"As our circle of supporters has expanded," said Randolfe Wicker, founder of the world's first pro-human cloning activist organization, Clone Rights United Front (CRUF). "We've come to realize that "cloning" is actually just the newest facet of this society's broader debate about "medically assisted reproduction."

Mark Eibert, legal representative for infertile couples planning to challenge California's unconstitutional anti-cloning law, believes that the spokespeoples for the infertility-clinic industry oppose cloning because it would destroy their current financially lucrative industry. Cloning, he says, would be 100% effective while all fertility treatments today combined are less than 50% effective.

Wicker says that "Stop cloning" is the new battle cry of those who want to put restrictions on reproductive medical technology in general. Wicker will appear in the center of a televised debate of The Leeza Show scheduled for broadcast nationally, Monday, January 26, on the NBC network.

The human cloning advocate was flown from CRUF's New York City headquarters to Hollywood to be the featured Leeza Show panelist for a program taped on January 15.

"Human cloning," was the official topic, with replays of news clips showing President Clinton's call for a legal ban on cloning contrasted with scientist Richard Seed's declaration of his intention to clone human beings (without medical peer review) within the next 18 months.

Much of the program, however, focused on fertility-clinic "horror stories" about embryo theft and the financial victimization of infertile couples willing to spend almost anything to have genetically-related children of their own.

Gay aspects of cloning drew special hostility from the viewing audience, according to Wicker. His initial mention of his own homosexuality evoked a muffled negative reaction.

Much later in the program, hostess Leeza Gibbons pointed out that "with cloning, males are no longer necessary."

Wicker elaborated on her comment, referring to Ann Northrop's jocular declaration in her LGNY column and in GayToday that "cloning gives women total control over reproduction. Not only are males no longer necessary—women may not even allow them to reproduce."

While the audience groaned its disapproval, Wicker reports, he disassociated himself from such sentiments, declaring "I'm not a traitor to my gender."

But the crowd was not to be pacified for long, Wicker elaborated, for he proceeded to describe the enthusiastic, intense, positive reactions several single women had evidenced upon learning that by cloning themselves, the child they bore would be both their twin daughter and their identical twin.

"Absolutely! Positively! It's going to happen big time with cloning," Wicker gleefully recalls telling the unhappy throng. "You can't stop it!"

The Leeza Show on Monday, January 26, marks the first major nationally broadcast talk show appearance by Wicker who launched his historic pro-cloning crusade on Badpuppy's GayToday. (See GayToday's continuing series on cloning.)

Fox News Network and others dropped earlier scheduled discussions including Wicker, substituting Princeton's biology professor Lee M. Silver author of Remaking Eden: Cloning Beyond in a Brave New World (Avon Books).

"Silver is a fantastic new voice," Wicker enthuses. "He's pro-cloning. He's brilliant. He's simultaneously level-headed and a mesmerizing prophetic visionary.

"I know 'genius' when I see it," Wicker concluded. "Lee Silver's Remaking Eden is the greatest thing to happen for cloning since the birth of Dolly!"