The Honorable James C. Greenwood, Chairman
Subcommittee on Oversights & Investigations
U. S. House of Representatives
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
March 22, 2001


Dear Chairman Greenwood:

      Who am I and why do I support human cloning?

      I am a successful attorney, a former State Legislator, a current elected official, a husband, a son, a brother, but most importantly, I am a father. At the age of thirty-eight I was blessed with a perfect baby boy. My wife and I were not expecting this miracle; as a matter of fact, I never even considered having children. The day our son was born was both the happiest and saddest day of my life. When I looked into our son's eyes for the first time, my heart melted, and I knew that he and I were one, and that I would never be the same; I would be better and happier than I ever had been in my life. Then the doctor informed us that our child had a rare and random heart defect that would require open heart surgery during the first year of his life. We were so very concerned and so very sad and worried that our child would have to undergo such an invasive procedure.

      Our son grew and became a very beautiful and seemingly healthy child. He had the deepest blue eyes; when you looked into them it seemed like you could see eternity. He always had a smile on his face that stretched from cheek to cheek, with not a single tooth. When I would come home at the end of the day, he would see me and stand up in his little support chair and look up at me with that smile and those blue eyes and reach as if to say "Daddy, pick me up;" I always did and in my heart I always will. Even though the only word he ever spoke was "dada."

      When our son was ten and one-half months old my wife and I took our angel to a children's hospital to have his heart repaired. The doctors told us he had a ninety-four percent chance of full recovery. After seventeen days of misery and struggle, with my wife and me, our family and friends, sleeping on the floor beside our child, praying, crying, our hearts and souls dying, our sweet baby succumbed to the insult on his body and we lost him.

      We didn't know what to do and I could not accept that it was over for our child, and we wished that for the first time in human history I/we didn't have to accept death as the end.

      I hoped and prayed that my son would be the first to bridge the great gulf of death; I could do no less for him. He deserves a chance to live, to grow, to learn, to walk, to talk, to go to school, to listen to music, to drive a car, to make a difference in this world; all these things he would never have the chance to do if this were the end, because of the failure of a heart operation with a ninety-four percent success rate. How could this be, how could a father accept this outcome?

      I decided then and there that I would never give up on my child. I would never stop until I could give his DNA - his genetic make-up a chance. I knew that we only had one chance: human cloning. To create a healthy duplicate, a twin, of our son. I set out to make it happen. We saved the appropriate cells from his body, I studied and read and traveled and wrote letters and called scientists all over the world, sparing no expense or commitment to our child.

      Finally, I met a very kind and brilliant woman in Albany, New York, Dr. Brigitte Boisselier. I knew from our first meeting that together we could change the world. Together we could make death no longer the grim specter that it is today. That through cloning we could help humanity live longer and healthier lives, and no longer would we have to fear death as the end of all things, and for us, cloning is the second chance at life that our son deserves, that all ten and one-half month old babies deserve.

      I must withhold my identity until after the project is successful. However, our commitment to human cloning and to duplicating our child is unlimited, whether in the United States or abroad, we will never quit or give up on our child. Hopefully one day we can all celebrate our family and friends, my wife and our son, Dr. Boisselier and the brave new world.


      Until then, I am
      Respectfully,

      A father, (Dada)

　(796 words)