US law only prevents federal funds being used for human cloning. Don Ralbovsky, a spokesman at the National Institute of Health, a government research body, confirmed that there was no law to prevent a privately funded venture. In theory, the Food and Drug Administration has the authority to regulate any attempt at human cloning, but that authority has yet to be tested in court. In fact, the more fanatical the organisation the more likely it is to succeed. In view of the high failure rate among cloned embryos, any cloning attempt would require a large number of women volunteers to carry embryos in their wombs in the hope that at least one would succeed.
Volunteers are apparently plentiful.
Hundreds of people have signed to be cloned with Clonaid, the company founded by the Raelians. American scientists say they, too, get many requests from people who want to copy themselves or their loved ones. I have no doubt it will happen very soon. In Montreal last month, Rael appeared with five women, who he said had volunteered to carry cloned human embryos in their wombs. He said his group had 50 willing surrogates.