Sect plans to clone child, Raelians tell U.S. Congress
Procedure ban debated
Jan Cienski
National Post
Evan Vucci, The Associated Press
Claude Vorilhon, also known as Rael, founder of the Quebec-based Raelian movement, is sworn in on Capitol Hill yesterday.
WASHINGTON - The head of the Quebec-based Raelian movement, which believes humans were cloned by aliens, told the U.S. Congress yesterday that scientists affiliated with his sect intend to clone a dead child as soon as possible.
"Nothing should stop cloning, which should be 100% free," Rael told a skeptical congressional committee looking into whether the United States should join 26 other countries and ban the untried procedure.
George W. Bush, the U.S. President, hopes to sign a law halting human cloning before it begins, his spokesman said. "The President believes that no research -- no research -- to create a human being should take place in the United States," said Ari Fleischer.
A clone is produced when the genetic material is removed from an egg and replaced by material from another adult cell. The first successful clone was Dolly the sheep, created by a group of Scottish scientists in 1997. Since then, cattle, mice, pigs and goats have been successfully cloned.
But most scientists insist it is much too early to begin cloning humans, noting animal cloning has at least a 95% failure rate. Even those animals that survive, such as Dolly, are plagued with severe problems researchers have only begun to study.
"The great majority of human clones may be abnormal," warned Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch, professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Humans are not guinea pigs."
While mainstream scientists are aghast at the idea, two groups say they plan to attempt human cloning within the next year or two.
In addition to the Raelians, a consortium led by Severino Antinori, an Italian fertility doctor whose previous claim to fame was helping a 62-year-old woman get pregnant, plans to open a cloning lab in an unidentified country.
Dr. Panos Zavos, a member of the consortium, appeared before the congressional committee and dismissed safety concerns, saying the cloning "genie is out of the bottle.
"Those that say stop it, those would not be the Columbuses that would take the bold step to discover America," he said. "We are talking about the development of a technology that can give an infertile and childless couple the right to reproduce and have a child. This is a human right."
The listening Congressmen were not convinced.
"Cloning is a form of playing God since it interferes with the natural order of creation," said Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican. "To attempt such a technique on humans, which has caused deformities, large fetuses and premature deaths in sheep and cattle is the height of irresponsibility."
While Dr. Zavos, who runs a fertility clinic in Kentucky, has some medical credentials, the Raelians were viewed with even greater skepticism by the committee.
Rael claims that in 1973, when he was known as Claude Vorilhon, a French motorsports writer, he was kidnapped by aliens who had told him extraterrestrial scientists created the human race.
Rael says there are 50,000 followers of his free-love group, which is based about an hour north of Montreal. In 1997, the Raelians established Clonaid, a Bahamian-based company that began seeking cloning customers.
Last year, a couple whose 10-month-old son died from a heart defect paid US$500,000 to recreate their son, Brigitte Boisselier, the director of Clonaid and a Raelian bishop, told the committee.
"I couldn't accept it was over for our child," Dr. Boisselier read from a letter from the father, who has not revealed his name. "He deserves a chance to live."
Dr. Boisselier, wearing a necklace with the Raelian star symbol, black boots and a dress cut away to reveal her abdomen, said she has four scientists working at an undisclosed location in the United States on the cloning project. Her own daughter has volunteered to be a surrogate mother for a clone.
Rael, who wears an all-white outfit with shoulder pads and white patent leather shoes, admitted there may be early problems with cloning.
"Every scientific discovery was unsafe at the beginning," he said with an impish grin.
But his final goal is not simply cloning. He predicts scientists will soon learn how to download memories into new bodies, allowing people to live forever.
While Rael dreams of immortality, scientists warn his experiments will create nothing but suffering for cloned babies.
"It is simply unacceptable to subject humans to those risks," said Dr. Thomas Okarma, speaking on behalf of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.
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