Raelians say first cloned baby in Israel, not US

The Times of India ^ | January 30 2003 | AP

[knighthawk]

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida: The head of a group that claims to have produced the world's first human clone insisted under oath Wednesday that the baby exists and said the girl is in Israel, not the United States.

Clonaid President Brigitte Boisselier also said she had only seen the child, nicknamed Baby Eve by the company, on videotape. Her testimony led a judge to throw out a guardianship petition involving the child.

When Boisselier announced late last month that Clonaid had produced a healthy human clone, she promised that independent DNA testing would prove the claim in about 10 days.

But she later backed away, saying the Florida guardianship petition had scared Eve's parents and they were refusing to allow testing for fear the baby would be taken away.

Experts have say that without the tests, the cloning claims can't be validated. Some believe the whole thing is an elaborate hoax by the religious sect behind Clonaid, a group called the Raelians that believes life on Earth was started by extraterrestrials.

Circuit Judge John Frusciante on Wednesday threw out the Florida petition for guardianship, saying the court didn't have jurisdiction if, as Boisselier had testified, the child wasn't in the country.

He asked Boisselier to convey that the court was not interested in taking the baby away, but also briefly lectured her about cloning.

"You cannot pursue human cloning with impunity," the judge said. "All of us must not overlook the weakest among us."

Attorney Bernard Siegel had argued for the appointment of a guardian, saying cloning was inherently abusive because of the genetic problems encountered in other mammal cloning.

After the hearing, he said he hopes Israeli authorities investigate the case.

"My great concern was the welfare of this child being hidden from the world," Siegel said.

Clonaid attorney Jonathan Schwartz called the lawsuit "patently preposterous" because there was never any U.S. connection aside from the December news conference announcing the birth, which was held in Florida.

Clonaid, which says it retains philosophical but not economic ties to the Raelians, claimed last week that a third cloned child, a boy, had been born in Japan. It said clone No. 2, a girl, was born to a Dutch lesbian Jan. 3.

"There's a cloned sheep, a cloned cat, why not a cloned baby?" Schwartz said.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[EggsAckley]

[wideawake]

"There's a cloned sheep, a cloned cat, why not a cloned baby?" Schwartz said.

May you rot in hell forever, you sick, sick bastard.

[MHGinTN]

There is the notion floating about in the media that two types of cloning exist. They wish to differentiate reproductive cloning from therapeutic cloning; both conceive a cloned individual human being, in vitro. The scientists wishing to exploit therapeutic cloning would have us believe that because their goal in cloning doesn't include life support into the post-natal stage that their 'form' of cloning is okay. It isn't. Far from it, it's worse application of cloning. The therapeutic cloner seeks to conceive 'designer' individual human beings, give them life support either in a petri medium or a woman's body, then kill and harvest from these individuals the target tissues for which the cloned individual was conceived.

Why is it important to prove that an embryo is an individual human being? Because embryonic stem cell harvesting and therapeutic cloning are cannibalizing human life.

The ‘enlightened’ expect you to accept the notion that an embryo is not an individual human being. Yet the scientist seeks to conceive 'designer' individual human life --with therapeutic cloning-- and the goal of the scientist bears witness to the truth that they are conceiving a unique human being. Giving tacit acceptance to a proven lie is bad enough –-we’ve done this for thirty years-- but to embrace cannibalism founded on such a lie is far more degenerate than breaching moral or ethical dilemmas.

Tacit acceptance of science manipulating individual human life has lead from in vitro fertilization to partial birth infanticide, proving the bankruptcy of continuing moderate acceptance. We are now staring at cannibalism in the name of whatever you care to call it. Even an embryo no bigger than a grain of sugar is an individual human life. Is it acceptable to kill that individual for their body parts? If it is, that's cannibalism. If we do not accomplish a paradigm shift in the nation's perception regarding individual human life, two very unpleasant leviathans --embryonic stem cell exploitation and therapeutic cloning-- will devour what remains of our nation's goodness.

[joesnuffy]

UFO cult, currently in the news for its efforts at cloning human beings. (See Religion News Blog for
current news about the Raelians claims).

Who are the Raelians?

The Raelian movement is the founder of the Clonaid company which claims to have
produced the first cloned baby.

The movement claims to have about 40,000 members in several countries, although
the number is difficult to verify.

The sect, which believes humans were created by extra-terrestrial beings who had
mastered genetic engineering, was founded in France in 1973 by a former journalist
who worked for a racing car magazine.

One December morning in 1973, journalist Claude Vorilhon was on his way to work in
the French provincial town of Clermont-Ferrand.

But - according to a book written by Mr Vorilhon, who is now known as Rael - instead
of going to the office, on an impulse, he drove to a nearby volcano.


International movement

There, he says, he was contacted by an extra-terrestrial being who emerged from a
flying saucer and told him - in fluent French - that humans were created in
laboratories by people from another planet.

The creators were known as the Elohim - a word which, in ancient Hebrew, meant
"those who came from the sky".

It is used in Jewish prayers to refer to God.

Mr Vorilhon was told to spread the word of the Elohim on Earth in preparation for their
return.

He describes them as being little over a metre in height, with pale green skin,
almond-shaped eyes and long dark hair.

Since then the Raelians have grown into an international movement. Rael himself has
reportedly relocated to the United States after complaining of harassment by the
French authorities.


Eternal life

The Raelians' interest in cloning seems to stem from their belief that the human soul
perishes when the body dies.

Therefore, they believe, the key to eternal life is not the soul but the recreation of
individuals from their DNA.

In 1997, the group founded Clonaid, which now says it has cloned a human being.

In 1990, the Raelians changed their symbol, originally a Swastika inside a Star of
David.

[Oztrich Boy]

Some believe the whole thing is an elaborate hoax by the religious sect behind Clonaid

In the 50s DJ Jen Shepherd created a wholly fictious book I, Libertine and by manipulating booksellers and critics across the USA got the unseen and non-existant work onto the best seller lists (and banned by the Diocese of Boston).

In 1910 Horace Cole convinced the Royal Navy to give a formal reception on HMS Dreadnought to a group disguised as "The Emperor of Abyssinia and his retinue".

These people just issued a media release.

Elaborate hoaxes just aren't what they used to be

[wideawake]

Eloquently stated.

[Norman Conquest]

Uhhhh... Ain't their leader the guy who fled Canada for France after Canada tried to restrict his Jew-hating campaigns? So WTF is his prize clone doing in Israel?

[knighthawk]

I was thinking the same. I saw a webpage where his organization rants about Israel. Disgusting.

[expatpat]

Didn't John Irving hoax us with Hitler Diaries or something similar?

[RightWhale]

Pres Bush wants human cloning banned. Well, it's hard to ban something like that, but it can be made illegal.

[JohnathanRGalt]

I was thinking the same. I saw a webpage where his organization rants about Israel. Disgusting.

I'm thinking there is no Raelian cloned baby -- not in Isreael, not anywhere. Like all Islamists, the Raelians are pathological liars.

Attack of the Islamist Clones

The Raelian cloning cult has a website http://subversions.com that is filled with anti-Israel material, including an online petition claiming that in Jenin, the Israelis "coldly executed over 1000 Palestinians, most of whom were women and children, and then buried them in the ruins to make it look as if it was an accidental death."

The Raelians also claim:  "Furthermore, over 4,000 Palestinian prisoners are presently incarcerated in concentration camps and being interrogated under torture. There is even a project underway to cremate not only the rotting corpses but also those still in a coma, or unconscious due to their treatment, so as to completely eliminate all evidence of torture.

The Raelians also claim to have cloned a human child.

Of course the actual number of dead Palestinians was closer to 50, and the claim that Israel "coldly executed" them is patently false.

The Raelian libel is at: http://www.subversions.com/english/pages/military/jenin.html

Subversions.com is registered to:

Marc Lavoie,  International Raelian Movement
C.P.86 , Succ. Youville
Montreal, Quebec

The Raelian site is hosted by EV1.NET in Houston Texas.  (Also home of Stormfront.org and the Texas Knights of the Klu Klux Klan).

[joesnuffy]

Seems the Raelians and the Neuwaubians have a lot in common....

[Just mythoughts]

Sounds like he is trying to be a modern day Nimrod building his tower to heaven.

I think the original Nimrod did his building in Shinar - Babylonia. Didn't God see fit to confuse their language and scatter them and calling it Babel. (confusion)

So this bunch are trying to create their own eternal life.

What will we see and hear next?

[Oztrich Boy]

Clifford Irving, and it was Howard Hughes's "Autobiography"

Now that was an elaborate hoax. Irving launched it assuming Hughes was senile, or possibly dead. And he came quite close to pulling it off.

[the-ironically-named-proverbs2]

"Raelians say first cloned baby in Israel, not US"

are we getting close?

Matt 24:15
15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)...

1 Cor 3:16-17
16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.