The Perfect Gift: a Clone of Yourself?

Tom Bailey writes "It appears that a UFO cult is creating a company for cloning people. It costs only $200,000. They believe that humans are clones of aliens. You can check it out at www.clonaid.com. You have to wonder if these guys are really serious. I'm going to ask my parents to get me a clone for my birthday." Very strange. Is this science, humor or pure wackiness?

Comments

The Raelliens

[skozee]

Funny thing about this story is that their headquarters is right in front of our offices. They are actually real nice people, and most of them only somewhat believe the Alien theory,
and are in it for the hot chicks. This is not a Heaven's Gate type of thing, it's nothing like a sect... It's more of an excuse for orgies.

They are also actively involved in a few software companies, btw.

I don't think the cloning is anything serious though, they've been talking about it for
years. I wouldn't trust a "religion" where the leader (Rael) participates in GT Races with
his Dodge Viper.

Re:Illegal?

[MrHat]

I don't think it's illegal yet. There have been quite a few attempts to get it to that stage, though. I've managed to track down some of the relevent legislation. This was shamelessly grabbed off of the PhRMA website. You can follow the links to read the full text of each. The top one is probably the most relevant to your question.

In the 106th Congress, we have:

• H.R.571 , Human Cloning Prevention Act of 1999, SPONSOR: Rep Paul, Ron (introduced 02/04/99) A bill to prohibit Federal payments to any business, institution, or organization that engages in human cloning or human cloning techniques.
  
  
• H.R. 448 , Patient Protection Act of 1999, SPONSOR: Rep Bilirakis, Michael (introduced 02/02/99) A bill to provide new patient protections under group health plans.
  
  
• H.R.398 , Plant Genetic Conservation Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2000 , SPONSOR: Rep Mink, Patsy T. (introduced 01/19/99) A bill to make appropriations for fiscal year 2000 for a plant genetic conservation program.
  
  
• H.R.358 , Patients' Bill of Rights Act of 1999, SPONSOR: Rep Dingell, John D. (introduced 01/19/99) A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to protect consumers in managed care plans and other health coverage.
  
  
• H.R.306 , Genetic Information Nondiscrimination in Health Insurance Act of 1999, SPONSOR: Rep Slaughter, Louise McIntosh (introduced 01/06/99) A bill to prohibit discrimination against individuals and their family members on the basis of genetic information or a request for genetic services.
  
  
• H.R.293 , Genetic Information Health Insurance Nondiscrimination Act of 1999, SPONSOR: Rep Sweeney, John E. (introduced 01/06/99) A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to prohibit health issuers and group health plans from discriminating against individuals on the basis of genetic information.
  
  
• S.374 , Promoting Responsible Managed Care Act of 1999, SPONSOR: Sen Chafee, John H. (introduced 02/04/99) A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 ro protect consumers in managed care plans and other health coverage.
  
  
• S.326 , Patients' Bill of Rights Act, SPONSOR: Sen Jeffords, James M. (introduced 01/28/99) A bill to improve the access and choice of patients to quality, affordable health care.
  
  
• S. 300 Patients' Bill of Rights Plus Act, SPONSOR: Sen Lott, Trent (introduced 01/22/99) A bill to improve access and choice of patients to quality, affordable health care.
  
  
• S.240 , Patients' Bill of Rights Act of 1999, SPONSOR: Sen Daschle, Thomas A. (introduced 01/19/99) A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to protect consumers in managed care plans and other health coverage.
  
  
• S.6 , Patients' Bill of Rights Act of 1999, SPONSOR: Sen Daschle, Thomas A. (introduced 01/19/99) A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to protect consumers in managed care plans and other health coverage.
  
  

Whew. That wasn't that bad, now was it. :) Cloning is certainly a controversial (and gray) area. I get the feeling the site in the story isn't real serious as a business (do they even have the facilities necessary to clone humans?). One attempted cloning, by these people or others, would certainly speed up the debates on the issue, and probably get us a test case in the Supreme Court on human cloning.

Cloning is NOT THE ANSWER to your troubles! :-)

[waldeaux]

Didn't anyone learn from Calvin's cloning experiment (from Calvin and Hobbes).

He replicated himself so that he could spend all his time playing. The clones would do his chores, do his homework, attend school, etc. However, it ended up with him doing all the work and covering up for the extra messes the clones created!

Remember, if you're devious enough to clone yourself, your clone knows this!

Besides, where will it end? The horror. What if someone cloned the people in those "Old Navy" commercials? No --- this is simply too much evil to unleash onto the planet.

We must stop at once!