A scientist whose plan to clone human beings has been denounced by many, including President Clinton, says he is undeterred and takes comfort in the support he has been receiving from infertile couples.
Dr. Richard Seed, a physicist from Chicago, said he would proceed with his project out of the country if necessary but acknowledged that he needs $2 million to complete it."I have been enormously encouraged in just one day by calls I have received from infertile couples who are in tears," Seed said on "Fox News Sunday." "They tell me things like `don't let them stop you.' '
He reiterated that he intends to clone a child within the next two years. He said he would move his enterprise to Tijuana, Mexico, if Congress bans human cloning in the United States.
"My target is to have a two-month pregnancy in a year and a half," Seed said. "It's not a difficult project."
Arrayed against him in the United States are scientists, ethicists and public officials such as Clinton who oppose human cloning and say they will work aggressively to block his experiments.
"Dr. Seed will not do human cloning in this country," Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala vowed on CBS' "Face the Nation."
After Scottish scientists cloned the adult sheep Dolly last winter, Clinton sent Congress a bill that would ban for at least five years the use of similar procedures to replicate human beings.
In his weekly radio address Saturday, the president denounced Seed's plan and called on Congress to pass the measure swiftly, and lawmakers said the push is on.
"I think (human cloning) is a nasty business, something that we should not be messing in," House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, said on "Fox News Sunday." "We already have that legislation before the House. And even last week, I made the point that we are going to move that ban."
Seed's endeavor would involve removing DNA from a woman's egg and replacing it with genetic material from the person being cloned. The embryo would then be placed into the woman.
Many scientists and officials involved with science have expressed grave reservations about both the safety and the ethics of human cloning.
"There are concerns about the freedom and autonomy of the child that arises. There are concerns about treating children as objects rather than as cherished beings," Ezekiel Emanuel of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission said on Fox.
Others including Shalala, who said the term "mad scientist" came to mind as she listened to Seed, have cast serious doubt on the physicist's qualifications to undertake such a project.
"I'm not even sure whether he is taking himself seriously," Dr. Thomas Murray, director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Case Western Reserve University, said on CBS.
"The fact is he doesn't have any of the abilities to do these procedures - he's a physicist, not a physician, and by no means an expert in embryology or infertility treatment."
Seed, who has a doctorate from Harvard, is unaffiliated with any institution. He said he has enough money to start his project but lacks the $2 million he estimates he will need to complete it.