Rod Serling is definitely rolling in his graveright now. His fanciful and frightening tales of "The Twilight Zone" are no longer being broadcast on television. Indeed, they need not be; we are living one of his bizarre stories now. "It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition. And it lies between the pit of man's fear and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is the area we call the Twilight Zone." Tonight's episode is poignantly yet unoriginally called "Attack of the Clones."
The date was Dec. 26, 2002. Another healthy child was born in America. However, this baby is different -- much different: she is a clone. Baby Eve will be an exact copy of her mother, down to the nucleotide. She is not the product of a recipe from the cookbook of Craig Venter, nor is she the lost piece of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. No, Eve is the first carbon copy child of the Raelians. And there will be more.
Who are these Raelians fiends? The Raelian cult is an organization that claims science-oriented extraterrestrials created all life on earth some 25,000 years ago. The religious cult formed in 1973, when aliens allegedly contacted a Monsieur Rael and informed him of their purpose. They avidly believe these aliens are benevolent creators who only want "to serve man" by establishing embassies all over the world and educating people. The purpose of their religion is to "catalyze a society adapted for the future."
Conventional religion can be easily explained by Raelians. Jesus was a test-tube baby of the aliens. As was Moses, Buddha and Mohammed. Remember the resurrection of Christ? A mere cloning technique devised by the aliens. Bogus? Perhaps. Stupid? Definitely. As goofy as the Raelian's version of world history seems, I didn't have a problem with them. That is, until they decided to delve into high stakes world of biotechnology.
Cults and biotechnology just don't mix. That's what I learned in kindergarten. The Raelians set up a biotech company cleverly named Clonaid. This company, established in the Bahamas in 1997, researches cloning technology and offers its clientele (whomever that may be) a slew of chimerical services ranging from Clonapet to Ovulaid and Insuraclone. Duplicate dogs, copy cats and save your eggs for future generations -- it's all available now from Clonaid! But this company doesn't stop here. The Raelians now claim Clonaid has successfully made a human clone. What are their intentions? Surely it's not hormonally-driven, like Gary and Wyatt's cloning foray in "Weird Science;" when the duo created the hot babe Lisa. The Raelians, on the other hand, use science as a springboard for their own twisted ideology. They believe cloning will usher in an age of immortality. They are the eugenicists of the twenty-first century.
Not only have the Raelians claimed to have successfully cloned Eve, they have also announced that a lesbian couple in the Netherlands recently had a cloned baby. Three more clones are expected this January. It's disgusting how these people are manipulating the media with these gross claims. It's downright terrifying if they are telling the truth. The Raelians, who are self-proclaimed scientists, have recently recanted on their offer to allow an independent test of Eve's DNA. They say such tests are not in the best interest of the child. Call me old-fashioned, but I think creating the child in a Petri dish, playing Russian roulette with her gene pool and subjecting her to a life of ridicule and unknown hardship is not in the child's best interest. Real science is not based on cockamamie and unsubstantiated claims. It is pursued through empirical data and hard facts. The Raelians have provided the public no facts but plenty of fluff. They are hypocrites -- add that to the long list of character flaws.
Whether or not Eve is an actual clone is meaningless, though I truly hope she is not. Society needs to fully reject groups that disrespect human life. The Raelians are trampling on what's left of our morals and religious ethos. Although our government is firmly against human cloning for any reason, we need to put pressure on the rest of the world to outlaw human cloning. The European Union is still stumbling over their own stance on cloning. Other countries have no laws pertaining to the issue. Alas, even Mother Nature is trying to warn us. Out of 227 sheep embryo, only one, Dolly, survived. Of the others, many were grossly disfigured and some lacked limbs. Why would we want to subject any human to such torment? Why have we left one of the most pivotal issues in the history of humanity in the hands of crackpot lunatics? We have to retake the helm of our own humanity before we find out how this episode of "The Twilight Zone" ends.
