Attack of the Clone Baby

By Liz Langley, AlterNet. Posted January 3, 2003.

A clone baby!
A clone baby!
A clone baby!
A clone baby!
A clone baby!

Oh, all right. I know a lot of people won't appreciate my clone humor. I know the very idea of cloning throws a lot of people into a panic. For me this story offers more to chew on than a Dagwood Bumstead sandwich, so let's just dig in.

For openers there are the Raelians, the UFO cult which is behind Clonaid and baby Eve. The Raelians were founded by Claude Vorilhon, who claims that aliens visited him and told him that humans were created and plunked on earth by extraterrestrials. And why not? It goes a long way to explain why so many people act like they're from another goddamn planet.

The Raelians, as my friend Gwen points out, have done a bang-up job filling the newsworthy-cult void, thereby colorizing the nightly news, which has been so khaki lately.

"The Scientologists have gotten really boring," Gwen says. Not only that, but you never hear anything about the Moonies anymore. The Heaven's Gaters, if any are left, are silent, and the Branch Davidians are too sad to talk about."

Cultists are like the odd kids in class that we all need to have around to make sure we're normal. Lately the closest thing is sci-fi freaks, but they're too lovable to be cultists, plus they have conventions, not compounds: They function in the real world. I can't think of anyone who would poison themselves for William Shatner, and I can't see any Apocalypse worth having being known as "The Time of Big Pants and Glasses."

Then there's the cliffhanger, only instead of a whodunit we have a whatisit? Is she or isn't she? "Eve" was supposed to be genetically tested and found to be or not to be a clone within less than two weeks, making the UFO group look more efficient than the Florida election officials. Then, much to the disappointment of everyone, meaning me, they back-pedalled, saying they wouldn't test the baby at all. I guess if you simply refuse to do the recount, people just accept the results.

Finally, there is the big ethical dilemma of cloning itself. I'm on the fence about this. If we're looking at a day where I see 50 Chris Noths in a span of 10 blocks, then Ronco needs to get right on it with a home cloning kit. If, on the other hand, someone makes as many Jerry Falwells as you can fit in an airplane hangar (six?), well, then I have to say ixnay on the oningclay.

But we don't have to fret about Jerry being cloned: Religious types are against cloning, which is kind of surprising since you'd think sexless baby-making would be the conservative jackpot. A lot of people want to ban cloning outright and while I can see the fear of some "Boys From Brazil" scenario, I don't think anyone with the means, motive and desire to create a Hitlerian clone army in their secret tropical lair is going to stop and think, "Garsh, better not, it's against the law." If cloning is outlawed only outlaws will have clones.

The sad thing, which a recent New York Times story points out, is that so much Chicken Littling about cloning could occur thanks to this announcement that a ban could get pushed on all of it -- including the therapeutic kind. Therapeutic cloning is used in stem cell research that could lead to cures for diseases, including diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer's. Conservatives want to ban all forms of cloning, even therapeutic, which involves letting an embryo develop for a few days and then using the cells it produces for research.

The Times quotes Dr. Robert Lanza as saying, "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."

Having a relative who is afflicted with more than one of the diseases, my own feeling about therapeutic cloning is simple: Find the copy key and keep pushing it. My feeling about the conservative right is pretty simple, too: they may disprove Darwin one day because they seem to survive without ever evolving.

The metaphor of "playing God" pops up a lot around cloning, too. It's understandable, but really, we play God every day. Whoever invented glasses played God. If they hadn't, myopics like me would have, once upon a time, said things like "What tiger?" before being strained out of the gene pool for good.

We use procedures that save lives and weapons that take them, we destroy forests and create lakes, exchange our hair colors, kidneys and genders for new ones. We haven't lived a natural life in centuries. Diet Coke doesn't come out of a well, ya know.

All big new scientific breakthroughs -- and we don't yet know if this is one -- are scary. Galileo wouldn't shut up about the earth revolving around the sun and they put him under lifetime house arrest for it because it was scary. Maybe it's because I've never read "Brave New World," but I can't help thinking of Edina Monsoon, from "Absolutely Fabulous" saying, "Cheer up. It may never happen."

Baby Eve may not even be a clone baby. But what the hell. Getting all worked up about the birth of a sexlessly conceived and potentially world changing infant around the end of December...at least it's a novelty.

Liz Langley is a freelance writer who lives in Florida and New York.

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