Global Village Idiot by John O'Farrell

Author:John O'Farrell [John O’Farrell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2013-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Clone-age man

2 August 2000

THIS WEEK THE government gave the go-ahead for the cloning of human embryos. To illustrate this story the newspapers published the magnified image of a fertilized cell, prompting a flurry of calls from Downing Street to check that it wasn’t an intrusively early photo of Leo Blair. The decision was announced by science minister Lord Sainsbury, and after a quick glance over the press release, journalists carelessly dashed off the surprising story ‘Sainsbury’s to make human embryos available’.

This was an announcement that has been coming ever since the birth of Dolly the Sheep. Dolly, as the first sheep clone, caused a media sensation a few years back, but has since rather failed to keep hold of the public’s attention. She’s just sacked her publicity manager and is planning a relaunch once she gets out of the Betty Ford Clinic. As soon as the concept of cloning human embryos was given the green light, the church-going conservatives started foaming at the mouth, while the producers of the Moral Maze simply passed out with the excitement.

Opponents of these developments warn of a nightmare world in which whole groups of people would be exactly the same. It’s almost impossible to imagine – benches of Conservative MPs where they are all identical merchant bankers in their forties. WI meetings where the women are indistinguishable and hold exactly the same views. Squaddies who all have the same physique, tattoos and moustaches. It doesn’t bear thinking about. ‘God in his wisdom made each of us totally unique,’ said every single religious leader last week.

In the 1970s film The Boys from Brazil, it transpires that Nazi scientists have cloned a whole batch of young Adolf Hitlers whom they’re grooming to become the new führers to take over the entire world or, failing that, the Lambeth Parking Permits office. The film was a sombre warning as to how science can go badly wrong, causing people to talk in unconvincing German accents and grow bizarre wonky moustaches. But who else might be recreated now that this technology is genuinely available? ‘The Girls from Grantham’ has a chilling ring to it. Perhaps in our lifetime we will be able to visit a historical theme park where cloned figures from history will show us round the attractions. ‘Welcome to the Gettysburg Experience!’ the clone of Abe Lincoln will say. ‘No photos please; if you want any souvenirs just ask Genghis Khan there in our gift shop.’ Perhaps Marilyn Monroe will be on the till, if she’s not locked in the storeroom with the clone of John F. Kennedy.

Of course any talk of the imminent cloning of humans to follow in the footsteps of Dolly the Sheep is scaremongering, and the cloning of humans remains illegal. The biologists making these breakthroughs are motivated only by a desire to save human lives. Many of them feel they have been misrepresented in the media, though when I phoned one of them about this, his assistant Igor said the master was busy up on the roof with the lightning conductor.

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