BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'

Subject: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: GUEST,Amy
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 09:51 AM

BBC News Story

The Italian fertility doctor who last year announced plans to clone humans has reportedly said that one of the women he has been treating is pregnant with an embryo clone. Dr Severino Antinori made the comments to a reporter for the Gulf News following a medical conference in the United Arab Emirates.

He said that one of the women in his care is eight weeks pregnant with a foetus that has been produced using cloning technology.

He refused to give any further details, and his office in Rome would not confirm or deny the story to the BBC.

Controversial Views

In the middle of last year, Dr Antinori was one of three doctors who told the world of their plans to clone humans. He has been quoted as saying he views cloning as just another form of assisted reproduction - one stage on from in-vitro fertilisation.

Since the announcement, Dr Antinori has largely been shunned by the scientific establishment, with many prominent researchers describing his plans as irresponsible.

Animal cloning has low rates of success, and there is evidence that surviving animals are prone to poor health and genetic defects.

'Empty publicity'

If Dr Antinori really has attempted to clone a human, the implications will be enormous.

If the pregnancy is successful, many other doctors will want to follow his lead - but a failure would provide renewed impetus for a global ban on human cloning, which the United Nations is working towards.

The British bioethicist Dr Donald Bruce said he thought the latest news was just "empty publicity".

"If it was true, a responsible scientist would announce such an event in the proper way," said the director of the Church of Scotland's Society, Religion and Technology Project.

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 10:07 AM

Wrong pulpit?

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 01:45 PM

"If it was true, a responsible scientist would announce such an event in the proper way," ?????

What does that mean? And given the response, I would assume that anyone else who has cloned a human would keep quiet until the successful birth of the child, maybe even until he/she reaches his fifth birthday and is shown to be healthy.

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: sophocleese
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 10:35 PM

I would guess that "In the proper way" could mean to a reputable scientific group who could inspect his information before it was released for wild and largely ignorant speculation. Most scientific breakthroughs need to go through some sort of peer review process to confirm their results. When they are not peer reviewed and confirmed, then it can get very confusing for everybody, and embarassing for some, if they are then proved incorrect due to some trouble in the testing process. Often the popular press trumpets the "Breakthrough" but subsequently decides that that telling people it wasn't a breakthrough isn't news so the refutation is unpublished.

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Peg
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 01:14 AM

is there ANYNE who thinks this is a GOOD idea? (besides those grieving parents and spouses who have lost children or mates, who can't accept that death, no matter how tragic, is simply part of life)...

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Troll
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 03:47 AM

Nope! One of me is quite enough, thank you.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Gareth
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 06:18 PM

Cloned Baby ?? Takes all the enjoymment away !!!

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 10:56 AM

Clone of herself? Or of whom?

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: SharonA
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 11:30 AM

"I'm havin' me, baby!
What a lovely way of sayin' how much I love me..."

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 12:44 PM

I think cloning is a GREAT idea, but only because it pisses so many people off. :)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: PeteBoom
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 01:06 PM

Great... more of what we need... more Joe Clones...

ummm.... Wait a minute - I get it...

Oh, never mind.

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: annamill
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 02:02 PM

This would be great if it were to be kept to helping childless couples have children, but of course it won't. Someone will misuse it, which, I feel, is where the fear lies.

Because someones genes are used to create a clone of someone doesn't mean that child would be exactly like the original. He/She would be an original in his/her own right with his/her own personality and his/her own ideas.

After all, aren't natural children the product of someones genes? So what if it's only one set. That set would have both sets originally given by the original parents.

Maybe I'm missing something here. It's like someone discovered we were all derived from apes or something silly like that ;-)

Cheez!

Love, Annamill

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: GUEST,Just Amy
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 02:06 PM

I love reading Science Fiction!

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 01:10 AM

It is not for helping childless couples. The ultimate intent is to provide organs so the rest of us will gain immortality.

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 03:56 PM

After the kitten "cc" a letter to the New Scientists suggested they were waiting for someone to clone Schroedingers Cat.
Maybe........

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Stephen L. Rich
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 07:30 PM

"Woman 'pregnant with clone'." Am I the only on to notice the oxymoronic quality of that phrase?

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Stephen L. Rich
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 07:32 PM

As soon as I posted that last one it dawned on me that, perhaps, it redundant rather than oxymoronic.

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Amos
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 10:53 PM

Well she coulda been pregnant with a normal coitally-induced foetus, no?? Or she could have been saddled with a clone, but not pregnant with it? Or, given the state of modern scientific adventuring, she could have been pregnant with an axolotl!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Apr 02 - 11:37 PM

It is worth the wait IF you are the clone.

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: iRiShBaBe
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 04:59 PM

reading the newspapers either last sunday or the sunday before not too sure and there was a story about two deaf lesbians who interfered with science and got their baby cloned so that the child would be deaf. their reason was that they wanted their baby to be just like them.i was too sickened to read it fully so im really scarse on the facts maybe someone else read it??

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 01:50 AM

LOL What a crock, IrishBabe. I too have seen some articles like that: "Baby BORN WITH A WOODEN LEG!"; "ELVIS REBORN!"; "LIFE AFTER DEATH, GUARANTEED!" You sure it wasn't one of those "news"papers? :)

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 02:57 AM

Now if they cloned an axolotl and it could sing like Elvis and dance like Bigfoot...THAT would be news.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: sophocleese
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 08:09 AM

Actually there has been a story about two deaf lesbians who are pleased to have a deaf child. They deliberately chose sperm from a hearing impaired donor in an attempt to have a deaf child. This does raise some interesting issues around what are acceptable characteristics to aim for in your children.

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 08:15 AM

"Earthdoom" by David Langford & John Grant. A comedy/Science fiction/Horror book in which All the standard disaster stories are parodied includes the cloning of so many Hitler types.
We have been warned!

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Peg
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 10:01 AM

The lesbians having a deaf child is indeed true (much to o benign to be in a tabloid). I was mightily offended too; to purposefully give your child a debilitating handicap? Good for them for dealing with their deafness and having fulfilling lives; but to impose this on another human is monstrous in my opinion...what's next? Making sure you get sperm from someone congenitally disposed to schizophrenia? Diabetes? Alcoholism?

Subject: RE: BS: Woman 'pregnant with clone'
From: Wincing Devil
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 03:57 PM

Hmmm....

Remember, a clone is nothing more than a monozygotic (identical) twin. I have 4 friends that are twins (two sets). For each pair, each brother is vastly different from each other in terms of temperment, humor, abilities and so on.

It should also be noted that CC, the Cloned Cat, had different markings than her [mother|source]. We may need a new word here.