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WIRED Magazine: February 2001, Cover Story: Someone Will Clone a Human in the Next 12 Months A Real-Time Story of Breakthrough Science, Renegade Labs and Desperate Souls Review by Jack Nichols
Brian Alexander, a reporter for Wired Magazine, traversed North America seeking out those working with cloning technology. Unencumbered by popular preconceptions and ethical prejudices, Alexander only uses pseudonyms for the molecular biologist who wants to establish a cloning clinic in Asia ( “The Creator”)and for the wealthy grieving father who wants to clone his deceased teenage son (“the Client”) to get his report going. From that point onward, a 10,000 word fact-filled text fleshed out with color photos tells the real-time real-life experiences of fertility doctors besieged by those seeking cloning, of grieving parents holding on to “that special DNA” that comprises the last living cells of lost children, of specialists in animal cloning who have seen their own misgivings about cloning animals fade away as it becomes an every day practice. Indeed, even those opposed to the cloning of humans agree among themselves that it is inevitable. Most believe human cloning has already occurred. Some believe it has been done intentionally by one of the thousands of skilled enabled technicians. Others suspect it has happened accidentally during complicated fertility treatments. A unique aspect of the Wired “You again” (You) 2” coverage was the full page photo and full page of text devoted to the Human Cloning Foundation and its well known co-founder, CEO and public spokesperson, Randolfe H. Wicker.
The description of Wicker continues, painting him as a sort of on-line "Dear Abby" of the Internet. Regardless of the problem—be it a dream of creating a half-woman -half-fox. mate for a fur fetish or offering comfort to a male who has lost his penis and dreams of cloning a new one, Wicker always answers with empathy. “No request goes unanswered, no story receives an unsympathetic response.” Alexander explains, then goes on to describe Wicker's vision of multiple cloned identical twins creating a new type of social relationship. “Wicker's bizarre vision reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick.” Alexander notes.. “The novel's main character wins the presidency by running on the slogan 'Lonesome No More!'. He proposes to banish loneliness by giving everybody a host of designated relatives. While it may sound crazy, Wicker's quest is driven partly by what many of us crave, family” Alexander describes those whom a renowned gay activist counsels: an infertile woman who has exhausted her finances and finds her marriage endangered after ten unsuccessful fertility treatments; an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Rabbi living in a Hasidic enclave in upstate New York; a 42-year-old woman who has discovered that she is unable to conceive another and wonders about the effects and possibility of cloning her six year old daughter; the distraught parents of “the Perfect Person” whose name was Jesse and who died at the age of eighteen..
Finally, Alexander describes “DNA microarray” technology, which will ultimately “end the guesswork--cloning cows, pigs, or people will be more efficient than natural reproduction.” In an interview published in Heterodoxy Magazine and later quoted in Playboy, Randolfe Wicker declared,: “Heterosexuality's historic monopoly on reproduction is now obsolete!” Wired Magazine's stunning documentation apparently shows that an early figure in the struggle for equal civil rights for homosexuals, Randolfe Wicker, despite being 63 years old and having “thinning gray hair and slightly sad blue eyes”, still has that indefinable “power of vision” and the ability to make the world a better place for all. |
For the first time, the simple facts about cloning a human being have appeared in a major respected publication.
Gay activist Randolfe Wicker featured in Wired 
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