SA woman 'pregnant with clone'
2004-06-15 07:30
Pretoria - A woman is three months pregnant with a cloned baby, claims the president of Clonaid, a controversial cloning company.
Dr Brigitte Boisselier, who is visiting South Africa, said on Monday the baby would be black and apparently had been cloned from its Pretoria mother's cells.
Boisselier, a petite French biochemist with long blonde hair and large pink earrings, didn't want to divulge how much the parents had paid for the cloning.
"They can tell you that themselves," she said. "It costs about $100 000 (about R657 000) in the United States."
She didn't want to reveal any more, except for the little tidbit that the couple was "fairly peculiar". Their first cloning attempt apparently failed after a couple of days.
Clonaid was founded in 1997 by the Raelian sect. They believe life on Earth was created 25 000 years ago when space scientists cloned themselves to create humans.
This race of space creatures is known as the Elohim.
The Raelians believe the word was mistranslated in the Bible as "God".
Claims first baby was cloned in 2002
Boisselier said on Monday the organisation had cloned 13 babies across the globe.
She showed a picture of a baby girl named Eve, who was allegedly the first cloned baby. Eve now lives in Israel.
Clonaid has submitted no scientific evidence to support their claims.
Boisselier said on Monday they would do so "when the time is ripe".
"We were ready with Eve's birth at the end of 2002, but the parents pulled out, fearing media exposure.
"At this point, I am glad we didn't provide evidence, because I would have gone straight to jail."
It is illegal to clone babies in most countries. Boisselier is awaiting to see if the United Nations will declare cloning a crime against humanity.
She said she was busy "negotiating with a country" for protection if this was the case.
Boisselier said the Pretoria couple were treated outside the country's borders, so no laws were broken in South Africa.
"Meetings with political leaders" were also on her agenda, but nothing to the effect took place. "I don't want to talk about them," she said.