, not about genetic engineering? yet?

Let us come back to this in due time, but for clarity's sake deal with "pure" cloning (Dolly technique or parthenogenesis) first.
(I have a feeling that actually genetic engineering might be less problematic than reproductive cloning- but that remains to be seen)

the first objection that I cited was well met, but I think not yet deeply enough
There are numerous facets to the argument:

a.) the direct welfare of the child

The child wouldn't be my slave, or organ donor (...) It wouldn't even be necessarily treated better then any other children that are a part of my family.

Fair enough. But you will have to agree, that the chances that somebody treats a clone differently are apparent -be it as a stand in for yourself or your lost husband or your lost first son, or Hitler or indeed an organ donor. Even if one were to scrutinize that people only clone for morally acceptable reasons (and who would decide that?) clones could be despised by society for what they are.

b.) the mental welfare of the child

it would just be me giving myself a better opportunity.

Ahh, but that is the point, is it not? These are YOUR genes, not the child's own special and unique combination. Genetically and to a large extend biologically the child would be the same version of "you". What kind of identity crisis could that be creating?

c.) the abstract immorality of treating a person as a means

I think we would be better for having more of few people's genes back in the pool.

Are you then not utilizing this persons life simply as a means to fulfill some eugenic dream of yours?

[blink]


)

[Lazarus Long]

Are you then not utilizing this person's life simply as a means to fulfill some eugenic dream of yours?

Again this is how we got here in the first place. You must not yet have children or your viewpoint would be effected. Children consume the parent in their quest to achieve adulthood and parents seek a guarantee of survival for their "Selfish Genes", this is Natural Selection now and as it has always been.

If there is an argument against cloning you aren't finding it in this approach, there is too little qualitative difference in the offspring. Do you think a mother would care for "Her" daughter clone more than her "Spouse's Clone"? I don't it might even be the opposite.

In fact the argument against

These are YOUR genes, not the child's own special and unique combination. Genetically and to a large extend biologically the child would be the same version of "you". What kind of identity crisis could that be creating?

It's simple, no more of an identity crisis then now, it is the nature of nurture that matters in this. The advantage the cloned child gets is not a second chance to live my life over, that is just a fruitless pipe-dream for fools (Foolishness is common enough, almost as common as child abuse is now, but this isn't predicated on cloning). It is providing "my clone" a better chance at future opportunity, loving home and siblings, better health care, better education, and a little tweaking of the genes on the way into the womb.

If the prospect of raising your own clone is so fraught with hazard in your mind then perhaps a test generation where some are purposefully adopted into selected families. It is said there is a backlog for adoption now. I am saying "My clone" to be intentionally provocative. I could be talking about your clone, but it is more honest then talking about "it" in the abstract.

a.) the direct welfare of the child
QUOTE  

The child wouldn't be my slave, or organ donor (...) It wouldn't even be necessarily treated better then any other children that are a part of my family.

Fair enough. But you will have to agree, that the chances that somebody treats a clone differently are apparent -be it as a stand in for yourself or your lost husband or your lost first son, or Hitler or indeed an organ donor. Even if one were to scrutinize that people only clone for morally acceptable reasons (and who would decide that?) clones could be despised by society for what they are.

Again you are showing your naivete about child rearing here, no two children are treated the same, it isn't even possible to do so. What is preferable and responsible, is to treat all the children in a family fairly and equally. The problem is what most people have never learned from the get go about this, they confuse equality with sameness. People are not the same but they can be equally treated. I would think it is more likely that parents of clones would have a greater risk of abusing their offspring then spoiling them from neurotic acting out if they are unprepared for seeing their "second self" not live up to their expectations of themselves, but all this happens now. This isn't predicated on cloning. And if we are to give up having children because of the risk of some parents being abusive then humans will soon become extinct; Parenting in the future is a related but decidedly separate issue.

Oedipus and Electra weren't clones and their paradigms of parent child behavior don't require cloning to enhance or inhibit their neurotic character. Yes we need better educated and "emotionally prepared parents but this is true anyway regardless of what tech contributes to the creation of the offspring.

c.) the abstract immorality of treating a person as a means
QUOTE  
I think we would be better for having more of few people's genes back in the pool.  

Are you then not utilizing this persons life simply as a means to fulfill some eugenic dream of yours?

Again all older generations have done this for all the history, and prehistory of humanity. It is incorporate in the very principle of progress. The difference here is we are saying that picking an offspring's genetics specifically is somehow unfair when doing so randomly isn't. Of course we haven't even been picking our own mates for that many generations and this was the essence of controlling the outcome of progeny until now.

I am just demystifying the discussion. I would love to see if the contributions of an Einstein, or Horowitz, or Ghandi, or King, or any number of examples of artists, scientists, and social thinkers that could be repeated by genetic reincarnation, but I frankly don't think they necessarily would turn out as expected. Maybe Einstein had to suffer a little as a postal clerk, and Ghandi as a Brahman Lawyer in Apartheid South Africa after the Boer War to become who they became. Maybe each of us needs a Rite of Passage to find ourselves?

It is the Nature versus Nurture issue in reverse. Would Mandala have risen to the level he did if he had never been tortured and unjustly imprisoned. Sometimes it does take a cause and hardship to bring out our best qualities. I am sure he may have turned out nice, but great? The issue of Nurture is also a related but separate topic.

But it is however also true that Einstein possessed a slightly different brain. I see the noticeably enlarged lobes controlling spatial reasoning as an advantageous mutation. Wouldn't it be interesting to test the hypothesis with a proven individual genotype BEFORE we start designing genes for future generations? We are already doing sex selection, hair color, height, and probably skin color sooner enough. Why not look for characteristics that are less superficial and more substantial in merit?

[Saille Willow]

http://hpcs.jpg

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[caliban]

The above cartoon is of course refering to:

[>] "First cloned baby 'due in January' "

[!] 02.01.03:
The above link is no longer functional, but read on and you will learn what it was about

[Lazarus Long]

Science - AP Dec 26. 2002

Chemist Promises News on Cloning Effort


By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer

NEW YORK - A chemist who said last week that her company would soon produce the world's first human clone — a baby girl genetically identical to her 30-year-old mother — has promised an announcement Friday.

A spokeswoman for Brigitte Boisselier and the company, Clonaid, declined to answer directly when asked if they will claim to have produced the world's first cloned baby.

But the spokeswoman, Nadine Gary, said Thursday that Boisselier intends to have video equipment at a news briefing in Florida and would have an "independent inspector" take DNA evidence from baby and mother. If the baby was a clone of the mother, the two would be genetically identical.

Many scientists are skeptical about Clonaid's ability to accomplish the feat. The company was founded in the Bahamas in 1997 by Claude Vorilhon, a former French journalist and leader of a group called the Raelians. Vorilhon and his followers claim aliens visiting him in the 1970s revealed they had created all life on Earth through genetic engineering.

Cloning produces a new individual using only one person's DNA. The process is technically difficult but conceptually simple. Scientists remove the genetic material from an unfertilized egg, then introduce new DNA from a cell of the animal to be cloned. Under the proper conditions, the egg begins dividing into new cells according to the instructions in the introduced DNA.

Boisselier, who claims two chemistry degrees and previously was marketing director for a chemical company in France, identifies herself as a Raelian "bishop" and said Clonaid retains philosophical but not economic links to the Raelians. She is not a specialist in reproductive medicine.

Human cloning for reproductive purposes is banned in several countries. There is no specific law against it in the United States, but the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) contends it must approve any human experiments in this country. Boisselier would not say where Clonaid has been carrying out its experiments. Bush administration officials said in Washington on Thursday that they were aware of rumors of an announcement but had no plans to comment on the matter until after the details were known.

Boisselier's comments last week came several weeks after Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori said a cloned baby boy who would be born in January.

So far scientists have succeeded in cloning sheep, mice, cows, pigs, goats and cats. Last year, scientists in Massachusetts produced cloned human embryos with the intention of using them as a source of stem cells, but the cloned embryos never grew bigger than six cells.

Many scientists oppose cloning to produce humans, saying it's too risky because of abnormalities seen in cloned animals.

[Lazarus Long]

Company Claims First Cloned Human Born
7-Pound Baby Born To American Woman

UPDATED: 10:31 a.m. EST December 27, 2002

NEW YORK -- A scientist claimed Friday that a 7-pound baby girl born Thursday to a 31-year-old American woman is the world's first human clone.

Chemist Brigitte Boisselier (pictured, below) of Clonaid said the company will have what it calls an independent inspector take DNA evidence from the baby, known as Eve, and the mother to verify the claim.

She said that the technique used was similar to that used to create Dolly, the famous cloned sheep.

She said the baby is a clone of the woman who donated the DNA for the cloning process, and that the mother carried the baby. The couple had experienced fertility problems, she said.

Michael Guillen, a physicist and former science editor for ABC News, who said he is now a freelance journalist, said that he would work with an independent team of scientists to verify the claim.



Boisselier said that the baby girl should be ready to leave the hospital in three days, and that it would take about a week to prove that the girl was a clone.

She said the baby, who was born by C-section is healthy, and that the whole family is "very happy." She says the baby's grandmother thinks Eve looks just like her mother.

Boisselier said that Clonaid plans to open clinics for the procedure used, at least one on each continent. She also said that there are several other pregnancies with cloned children right now, including one in North America, one in Europe and two in Asia.

She said that the baby in Europe is being carried by a woman in a lesbian relationship, and that two of the projects involve clones of children whose cells were taken before they died.

Boisselier would not say on what continent Eve was born.

Some scientists reacted with skepticism to the claim.

One fertility doctor in Rome said the news is both laughable and disconcerting, and said Clonaid has no scientific credibility.

He said the announcement bothers him because it confuses the public about those who are doing serious scientific research and those who aren't.

Severino Antinori said weeks ago that he has engineered a cloned baby boy to be born in January.

Many scientists oppose cloning to produce humans, saying it's too risky because of abnormalities seen in cloned animals.

Boisselier said that she believes she was created by science, and that science cannot be stopped. She said the couple that had the child is not affiliated with the Raelians.

Cloning is not specifically outlawed in the United States, but the Food and Drug Administration contends it must approve any human experiments.

Previous Stories:
December 20, 2002: Bioethics Council, Stanford Argue Over Research
December 11, 2002: Stanford's Stem Cell Project Fuels Debate
December 9, 2002: Genetic Advances Divide Public Opinion
November 26, 2002: Scientist Claims Clone Will Be Born In January

Copyright 2002 by WNBC.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[Lazarus Long]

Group Claims Creation of First Human Clone
46 minutes ago

HOLLYWOOD, Florida (Reuters) - A company associated with a group that believes extraterrestrials created mankind claimed Friday that it had produced the first clone of a human being.

The company, Clonaid, announced it had created a healthy baby girl who was a clone of the 31-year-old American woman who gave birth to her. No proof was provided for the claim.

"I'm very very pleased to announce that the first baby clone is born," Clonaid director Brigitte Boisselier, a former research chemist in France, said at a news conference in Hollywood, north of Miami.

Boisselier said the girl was born Thursday at 11:55 a.m., but did not disclose where the cloning had taken place. She said results of genetic testing of the child by an independent expert would be available in eight to nine days.

Clonaid is viewed skeptically by most scientists, who doubt the group's technical ability to clone a human being. A Clonaid spokeswoman said an independent expert will confirm the baby is a clone through DNA testing.

Clonaid is linked to a sect called the Raelians, whose founder, Claude Vorihon, describes himself as a prophet and calls himself Rael. The group believes cloning could extend human life for hundreds of years.

Cattle, mice, sheep and other animals have been cloned with mixed success. Some animals have displayed defects later in life and scientists fear the same could happen with cloned humans.

Randall Prather, a reproductive biotechnology professor at the University of Missouri, said an independent expert not named by Clonaid would be essential to conduct DNA fingerprinting to determine the baby is in fact a clone.

"Is it possible in humans? Potentially. Have we seen problems with cloning domestic animals? Yes. Do we understand what causes those problems? No. Therefore we shouldn't do it," Prather said.

BORN OUTSIDE UNITED STATES


Clonaid has been racing the Italian fertility doctor Severion Antinori to produce the first cloned baby. Antinori said last month he expected one of his patients to give birth to a cloned baby in January.

President Bush (news - web sites) has asked Congress to ban the creation of cloned babies as well as the cloning of human embryos for medical research. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a ban, but a similar bill in the Senate stalled after scientists argued such a law would hinder medical advances.

Clonaid spokeswoman Nadine Gary said the baby had been born outside the United States, but she declined to say exactly where.

Non-profit and public interest groups have lined up on both sides of the controversy. Early Friday morning, anticipating the announcement from Clonaid, a Chicago-based organization called the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity said it condemned the Clonaid effort.

"Regardless of the accuracy of the claim, the fact that renegade scientists are apparently continuing to work to clone human beings despite the proven dangers of mammalian cloning shows that the United States and the rest of the world need to pass a complete ban on this dangerous and unethical procedure as soon as possible," said C. Ben Mitchell, a senior fellow at the center.

The Vatican (news - web sites)'s top moral theologian, Father Gino Concetti, also condemned the possibility of human cloning in a recent interview.

The Raelians, who claim 55,000 followers around the world, believe life on Earth was sparked by extraterrestrials who arrived 25,000 years ago and created humans through cloning.

[Lazarus Long]

What Next?
What Do You Think?


SUPPORTERS
The Human Cloning Foundation
Clone Rights United Front

OPPONENTS
U.S. Conference Of Catholic Bishops
Europe's Proposed Ban
U.S. Government

[Lazarus Long]

See how the gatherers of sticks begin to build their pyres...
LL/kxs

Open Chat forum

Claim of Cloned Baby Renews Ethical Debate
Fri Dec 27, 3:54 PM ET

By Andrew Stern

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A French scientist's unsubstantiated claim of producing a cloned baby girl may throw up new ethical barriers to the use of cloning technology to fight disease, ethics experts said on Friday.

The supposed clone of the baby's mother announced in Florida by chemist Brigitte Boisselier, head of the company Clonaid and an associate of the Raelians, a group that believes humans were cloned from aliens 25,000 years ago, was met by skepticism in scientific circles.

"This has to be presumed to be a hoax until they produce evidence, scientifically speaking. Politically speaking it will stir the pot, adding support to those who want to block cloning," said medical ethicist Norman Frost of the University of Wisconsin.

The Christian Coalition of America responded to Boisselier's announcement by declaring its intention to lobby the U.S. Congress for an outright ban on cloning of human beings, including the cloning of human embryos -- a euphemism for stem cell research that some believe holds promise for curing diseases from Parkinson's to cancer.

"The cloning of human embryos for the purpose of performing destructive research and experimentation, such as that which just occurred today of 'Baby Eve,' is an aberration. It shows a total lack of respect for life and must be prevented," the group's president, Roberta Combs, said in a statement.

A scholar who has researched the murky ethics of cloning and reproductive technology said he hoped for a measured response to new developments in the fast-moving field.

"When and if it happens, it's important not to overreact" to the creation of a human clone, said Cass Sunstein, a University of Chicago law professor and co-editor of the 1998 book, "Clones and Clones: Facts and Fantasies About Human Cloning."

"A clone is really similar to an identical twin. So long as any child that results from cloning is treated as a human being, as an end in itself rather than a means to other peoples' ends, it's important not to overreact," he said.

Sunstein's university colleague, Leon Kass, was appointed by President Bush (news - web sites) to examine the ethics of research on cloning and human embryos and found it morally repugnant.


RISK OF DEFECTIVE CLONES

While a bill to ban cloning stalled in Congress because of fears that it would impede research, Bush ultimately recommended a compromise to allow research with existing stem cell lines but not allowing new lines to be created. Stem cells theoretically can grow into any cell in the body and some scientists have said the limits have hampered progress.

Bush on Friday reiterated through a spokesman his call to Congress to enact a cloning ban.

Sunstein and other medical ethicists said the main argument against human cloning is the overwhelming risk that a cloned child will have fatal defects such as malformed organs. Cloning experiments with nonhuman species including mice and sheep have been plagued with such defects.

"As far as we know now, in subhuman species, only 1 to 5 percent of the cloned animals will survive to adulthood," which are unsupportable odds arguing against human cloning, said Dr. David Cohen of the University of Chicago Hospitals, who is in the forefront exploring the practical applications of reproductive technology.

Roughly 3 percent of normal babies -- including those produced by in-vitro fertilization -- are born with major malformations, Cohen said.

Cohen and several medical ethicists argued that a distinction be made between reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning, where cellular DNA is transferred to other cells to create hoped-for cures for disease victims.

Reproductive cloning usually involves implanting an adult's genetic code into a fertilized egg -- creating what amounts to an identical twin years later. With therapeutic cloning, the goal is usually to give patients healthy cells containing their own genetic material to sidestep the body's defenses.

Still, ethical boundaries have been stretched as reproductive technology has advanced.

For instance a few years ago, geneticists provided a Minnesota's couple congenitally ill daughter with a suitable donor by genetically sorting through embryos implanted in the mother's womb. The saved embryo lacked the disease and became the ideal bone marrow donor -- and the girl's brother.

"I think that doing pre-implantation diagnostics (the sorting process) is a very valuable tool in the same category as amniocentesis to find out if a baby is infected with a disease, and therefore prevent it," Cohen said.

Cohen said that while some cases can raise difficult ethical questions, "I've never felt (the technology) was getting away from me because I rely on fundamental principles that I don't sway from."

[Lazarus Long]

Cloning Sect Born Atop Volcano with Green Aliens
Sat Dec 28, 8:57 AM ET

By Paul Thomasch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nearly three decades ago, Claude Vorilhon, a sportswriter and race car driver, stood at the top of a volcano and began a movement that now lies behind a stunning scientific breakthrough -- or a staggering hoax.

Vorilhon, a Frenchman who calls himself Rael, claims to have held six meetings with space travelers at the volcano, after which he founded a religion based on the belief that aliens created humankind through cloning 25,000 years ago.

Now, a research company with close ties to his sect, called the Raelians, says it has followed suit: cloning a baby girl called Eve from cells provided by a 31-year-old woman.

Clonaid, the company, offered no proof of its success when it announced what it claims is the first human cloning on Friday. But it said independent tests backing its claims would be finished in about a week.

"You could still go back to your office and treat me as a fraud," Brigitte Boisselier, the company's director and a "Raelian Bishop," said at a news conference. "You have one week to do that."

The Raelians, who are based in Canada and estimate they have about 55,000 members, have said cloning is a chance to combine science and religious beliefs, largely based on teachings by aliens.

One academic who has studied the sect said it has been able to raise large sums of money through the Internet .

"Part of it is a cult that worships a race car driver who believes cloning will lead to reincarnation," said Glenn McGee, associate director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "The other part is a Web site that brings people into its grip who are interested in cloning and raises significant amounts of money from them."


HEALTHY HUMAN CLONES

While the announcement renewed the questioning of the ethics of cloning, scientists were skeptical of Clonaid's claim that it had successfully produced the first human clone with procedures much like those used to clone Dolly the sheep.

Cattle, mice, sheep and other animals have been cloned with mixed success. Some have displayed defects later in life and scientists fear the same could happen with cloned humans.

Rael said in an interview opponents of cloning were more worried Clonaid's first cloned baby would be "beautiful, perfect and in good health."

"Of course, Clonaid's goal is not to make a monster or a handicapped child, which would be terrible. The first child must be perfect, let's say in a health that is recognized as perfect," he said during a Reuters interview last year.

Clonaid has been racing Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori to produce the first cloned baby. Antinori predicted one of his patients would give birth to a clone in January.

Rael's movement started on the morning of Dec. 13, 1973 in France. While commuting to his job as a sportswriter, he decided to drive past the office and stop at a nearby volcano in Auvergne, according to a review of his writing by The Religious Movements Homepage at the University of Virginia.

During his stop, Rael saw the flashing red light of a space ship, which opened its hatch to reveal a green alien with longish dark hair. Once aboard the spaceship, Rael has said he was entertained by voluptuous female robots and learned that the first human beings were created by aliens called Elohim, who cloned themselves.

The aliens, who spoke fluent French, also instructed Rael to begin the religious movement during their meetings.

At Friday's news conference, Clonaid's Boisselier said the cloned baby girl was delivered by Caesarean section and weighed 7 pounds. Four more cloned babies will be delivered by the end of January, she added.

[Bruce Klein]

This smells of a publicity hoax.

[Lazarus Long]

Yes it does and it smacks of media manipulation and headline rabbing but it is doing great harm to the cause of advancing thte technology. They won't be believed until an independant group takes samples of blood from both baby and mother and compares them objectively.

The group out of Italy, Dr. Antinori is also resrving judgement until there is objective proof.

Italy's Antinori Says Clone Baby Claim 'Invention'
Sat Dec 28, 4:22 PM ET

ROME (Reuters) - Both Italian fertility expert Severino Antinori and the Vatican (news - web sites) cast doubt on Saturday on the claim by an obscure cult that its followers had produced the world's first cloned human being.

"These claims give science a bad name. There is nothing credible about them," said Antinori, a maverick doctor who had previously announced that one of his patients would give birth to the first cloned baby in January.

The Vatican said the claim was "an expression of a brutal mentality, lacking all ethical and human consideration" and noted the group had provided no proof.

ARTICLE

[Lazarus Long]

I also however question why they claim to have performed the birth through a Ceasarian. Was there a problem with the fetus? Or were they in a hurry to grab the headlines? The people involved may be wackos but they possess sufficient technical skill and capital to have possibly pulled this off. What then? you may ask.

Here is how the institutionalized religious groups are lining up.

Religious Groups Denounce Cloning Claim

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican (news - web sites) joined leading Muslim clerics and Jewish rabbis Saturday in denouncing as immoral, "brutal" and unnatural the claim that a cloned baby had been born. Political leaders, meanwhile, stepped up calls for a global ban on human cloning.

The reaction came a day after a cloning company whose leader believes space aliens launched life on Earth announced that a baby girl, nicknamed "Eve," had been born as a clone of her mother.

There was no scientific confirmation, however, and the announcement was met with doubt by the scientific community and revulsion by ethicists, who have voiced alarm about the implications of duplicating humans, saying it would compromise freedom and individuality.

A Vatican statement Saturday noted that the announcement came with no scientific proof and that it "has already given rise to the skepticism and moral condemnation of a great part of the international scientific community."

But "the announcement in itself is an expression of a brutal mentality, devoid of any ethical and human consideration," said the statement from papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.

The Vatican has condemned any cloning of human embryos, saying the destruction of extra embryos in the process can in no way justify the procedure. Vatican teaching holds that life begins at conception.

Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II himself has criticized any scientific experiment that threatens the dignity of a human life, including using human embryos for stem cell research.

ARTICLE

[Lazarus Long]

Outrage Over Cloning Claim
Sat Dec 28, 2:58 PM ET

By DENISE GRADY with ROBERT PEAR The New York Times

A religious sect's claim to have cloned a human baby has provoked fierce criticism from scientists and lawmakers who said that public outrage might stifle research aimed not at making humans, but at curing diseases.

Excerpts...

"What a sad day for science," said Dr. Robert Lanza, medical director of Advanced Cell Technology of Worcester, Mass., a company that has cloned human embryos to provide cells for research but not to create babies. "What they've claimed to have done is both appalling and scientifically irresponsible, and whether or not it's true, they have done a tremendous disservice to all of us in the scientific community. The backlash could cripple an area of medical research that could cure millions of people, and it would be tragic if this announcement results in a ban on all forms of cloning.


***********

Dr. Lanza and other researchers said it was important to distinguish between two types of cloning. One, reproductive cloning, is used to duplicate a person; the other, therapeutic cloning, is used only to create cells needed for research.

In both types, researchers begin by removing the nucleus from an unfertilized human egg to strip the egg of genetic material. Then they insert another nucleus, from an adult cell, into the egg, and stimulate the egg to begin dividing and form an embryo.

In reproductive cloning, the developing embryo would be inserted into a woman's uterus, where it would theoretically grow into a genetic copy or identical twin of the person who donated the adult cell. This is what the Raëlians claim to have done.

In therapeutic cloning, the embryo is never implanted in the uterus. Instead, it is allowed to develop for only a few days, and then a part is removed to provide stem cells, which have the unique potential to become almost any cell in the body. Many researchers believe stem cells will yield insights into diseases and perhaps even treatments or tissue replacements for ailments like diabetes, heart disease, immune disorders and Alzheimer's disease (news - web sites). Such treatments could be tailor-made for each patient from his or her own cells.

ARTICLE

[thefirstimmortal]

Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.

[Lazarus Long]

Here it comes folks the issues just get wierder and wierder. I think on the basis of existing law the child's citizenship is indisputable but that is just my opnion, and anyway we can expect a push to change the laws and this is an openning many have been looking for to do exactly that.

U.S. Uncertain on Citizenship for Cloned Babies
Mon Dec 30, 6:50 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The prospect of someone seeking a U.S. passport for a new-born clone exercised minds at the State Department on Monday, but the experts appeared at a loss on how they would handle it.

"In the hypothetical situation of a cloned baby, this would be a new situation. Therefore, at this time we would be unable to determine how U.S. laws regarding nationality would apply to this child," spokesman Philip Reeker told a daily briefing.

"That's a situation that is a case of first impression," he added, using legal jargon for something unprecedented.

The possibility of a passport arose because of reports that a 31-year-old American may have given birth abroad to a clone of herself and was heading "home" with her infant girl, Eve.

A State Department official said issues of parentage and nationality could arise with a clone, especially if the child and the woman who gave birth were not genetically related.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) said last week that implanting a cloned embryo in a woman would be illegal in the United States without its approval.

Reeker said that if an American parent met certain requirements, a child born abroad would automatically become a U.S. citizen and could immediately obtain a U.S. passport. Even infants require passports to enter the United States.

[Lazarus Long]

Clonaid Has 2,000 on Cloning List, Founder Says
Mon Dec 30, 1:40 PM ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - The founder of the Raelian religion, whose adherents claim to have cloned a human, said a company he created has 2,000 people waiting to have themselves or a loved one cloned, a newspaper reported Monday.

Claude Vorilhon, a French native know as Rael to his followers who founded Clonaid in 1997, said in an hour-long interview Sunday in Miami that the company has a list of people willing to pay $200,000 each for cloning, the Miami Herald reported.

Brigitte Boisselier, the head of Clonaid, announced on Friday in Florida the company had produced the first human clone with the birth of a baby girl called Eve to a 31-year-old American woman. But she offered no proof.

The announcement drew immediate skepticism from experts and renewed questions on the ethics of human cloning.

Boisselier told CNN the 7-pound (3 kg) newborn and her parents would return home Monday but the location would be kept secret.

The Raelians, who claim 55,000 followers around the world, believe life on Earth was sparked by extraterrestrials who arrived 25,000 years ago and created humans through cloning.

Vorilhon, who describes himself as a prophet, told the Herald that he had distanced himself from Clonaid since its founding but expected the company to make money and to ultimately create eternal life.

"It's a commercial company and her goal is to make as much money as possible, and I hope she will make as much money as possible," Vorilhon said of Boisselier.

Vorilhon said he does not know the identity of the alleged cloned baby or her American mother.

He said scientists may develop technology within 25 years to create a full-grown human clone in hours and to "upload" the contents of a person's brain into the clone.

"It's a very beautiful step, but it's just a step," Vorilhon, 56, told the Herald, referring to the alleged cloning of Eve. "The ultimate goal is to give eternal life to humanity through cloning."

Vorilhon, who had his hair in a topknot and was dressed in what the Herald described as "white, space-age clothing from head to toe," claims to have been contacted on Dec. 13, 1973 outside Paris by aliens who told him that life on Earth had been created in laboratories by scientifically advanced people from space.

He told the Herald that Raelians are at the vanguard of science and philosophy.

"The problem is that you have men of today with tomorrow's technology and yesterday's philosophy," he said.

"People are lost and misguided by primitive religions...they are trying to slow down science. Nothing can stop science."

Cattle, mice, sheep and other animals have been cloned with mixed success. Some have displayed defects later in life and scientists fear the same could happen with cloned humans.

[immortalitysystems.com]

Hello Lazarus Long,

thank you for posting the information re.: Cloning,
this forum is really the most informative source regarding Immortality on the internet. Alfred

[Lazarus Long]

Your welcome, we do try. The idea is to be the center for both information and ideas, then combine these with people from around the world. Perhaps in this way some, or even just one of us may be inspired to achieve the breakthrough needed by us all.

[Lazarus Long]

Here is an article that addresses how the scientific community is recieving the news coming from the "Clones". I say bring on the Clones!

Myths of Cloning Distort Reality, Scientists Say
Wed Jan 1, 2:23 AM ET Add Science - Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Toni Clarke

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The claim that a human being has been cloned for the first time has fueled concern that science fiction is about to become reality.

But scientists this week dismissed popular myths about cloning, saying that images of an exact human replica or an army of identical marching soldiers are preposterous.

They stressed whatever fears people may have, a clone would not be an exact replica of the person being cloned, saying it was more akin to an identical twin one or two generations removed.

"Even in identical twins, where the DNA is identical, they are different people because of the influence of environment," said Janet Rowley, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics that convened earlier this year.

The relative influence of genes versus environment on an individual's development is a debate that has raged for more than a century, typically framed in the context of "nature versus nurture."

Sir Francis Galton, a 19th century British psychologist and cousin of Charles Darwin, introduced the idea that the principle characteristics that make up mankind are hereditary and that society could and should selectively breed to improve itself -- otherwise known as eugenics.


DEFECTS IN ANIMALS

A fear of such an idea being put in practice lies behind much public concern about cloning. This was only exacerbated by the beliefs associated with the company that did the cloning -- namely that aliens created mankind.

Most scientists agree that it is unconscionable to clone humans when tests in animals have not been perfected.

Cattle, mice, sheep and other animals have been cloned with mixed success. Some have displayed defects later in life and scientists fear the same could happen with cloned humans.

"It's very difficult to imagine that we'll understand what's involved any time soon, so to do this in humans is insanity," said Barry Zirkin, head of the division of reproductive biology at Johns Hopkins University.

The head of Clonaid, which belongs to the Raelian sect which believes that life on earth was sparked by extraterrestrials who arrived 25,000 years ago and created humans by cloning, said last Friday in Florida that it had produced the first clone of a human being, without offering any proof.

Some scientists say it is only a matter of time before cloning technology is perfected, and some argue there could be situations where it is appropriate, as a substitute for in-vitro fertilization for infertile couples, for example.

Even though cloning is a transplantation of an entire nucleus and not of specific genes -- the principle behind genetic engineering -- it is nonetheless an attempt to produce a child with specific traits.


SINISTER AND COMIC

The idea of reproducing specific people, either as individuals or in hordes, has been expressed in popular culture to both sinister and comic effect.

In Woody Allen's 1973 science fiction comedy "Sleeper," the character played by Allen finds himself 200 years in the future where he foils a plot to clone a deceased tyrannical despot, who was blown up by rebel forces, by stealing all that is left of the dictator -- his nose.

In the 1978 thriller "The Boys From Brazil," based on Ira Levin's novel, the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele works in the South American jungle attempting to resurrect Adolf Hitler through cloning and recreate the Third Reich.

Hilarious or terrifying as these scenarios might be, they remain fantasy, scientists say.

"Hitler was the way he was not just because of genes,"[/b] said Bonnie Steinbock, a philosophy professor at the State University of New York at Albany who focuses on bioethics. "If you tried to clone Hitler, you might instead get the personality of Thomas Jefferson."

[b]That could disappoint people who imagine they can replace a lost loved one.

"It won't replace a dead child," said Zirkin. "It would be terribly burdensome for a child to have to grow up thinking that he or she is a replacement for someone who died."

(Additional reporting by Ransdell Pierson and Bill Berkrot)

[Lazarus Long]

Maureen Freely:

Cloning babies isn't creating Frankensteins
It's only in popular mythology that cloning works as eugenics. In real life, it hardly works at all

30 December 2002

Last Friday, a flamboyant, orange-and-white-haired Frenchwoman who was once a research chemist and is now "a bishop of the Raelian sect" called a press conference in Florida to announce that she and other scientists working for Clonaid, a company owned by the sect, have just produced the first human clone.

The sect, founded five years ago by Claude Vorilhon (who is, depending on which reports you read, either a former sports journalist or a former racing-car driver), holds that all human beings descend from cloned extra-terrestrials who were deposited on Earth 25,000 years ago. The first new-generation clone, who has been codenamed Eve, was born on Boxing Day by "Caesarean section weighing seven pounds", according to Ms Boisellier, and she was "doing fine".

The bishop went on to announce that four more clones would be arriving over the next two months. She would not say where, or to whom, or under whose care these births would take place. And neither did she offer any proof to back up her claims. She did, however, promise that an independent panel of scientists would be allowed to do DNA tests in "eight or nine" days.

In the meantime, how concerned should we be? There is extreme doubt among establishment scientists that her claims are genuine. Clonaid is a newcomer to the field. It has, its mainstream competitors point out, never even cloned a mouse, but now, after implanting cloned embryos in only 10 women, it is claiming five successful pregnancies. No scientist working with other mammals can dream of such success rates.

That said, Clonaid is not the only maverick to be talking big. Severino Antinori, the controversial Italian gynaecologist, recently told the press that he was involved in caring for a woman who should be giving birth to a clone in January. And in the United States, an infertility specialist named Panos Zavos announced that he was about to implant his first cloned embryo, that he had "seven or eight" other couples "ready to go", and that he was reasonably confident he would be overseeing the birth of a clone by the end of 2003.

Like all the other pioneers in this field, he refuses to disclose where his laboratories are, saying only that they are "overseas". This is something we should all find worrying – whatever we think about cloning, and however the Clonaid and Antinori and Zavos claims pan out. Following an application made by France and Germany, the United Nations has done the groundwork for a convention that would ban reproductive human cloning worldwide. However, not all member states have been rushing to sign it.

In many countries – and the UK is one of them – reproductive cloning is already against the law, but so long as the procedure is legal in at least one country around the world, every government and professional body will find it very difficult to keep the technology from being developed further. And if the technique is pushed underground, it will become next to impossible for medical ethics committees and regulatory agencies to exert an influence over the way it develops. The cowboys will make their own rules. Their creations will live – and die – at their mercy.

If this is where we are now, or where we will find ourselves very soon, it is little wonder that we hear echoes of Dr Frankenstein and his monster. Because this is a very powerful story with deep religious roots, and because its original plot has been reshaped and rewritten in too many film studios to count, the nightmare visions that most of us have when we hear the name Frankenstein have little in common with the nightmare that first prompted Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley to write her book.

So, while most people know that the original Dr Frankenstein's primary sin was to assume he could play God and create life, they forget that his creation was not born a monster. He just looked like a monster because he was ugly and deformed. Rather than merely creating him, Dr Frankenstein's bigger sin was to abandon him. It was because the world treated the creature as an outcast, and because Dr Frankenstein refused to make him a mate, that he turned into a monster of destruction.

When people say clones are potential Frankensteins, that's the sort of monster they are worried about. It is the same with the flipside nightmare – the designer baby. In both scenarios, scientifically engineered creatures take over the world, either because they are bigger and more brutish than we are, or because they are richer, smarter and more beautiful. In both cases, they are powerful because they are unnatural, and unnatural because they are powerful. You do not have to be an anthropologist to wonder how much of this fear is about reproductive science, and how much is to do with its cultural consequences.

In my view, both sets of fears are important – and it is important to consider them separately. It is, for example, important to consider how a society might change – or have to change – if children are no longer born of two parents. It would, I think, change everything, and not always for the better. But it would be ignorant and cruel to see cloned infants as members of a master race in waiting. It is only in popular mythology that cloning works as eugenics. In real life, it hardly works at all.

It took 276 failed attempts before scientists were able to bring us Dolly the sheep and, five years on, she is already suffering from arthritis. It took 9,000 cloned embryos to produce 70 or so calves, and a third of these died young. Cloned animals suffer from a high incidence of congenital malformations, physical deformities, immune-system deficiencies, obesity, pneumonia, liver deficiency and premature ageing.

While it is possible that rogue scientists working for mad prophets could be refining techniques to produce kinder results in humans, the greatest dangers in the foreseeable future will be to the clones themselves. If the first human clones look "less than human" and go on to die before they turn seven years of age, how popular is this technology likely to become? This is another question that gets lost when the Fear of Frankenstein takes over. But when you think about cloning as a practice competing in the marketplace with many others, this is the most important question of all. It is unlikely that a procedure carrying such awful risks would have widespread appeal, even among those desperate for children.

It might not even appeal to people who want to create their own twins. Contrary to popular myth, any clone you produce will not be your exact replica. Although it will have the same genetic sequence, it will develop differently – at first because of structural and metabolic differences in the egg and the differentiated cell, and later on because of all the normal environmental factors associated with living. So, you don't reproduce yourself – you just start the sequel. And if your sequel happens to be living out their life chances in a world well stocked with other sequels, he or she would be doing so in a seriously diminished gene pool.

There are serious problems around cloning as a society-wide reproductive strategy, and they are all worth knowing about, and worth discussing. But they are not going to happen tomorrow. We can take the time to separate the myths from the facts, the long-term dilemmas from the short-term emergencies.

mfreely@rosebud.u-net.com

[Lazarus Long]

Legal Guardian Sought for Clone in Florida Court
Tue Dec 31, 3:17 PM ET


By Jane Sutton

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida lawyer asked a state court on Tuesday to appoint a legal guardian for the baby girl purported to be the first human clone, saying the infant is being exploited and may have suffered birth defects.

But the company that said it produced a cloned human born last week has not disclosed the infant's whereabouts, citing concerns for her and her mother's security. And the lawyer who filed the suit acknowledged the court probably would have no jurisdiction unless the child is in Florida.

ARTICLE

[Bruce Klein]

Immortality Institute's Statement on Cloning:

Reproductive Cloning(RC)
The Immortality Institute (ImmInst) is against a ban on cloning. The prohibition of cloning for the purposes of creating a human being, or so called reproductive cloning(RC), would be a mistake. While we need to be cautious, there is no valid justification for a total ban.

The benefits to humans in terms of life extension warrent a closer look into cloning research. With that said, there are questions about the safety of cloning. While these safety issues are serious they should not preclude us from going ahead with the process of learning more about this procedure.

Dangers of RC: to be added...
Benefits of RC: to be added..


Therapeutic Cloning(TC)
Similarly, ImmInst supports research for therapeutic cloning(TP), the process of using ones own cells to create new tissue. TP, has already proven itself to be a potent technique in saving lives and improving health.

Dangers of TC: to be added...
Benefits of TC: to be added...

Ethics has not caught up with the science of cloning. The solution,
however, is not a total ban. If governments limit funding or prohibit
research, inevitably the technology will go underground or be
developed in other countries. In order to preempt this dilemma,
governments should go full force into the research arena.

If governments successfully ban all cloning, it will create a new class of criminal. When denied fundamental rights, people find loopholes. That's what RC and TC represent, a fundamental right to live disease free, healthy, and longer.

Bruce J. Klein
Director, Immortality Institute Inc.
http://www.imminst.org

[Lazarus Long]

A moratorium, is politically more risky but ethically more honest. I think that a ban is too hard to get rid of at a later date. But I am a radical heretic in this regard. I don't have an ethical revulsion of the process but I do have a sincere concern about groups such as the Raelians thinking they can start cloning babies now in anticipation of later possessing their bodies through an uploading technology that may in fact be not too far in the future. This whole trend bodes ill.

I have been personally concerned about the associated sensationalism of cloning for some time and I have been expecting a severe backlash. I think that we can expect such a movement to now take place. I also think that some of these techniques will be clandestinely applied regardless of what laws are enacted.

We can't just be reactive with this, but how are we going to get ahead of this?

These issues are going to begin to cascade into one another, then the possibility of mass hysteria spiraling out of reason is great. Worse even, these groups like the Raelians are so radical in their philosophy that the fact that much of what they say sounds superficially like what we do is going to cause blow-back on our movement.

After we get some more feedback on this on think we should do a poll and then based on a larger consensus we might even go on the record with a statement that is delivered to larger groups.

Ideas folks?

[Bruce Klein]

Excellent idea Laz,

The WTA has an official statement on this. Their stance seems much more open toward allowing all types of cloning, even reproductive cloning (cloning onself), as they support "full reproductive rights to the use of cloning and other assistive technologies by competent adults after these have been demonstrated as safe and effective for human use."

However, in the same paragraph they say: "But we agree with the general scientific opinion and many bioethicists that animal studies have not yet demonstrated that cloning technologies are safe for human use. The use of cloning technology on humans at this stage of its development is highly unethical, and could significantly set back public acceptance of transhuman technologies. However, the WTA fully supports continued research into human 'therapeutic cloning' and animal cloning."

I'm not comfortable with reproductive cloning as I understand it. Reproductive cloning to make a twin of yourself... I don't see the ethical or moral imperative in this. Where am I going wrong?

[Bruce Klein]

"I've not met a human I thought was worth cloning, yet. Lot's of cows though."

--Mark Westhusin, the biologist from Texas A&M who is heading up the $2.3 million Missyplicity Project