Earth Walker
August 6th, 2001, 11:42 PM
A science-and-sex cult leader is vowing to fight a proposed U.S.
banon human cloning all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The leader of the 55,000-strong Montreal-based Raelin Movement
said yesterday in Vancouver he's confident a move by the U.S. House of Representatives to ban cloning human embryos "will
be declared unconstitutional."
"I've been expecting this. The United States is the best place
to fight this because of their constitution and their commitment
to personal freedom," said Claude Vorilhon, who founded the
Raelians and goes by the name Rael.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted Tuesday to ban human
cloning, including cloning human embryos for medical research.
Rael, a former French car-racing writer, claims to have been
contacted in 1973 by almond-eyed, one-metre-tall aliens.
He says they revealed to him that they created humans 25,000
years ago as part of a cloning experiment.
Now Rael preaches that people will eventually achieve immortality
through cloning.
"Cloning a baby is just the first step." said Rael, who vaguely
resembles the Michelin Tire Man in his puffy white space-suit-like
outfit. "Eventually, we will be able to download our memories
and even what we call our soul into new, cloned bodies."
Rael, an advocate of free love among his followers, was
surrounded yesterday by devotees, incliding a number of nubile
young women. He says 100 female followers are ready to be
surrogate mothers. Dismissed as a space-age wacko even by
pro-cloning groups, he spoke in March to a U.S. congressional
hearing into cloning. He was invited in part because of reports
the Raelians were about to clone a human embryo in a U.S. lab.
Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Agency raided the Raelians'
U.S. laboratory and warned the group to stop research into
human cloning.
But Rael, who shrugs off warnings that human cloning is
dangerous by saying all scientific advances involve risks, insists
there is a second secret lab.
He dismisses arguments that cloning is unethical by sayng ethics
have no place in science. He says his organization is based on
science, not religion.
"A hundred years ago the church said vaccination was wrong,"
Rael said. "If they had their way hundreds of thousands of
people would have died. We are simply offering people life,
eternal life."
--Greg Middleton--Province Staff Reporter
She who is NOT to be interrupted!
****************************
I think of "men" as the diminutive of Women.
banon human cloning all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The leader of the 55,000-strong Montreal-based Raelin Movement
said yesterday in Vancouver he's confident a move by the U.S. House of Representatives to ban cloning human embryos "will
be declared unconstitutional."
"I've been expecting this. The United States is the best place
to fight this because of their constitution and their commitment
to personal freedom," said Claude Vorilhon, who founded the
Raelians and goes by the name Rael.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted Tuesday to ban human
cloning, including cloning human embryos for medical research.
Rael, a former French car-racing writer, claims to have been
contacted in 1973 by almond-eyed, one-metre-tall aliens.
He says they revealed to him that they created humans 25,000
years ago as part of a cloning experiment.
Now Rael preaches that people will eventually achieve immortality
through cloning.
"Cloning a baby is just the first step." said Rael, who vaguely
resembles the Michelin Tire Man in his puffy white space-suit-like
outfit. "Eventually, we will be able to download our memories
and even what we call our soul into new, cloned bodies."
Rael, an advocate of free love among his followers, was
surrounded yesterday by devotees, incliding a number of nubile
young women. He says 100 female followers are ready to be
surrogate mothers. Dismissed as a space-age wacko even by
pro-cloning groups, he spoke in March to a U.S. congressional
hearing into cloning. He was invited in part because of reports
the Raelians were about to clone a human embryo in a U.S. lab.
Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Agency raided the Raelians'
U.S. laboratory and warned the group to stop research into
human cloning.
But Rael, who shrugs off warnings that human cloning is
dangerous by saying all scientific advances involve risks, insists
there is a second secret lab.
He dismisses arguments that cloning is unethical by sayng ethics
have no place in science. He says his organization is based on
science, not religion.
"A hundred years ago the church said vaccination was wrong,"
Rael said. "If they had their way hundreds of thousands of
people would have died. We are simply offering people life,
eternal life."
--Greg Middleton--Province Staff Reporter
She who is NOT to be interrupted!
****************************
I think of "men" as the diminutive of Women.