US court summons Clonaid on whereabouts of cloned baby

The Times of India ^ | January 12 2003 | AP

[knighthawk]

FORT LAUDERDALE: An executive with the company that claims to have produced a human clone was subpoenaed to appear in court, and the company was ordered to disclose the whereabouts of the baby girl and her mother.

The witness subpoena and summons were approved yesterday by a court at the request of attorney Bernard Siegel, who has filed a lawsuit asking the state to appoint a guardian for the child, the attorney said.

The papers were delivered to Thomas Kaenzig, a Clonaid vice president, before he spoke at the Money World 2003 conference in Fort Lauderdale, Siegel said.

If Kaenzig fails to appear at the hearing Jan. 22, he could be held in contempt of court.

Kaenzig would not speak about the papers and Clonaid spokeswoman Nadine Gary also declined comment.

Kaenzig said the girl's parents feared losing her through government or court action. "They have been waiting many, many years for this baby to be here and they are very happy that the baby is here," he said.

Clonaid announced Dec. 27 in Hollywood, Florida, that a baby girl born the previous day was cloned from her mother. The company said the mother was a 31-year-old American whose husband was infertile, but has refused to further identify the family or say where the cloning process or birth occurred.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[DAnconia55]

Hopefully Clonaid will not 'know' anything :)

[nhoward14]

LOL!!! The husband was infertile so she had a clone made? I guess all the sperm banks were closed.

[Happy2BMe]

Doesn't anyone have a CLUE here?

The baby went back to the Mother Ship. (We could be risking a space war here.)

[mc10]

having no interest in whether there is or is not a cloned kid, my interest in this is upon what basis this lawyer and/or the court have any right to demand that the cloneaid nuts produce this baby. If a demand or even an appeal for money was made by cloneaid, I could understand something like that being some sort of fraud in an attempt to profit from their claims, which are almost surely bogus but as far as I know, no attempt has been made to profit from their claims, except free publicity due to the stupidity of the media. Someone please explain!

[D-fendr]

Cloning results in gross deformity, disability or death in the vast majority of experiments - all experiments thus far for primates.

I would think the point of the suit would be based on the parents who would risk this for a child being unfit to parent. I agree and would also prosecute the person doing the experiment for gross malpractice at the least.

If it is a scam, which it certainly is, then the question is were the parents aware of it and using a child in the scam.

[D-fendr]

My guess, however, is that the child and couple do not exist, or were conned themselves.

[steve50]

but has refused to further identify the family or say where the cloning process or birth occurred.

Aren't there some jurisdictional issues here? I would think the judge would have to have a statutory offense within his jurisdiction to issue warrants.

[DAnconia55]

It is an interesting question, who has the right to raise a child who has no biological parents?

Clones have biological parents. The cell donors. Since the 'given' genetic material came from a person, then that person has the moral right to be parent. (Although big brother/sister is a more correct lineage.)

But the government WILL outlaw it, and conduct secret experiments anyway. Anyone got $1 for $5 I'm wrong? :)