Richard Seed, a physicist with a Phd from Harvard University has had a life full of great achievements and controversy. In the 1970′s he founded a company that put efforts towards the transference of cow embryos. He later co-founded Fertility & Genetics Research Inc. with his brother Randolph Seed, a surgeon based in Chicago. The goal of Fertility & Genetics Research Inc. was similar to Richard’s former company, only this time the practice would take place with a healthy inseminated woman (inseminated a few days prior) to a infertile surrogate woman, this resulted in a healthy child birth reported by The Journal of the American Medical Association (vol 251, p 889) . The practice soon hit the wayside as competing fertility treatments took a superior role such as In-vitro fertilization.
In the 1990′s Richard declared to the world his goal to create human clones, mass hysteria and outrage followed sue, so much so that President Clinton acknowledged him and shorty after urged congress to impose a five-year moratorium on the practice. Richard reaffirmed his goals after shrugging off Clinton’s remarks, announcing that he would take the operation off shore to Tijuana if congress banned the practice. Richard later told the press that he had a support from infertile couples and that with in 2 years an operation would be underway. He claimed to have enough money to start the project but was in need of an extra 2 million to complete it. It was later reported that he had acquired a team of scientists to do the job before congress passed any laws banning the practice, Richard said that they had 8 volunteers ready for testing. No announcement has been made on the status of the purported claim.
In 1998 Seed made claims that he would clone himself saying that Gloria, his wife, agreed to carry an embryo of a donor egg that would be combined with the nucleus of one of his cells. Despite Gloria being ”post-menopausal”, claimed by Seed, he refused to talk any further about how the pregnancy would take place. “I have decided to clone myself first to defuse the criticism that I’m taking advantage of desperate women with a procedure that’s not proven” he claimed after widespread criticism after his statement on making baby clones for infertile couples.
In 2001, at a scientific forum in Rome guided discuss the ethical concerns of cloning, Seed made another controversial claim saying that he wanted to clone his wife.
Here are some more quotes to understand where Mr. Seed is coming from:
- ”God intended for man to become one with God. Cloning, is the first serious step in becoming one with God.”
- ”Man,” he said, “will develop the technology and the science and the capability to have an indefinite life span.”