Randolfe Wicker, cloning's cutting-edge gay champion--Public Relations Director for the world's first pro-human cloning activist organization (Clone Rights United Front, 506 Hudson Street, New York, N.Y. 10014)-- gave testimony before a U.S. Congressional hearing on cloning, advocating the cloning of human beings. This was the first time that such pro-human-cloning testimony had been heard in the halls of Congress.

With less than 24 hours notice, both Wicker and California Attorney Mark Eibert, a legal advocate for infertile couples filed complimentary, mutually-supportive testimony to be included in the official hearing records. Mr. Eibert's brief is titled Human Cloning, Infertility, and Reproductive Freedom.

Wicker appeared personally as a member of the last of five panels of expert witnesses testifying at the day-long hearing held in the House of Representatives, Rayburn Building.

The first panel was made up of the Majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives and two colleagues. The second panel was comprised of three clergymen. A third panel consisted of only one individual, a doctor, while the fourth panel hosted five members of the academic community.

The fifth panel, on which Randolfe Wicker sat, included a former Dean of the Stanford Medical School, the CEO of the National Organization for Rare Disorders, Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation International, and the Executive Director of the Alliance for Aging Research.

The hearings were videotaped and began showing at 12 a.m. this morning. A C-Span- 2 cameraman predicted the hearings would also be shown in their entirety not only early this morning on C-Span-2, but at least twice during the weekend. C-Span radio broadcast the hearings live.

Before elaborating on a summary of his testimony distributed to the Committee members, Wicker expressed a "special appreciation" for being given the opportunity to appear.

"The opinions we represent," Wicker assured the Congressmen, "rarely get a hearing, especially in halls such as these."

GayToday's recent news story (" 'Ban Human Cloning' Cry Erupts in U.S. Senate," Gay Today archives, World features, February 11) was attached to each summary distributed to the committee members and the press.

Immediately after reading the "Clone Bill of Rights" Wicker took pains to note that he and two others who supported human cloning opposed both the Feinstein-Kennedy Democratic bill and the Frist-Bond Republican bill.

"I want to emphasize that my statements making a choice in favor of the Feinstein bill was the choice of 'the lesser evil' Wicker declared. "It was the least destructive to scientific research. But otherwise, from our point of view, it's life choosing death by lethal injection a-la-Feinstein, over choosing death by fire a-la-Frist."

Wicker told GayToday that "we have been sharply criticized by several supporters for the 'accomodationist' statements which were included in the February 11 GayToday article."

Wicker elaborated at length on the possibility human cloning technology will "eliminate all human infertility."

"Infertile couples are the people who are the main constituency for this movement," Wicker told GayToday.

He explained how, as a gay male, he'd experienced empathy for such couples.

"It's been a learning and growth experience for me," he said, "to see the fashion in which they are exploited and milked: $20,000 per try, 19.68% chance—after 5 tries only 46% chance of success. Infertile couples today can spend $100,000 and still have less than a 50-50 chance of success.

"Fertility doctors are the highest paid among all physicians. Some of our members feel they oppose cloning for economic reasons.

"The only credible argument made by The President's National Bio-ethics Advisory Commission was that cloning is now dangerous yet intro-vitro fertilization and fertility drugs are legal although they create higher risks of miscarriages, multiple births and associated birth defects. The decision is left up to the patient.

"In effect, outlawing cloning denies scientists their freedom of inquiry as well as denying patients their freedom to decide how much risk they're willing to take.

"Nobel Prize winners recommend that the FDA regulate human cloning. It seems only rational to me to allow scientists to regulate science and let the theologians run their churches."

Wicker also said that 'There are some lesbian couples among the supporters of cloning. Also single women of all orientations who want to clone themselves."

Wicker compared the "personal pain and frustration" he'd experienced as a gay male who'd always wanted a family to that experienced by infertile couples longing for similar familial ties.

"We gay folks just have a lot easier time of it," he noted. "Our whole social gay community consists of peers equally incapable of reproducing.

"Infertile heterosexual couples are surrounded by a world in which their peers are having families. And often they're wondering why they're not having them, and they suffer alone, frequently hiding their infertility like we frequently choose to hide our gayness.

"They only find true mutual support in groups like Resolve, an organization created for exactly that purpose.

"I'm so happy to be part of this movement," Wicker exulted, "which will ultimately enable everyone who so desires, to have children of their own, children genetically related to themselves.

In an earlier interview with GayToday Wicker had proclaimed, "Heterosexuality's monopoly on reproduction is now obsolete."