A baby said to be the first human clone has gone home with her mother, according to a cloning company linked to a sect that believes space aliens created life on Earth.
The baby, nicknamed “Eve,” went home Monday, said Clonaid spokeswoman Nadine Gary. The company has refused to say where her home is, or where Eve was born last Thursday. The unidentified mother is a 31-year-old American, Clonaid officials said at a news conference last week in Hollywood, Fla.
A lawyer in Florida, meanwhile, asked a judge Tuesday to appoint a guardian for the baby, saying that Clonaid is trying to commercially exploit the child and that she needs specialized medical treatment.
In documents filed in Broward County Circuit Court, attorney Bernard F. Siegel said that if the judge determines the baby is in danger, she should be turned over to state care. Siegel admits in the documents that he does not know if the baby is in Florida, but argued that the court has jurisdiction because Clonaid held its news conference in the state last week. No hearing date has been set.
Siegel, a sports and entertainment lawyer in Miami, said he had “no particular ax to grind,” and was trying to act in the child’s best interest. In 1999, Siegel started a Web site to draft Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura to run for president.
Clonaid did not immediately returned a call seeking comment.
DNA samples are to be taken soon from the baby and the mother for testing to show whether Eve is a clone of the woman.
Clonaid, which declines to reveal where its facilities are, was founded in the Bahamas in 1997 by the man who founded the Raelian religious sect. The man, Rael, says he learned about the origin of life on Earth from a visitor from outer space. He says he views cloning as a step toward reaching eternal life.
Clonaid retains philosophical but not economic ties to the Raelians, the company says.
Meanwhile, South Korean prosecutors are reportedly trying to verify reports that Clonaid officials impregnated a South Korean woman with a cloned human embryo and moved her out of the country in July.
The prosecutors recently seized documents and research data from a South Korea (news – web sites) biotech company that reportedly helped Clonaid with the impregnation, the national Yonhap news agency said.
Prosecution officials quoted by Yonhap did not identify the country where the South Korean woman was thought to have gone.
By The Associated Press
