This is from Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe and is very well written.
The Eve of a perilous new era
By Ellen Goodman, 1/5/2003
ALL IN ALL it's probably not the best PR move for an atheist cult to dub its
first offspring Eve. It might look as if they think they're God.
Besides, the biblical, or even the Darwinian Eve was the mother of us all.
The girl whose birth was trumpeted as the first-ever clone would be the
daughter and identical twin of one of us.
Still, the Raelian believers and scientists get credit for their 15 minutes
of fame and their half-hour on CNN. When Brigitte Boisselier, the Raelian
bishop and midriff-baring CEO of Clonaid, announced that the first clone was
born by Caesarean section to a 31-year-old American, she had the stage to
herself for at least half a news cycle before the skeptics weighed in.
Frankly, the company established by Raelian scientists to clone humans
always struck me as a dubious enterprise. Clonaid? It sounds like a cross
between a rock 'n' roll fund-raiser and a nose spray.
Clonaid began life as a mailbox in the Caribbean and upgraded to a
fly-infested lab in an abandoned high school in West Virginia. The
scientific notes reportedly kept by a researcher didn't inspire confidence:
''We went to the slaughterhouse and got some ovaries.'' Thankfully, this was
when they were doing research on cows, not women, but you get the idea.
Boisselier's report that five of their 10 clones were successful strains
credibility. Her announcement yesterday of a second clone birth breaks
credibility. It took 277 tries to get one Dolly. Yet, they've produced an
all-too-perfect rainbow of diversity. One lesbian mother, an Asian
surrogate, and the clones of two dead babies? Where, oh, where is the
partridge in the pear tree?
As for Rael and the Raelians, where do we begin? Claude Vorilhon, aka Rael,
the French-born race car driver, journalist, and author of ''Let's Welcome
Our Fathers from Space,'' met the 4-foot- tall, dark-haired, olive-skinned
aliens with almond-shaped eyes near a volcano in 1973.
There, he reports, they explained how our species was cloned from theirs
(hold the green skin) and would clone ourselves into immortality. We would
download our personalities and memories into our adult clones and, zap,
eternal life. I can't wait.
Rael is a man of apparent good humor - which you need when you dress in
white space clothes, believe that Steven Spielberg stole your story for
''Close Encounters,'' and wear your hair in a topknot. He remembers one of
the aliens saying to him,''Aren't you sorry that you didn't bring your
camera?'' You betcha.
It would, however, take more than a camera for credibility this time. The
only way I'll believe in Eve is if I'm personally standing there when they
take the blood samples and do the DNA test.
Nevertheless - you knew there would be a nevertheless - this story got our
attention because today's hoax is tomorrow's possibility.
Over the past decade, one offspring at a time, we've learned that we can
fool Mother Nature. From a ''test-tube baby'' named Louise to a little lamb
named Dolly, to half a dozen other cloned critters, we've gradually created
the reproductive technology of cloning.
Now all we have to do is create hundreds, probably thousands of defective
embryos and fetuses, dangerous pregnancies, and genetically deformed
children to get (maybe) a healthy clone. That's all, folks.
Since Dolly wobbled onto the stage in 1997, we've had plenty of folks
willing and eager to experiment. Dr. Richard Seed was the first to announce
that he'd clone himself and have his (post- menopausal) wife carry his
little seedlings. That blessed event didn't, blessedly, happen.
Today, along with the Raelians and their little Eve project, we have two
other fertility doctors claiming they have pregnant women ready to give
birth to clones. Sooner or later is getting sooner.
So, yes, the story of Eve registers high on the hoax meter. After all,
Clonaid was designed in the words of its vice president ''to create
controversy.'' But the alarm is, in fact, long overdue.
A spokesman for President Bush, who greeted Eve without the requisite
politician's kiss, said soberly that it underscores the need for a ban on
cloning. He didn't mention that our government deep-sixed just such a ban,
rejecting an international agreement outlawing reproductive cloning to
create humans, because it didn't also outlaw therapeutic cloning to cure
diseases.
At home, a similar all-or-nothing opposition to cloning has created a
congressional stalemate. Many legislators can't seem to distinguish between
the promise of therapeutic cloning and the threat of reproductive cloning.
Here's what we've learned from this ''dress rehearsal.'' We need a sharp,
simple ban on cloning humans now. Leave the thornier questions of
therapeutic cloning for another day.
The Raelians want us to welcome Eve into the family. I think we ought to
raise Cain.
Ellen Goodman's e-mail address is ellengoodman@globe.com.
"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today.
It's already tomorrow in Australia!"----- Charles Schultz
The Eve of a perilous new era
By Ellen Goodman, 1/5/2003
ALL IN ALL it's probably not the best PR move for an atheist cult to dub its
first offspring Eve. It might look as if they think they're God.
Besides, the biblical, or even the Darwinian Eve was the mother of us all.
The girl whose birth was trumpeted as the first-ever clone would be the
daughter and identical twin of one of us.
Still, the Raelian believers and scientists get credit for their 15 minutes
of fame and their half-hour on CNN. When Brigitte Boisselier, the Raelian
bishop and midriff-baring CEO of Clonaid, announced that the first clone was
born by Caesarean section to a 31-year-old American, she had the stage to
herself for at least half a news cycle before the skeptics weighed in.
Frankly, the company established by Raelian scientists to clone humans
always struck me as a dubious enterprise. Clonaid? It sounds like a cross
between a rock 'n' roll fund-raiser and a nose spray.
Clonaid began life as a mailbox in the Caribbean and upgraded to a
fly-infested lab in an abandoned high school in West Virginia. The
scientific notes reportedly kept by a researcher didn't inspire confidence:
''We went to the slaughterhouse and got some ovaries.'' Thankfully, this was
when they were doing research on cows, not women, but you get the idea.
Boisselier's report that five of their 10 clones were successful strains
credibility. Her announcement yesterday of a second clone birth breaks
credibility. It took 277 tries to get one Dolly. Yet, they've produced an
all-too-perfect rainbow of diversity. One lesbian mother, an Asian
surrogate, and the clones of two dead babies? Where, oh, where is the
partridge in the pear tree?
As for Rael and the Raelians, where do we begin? Claude Vorilhon, aka Rael,
the French-born race car driver, journalist, and author of ''Let's Welcome
Our Fathers from Space,'' met the 4-foot- tall, dark-haired, olive-skinned
aliens with almond-shaped eyes near a volcano in 1973.
There, he reports, they explained how our species was cloned from theirs
(hold the green skin) and would clone ourselves into immortality. We would
download our personalities and memories into our adult clones and, zap,
eternal life. I can't wait.
Rael is a man of apparent good humor - which you need when you dress in
white space clothes, believe that Steven Spielberg stole your story for
''Close Encounters,'' and wear your hair in a topknot. He remembers one of
the aliens saying to him,''Aren't you sorry that you didn't bring your
camera?'' You betcha.
It would, however, take more than a camera for credibility this time. The
only way I'll believe in Eve is if I'm personally standing there when they
take the blood samples and do the DNA test.
Nevertheless - you knew there would be a nevertheless - this story got our
attention because today's hoax is tomorrow's possibility.
Over the past decade, one offspring at a time, we've learned that we can
fool Mother Nature. From a ''test-tube baby'' named Louise to a little lamb
named Dolly, to half a dozen other cloned critters, we've gradually created
the reproductive technology of cloning.
Now all we have to do is create hundreds, probably thousands of defective
embryos and fetuses, dangerous pregnancies, and genetically deformed
children to get (maybe) a healthy clone. That's all, folks.
Since Dolly wobbled onto the stage in 1997, we've had plenty of folks
willing and eager to experiment. Dr. Richard Seed was the first to announce
that he'd clone himself and have his (post- menopausal) wife carry his
little seedlings. That blessed event didn't, blessedly, happen.
Today, along with the Raelians and their little Eve project, we have two
other fertility doctors claiming they have pregnant women ready to give
birth to clones. Sooner or later is getting sooner.
So, yes, the story of Eve registers high on the hoax meter. After all,
Clonaid was designed in the words of its vice president ''to create
controversy.'' But the alarm is, in fact, long overdue.
A spokesman for President Bush, who greeted Eve without the requisite
politician's kiss, said soberly that it underscores the need for a ban on
cloning. He didn't mention that our government deep-sixed just such a ban,
rejecting an international agreement outlawing reproductive cloning to
create humans, because it didn't also outlaw therapeutic cloning to cure
diseases.
At home, a similar all-or-nothing opposition to cloning has created a
congressional stalemate. Many legislators can't seem to distinguish between
the promise of therapeutic cloning and the threat of reproductive cloning.
Here's what we've learned from this ''dress rehearsal.'' We need a sharp,
simple ban on cloning humans now. Leave the thornier questions of
therapeutic cloning for another day.
The Raelians want us to welcome Eve into the family. I think we ought to
raise Cain.
Ellen Goodman's e-mail address is ellengoodman@globe.com.
"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today.
It's already tomorrow in Australia!"----- Charles Schultz
Comment