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[ folluw-ups naar nl.eeuwig.september s.v.p. ]


---------- Doorgestuurd bericht ----------
Date: Tue, 10 JUN 1997 17:55:39 +0200 (MET DST) 
From: FoXoF <foxof@dds.nl>
Newgroups: nl.eeuwig.september
Subject: Clonaid {De Raeliaanse Beweging} 



"Imagine the joy of a widow raising a child looking like her beloved
deceased husband." - Dr. Brigitte Boisslier, scientific director, CLONAID



                                   CLONAID

Overgenomen (in mei) van Reuters. Vandaag stond er wat over in de 
Volkskrant. De journalist Bart Dirks vergat te vermelden dat ie alles 
van de site http://www.clonaid.com had overgeschreven. Ach ja, journalisten.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Global Religious Cult Offers Cloning
                       Services 


     GENEVA, June 8  - A Swiss-based religious
     cult is launching a company to offer infertile or homosexual
     couples the chance to have a child cloned from one of them --
     and to help mankind reach "eternal life," it became known
     Sunday. 

     The company, called
     Valiant Venture Ltd., is
     centered in the Bahamas
     and was launched by the
     leader of the worldwide
     Raelian Movement and a
     group of investors and the
     service is to be called "Clonaid," according to an announcement
     on the Internet. 

     Valiant Venture, expecting to have over a million customers,
     "plans to build a laboratory in a country where human cloning is
     not illegal and will offer its services to wealthy parents
     worldwide," the undated announcement said. 

            "Insuraclone" -- For Only $50,000 

     The company would also offer another service known as
     "Insuraclone" which for $50,000 would provide safe storage of
     cells from a living child or any other "beloved person" to allow
     for creation of a clone in case of death. 

     The Raelian Movement, which asserts that life on earth was
     created in laboratories by extra-terrestrials known as the Elohim,
     was launched in the 1970s by a Frenchman who calls himself
     Rael and says he was contacted by the Elohim. 

     It claims to have some 35,000 members in 85 countries, with
     regional centers in Montreal for the Americas, Abidjan for Africa
     and Tokyo for Asia, with its overall headquarters in Geneva,
     according to its own Internet site. 

     The site provides a postbox address, but it is not listed in the
     Geneva telephone book and telephone operators said they had
     no number for it. But Rael frequently addresses public
     conferences in the international city. 

           Initial Cloning Work To Be Done By
                     Subcontractors 

     The Internet page advertising the new company said Clonaid
     services would be offered at a charge "as low as $200,000."
     The company would initially sub-contract existing laboratories to
     carry out the cloning operations. 

     "The company may also sponsor American laboratories working
     on human cloning and whose government subsidies have been
     cut by President Clinton," said the announcement, headed: "Rael
     creates the first human cloning company." 

     The page offered potential customers a telephone and a fax
     number in Montreal, Canada for biologist Marc Rivard. 

      U.S. Legislators Want Human Cloning Banned 

     Saturday, a U.S., bioethics panel recommended that Congress
     enact legislation to ban the cloning of entire human beings for
     now but allow the cloning of human embryos for private scientific
     research. 

     Earlier this year, Clinton extended a 1994 prohibition on
     government-funded human embryo research to include federal
     funding of human cloning work. 

     Other countries have banned, or are preparing to ban or
     severely restrict, cloning research on human embryos following a
     wave of concern after a Scottish scientist announced earlier this
     year he had successfully cloned a sheep. 

     Attention to the Raelian announcement was drawn Sunday by
     the Zurich German-language newspaper Sonntagszeitung, which
     quoted Swiss parliamentarians -- about to discuss a bill on
     cloning -- as expressing outrage at Clonaid. 

      Swiss Parliamentarians Call Offer "Monstrous" 

     "The offer is monstrous," it quoted Monika Weber, a Zurich
     member of the upper house of the Swiss legislature in Berne as
     saying. It also cited a Swiss expert on sects, Hugo Stamm, as
     saying members of the Raelian movement "have money." 

     In a comment accompanying the announcement on the Internet
     page, Rael said "cloning will enable mankind to reach eternal
     life," adding: "The next step....will be to directly clone an adult
     person without having to go through the growth process and to
     transfer memory and personality in this person." 

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