An Italian doctor has announced that he is ready to start offering 
cloning services to infertile couples, where rather than using a sperm 
donor he will clone the father.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/UK/Science/2001-03/clone090301.shtml 

32 responses total.

A publicity stunt, obviously.  It is unlikely that this is an improvement over
normal fertility practices.  It gets your name in the papers, though.

Why is that a publicity stunt? The particular doctor has already 
established that he will go outside of what might be 
considered mainstream medicine, in order to service infertile couples. 
And there is no question but that there's a lot of money in it.

Would he be willing to clone the mother if that is what the couple 
wanted? Leave it to a male doctor to offer to clone the *father* Sheesh. 

  It is Italy, after all..

If the mother had big tits I bet he'd clone her.

Precisely my point.  It's about the money and prestige, not about improving
fertility chances.  

A number of soccer players will probably come up infertile for this guy. 

Can you imagine if this guy cloned George W? We could elect the idiot 
clone of the idiot son of a former President.

re #5: I thought all Italian women were buxom.

re 7: "Can you imagine if this guy cloned George W? We could elect the idiot
 clone of the idiot son of a former President."  You mean as 
opposed to electing a divinity school flunk out (i.e., Gore), Sore
Loserman?

(Did he flunk out, or drop out?  And which school?)

He won't know.  He's just parroting a Republican party line.

In fairness to the Republican Party, I don't recall that it endorsed that
allegation, or others like it.

Cloning the mother instead of the father would eliminate Rh incompatibility
problems and maybe other incompatibility problems.  IF the couple were to get
divorced, would the clonee automatically get to keep the kid?

Gore failed 5 of 8 classes he took.  I don't recall if it was
Harvard or Yale.

(Re #13: It seems that's an issue even without cloning.  There was an article
in today's NY Times about whether men who fail paternity tests should count
as "real" parents in a divorce.)

Any idea which ones?

The ones klg just made up, of course.

Re 15, I think men who fail these tests do not have to pay child support,
which is why they take these tests.  Jim read somewhere that half of the time
that divorcing men insist on the tests being taken, they turn out to be not
the biological father.  There are, of course, men who want to raise these
children anyway - are they still given custody or at least visiting
privileges?  

I like to watch the TV court shows, and while they're more for scandal, they
do have some measure of law in them.  If the male is proven to not be the
biological father, they have no legal obligation to have custody or
visitation.  The legal assumption is that if the child was born during the
course of the marriage, unless otherwise proved, he is the father.  If they
still want visitation, then it's at the discretion of the mother.  

You seem to be saying that the mother is not legally obligated to allow the
children to spend time with the man they grew up with unless he is obligated
to give money to the mother.  This could be hard on the children.  In cases
where a man marries a woman with children and legally adopts them, he is
required to pay child support - hopefully he is also legally allowed to spend
time with them after the mother divorces him, but I doubt that he has an equal
chance of gaining custody even though his legal obligations have increased
due to the obligation.    There is no law that can cover all situations in
a way that is fair to everyone involved, when the adults or at least one of
them persist in being self-centered.  Most adults do seem to care more about
the kids than about hurting the other adult.

  re #19:  I am not a legal scholar, but I am fairly certain that some
  of the statements in #19 are not correct..

According to the New York Times yesterday, most states still base their child
custody laws on the pre DNA testing assumption that paternity was impossible
to prove conclusively.  As such, the "father" they were focusing on, who had
learned several years into "his" kids lives that he wasn't their biological
father, was being required to pay child support because they were born during
his marriage to their mother.  The laws of the state he lives in (I forget
which one, but according to the article it's that way for most states) don't
recognize DNA testing as disproving paternity in that situation.

I suppose this really comes down to a definition of parenthood.  If biology
is all that matters, it makes no sense.  On the other hand, we already
recognize ways of being a parent without being biologically related --
adoption for example.  Should it matter legally if somebody turns out not to
be biologically related to somebody they've been raising as their own kid for
years, especially if their relationship with the mother was such that they
had reason to believe they were the biological father?

re #20: There's one more twist for some such situations - the doctrine 
of "equitable parenthood." That doctrine prevents a wife from disproving
 paternity in the context of divorce, to deny access to the person who 
the children regarded as their father (and who may have been completely 
unaware of his non-paternity). A related concept, equitable estoppel, 
may arise if a mother tries to get a court order of paternity set aside,
 because she doesn't want the person named as the father to have 
continued access to the children.

Adoption puts a parent on equal standing with a biological parent, for 
purposes of parenting time or custody.

re #22: I think it would be more correct to say that courts are 
reluctant to allow a father to disprove paternity in order to avoid 
paying child support, than it is to say that they are not receptive to 
DNA evidence of paternity. A father who does not dispute paternity at 
the time of divorce is likely to be viewed as having waived that issue, 
and thus be unable to initiate a subsequent legal challenge to his 
paternity. Most, if not all, states prefer DNA evidence when they hold 
paternity hearings, to compel a putative father to support his 
illegitimate child.

What parts of what I said were wrong?

As an overview of U.S. law, absolutely nothing. (Insert here the 
standard caveat that laws vary between states, and just because most 
states follow particular legal precepts doesn't mean that your state 
does.)

  I'm pretty sure I can recall cases in which a man who was later proven
  not to be the biological father nevertheless *was* required to pay child
  support.  The statements in #19 are correct more often than not, but they're
  not hard and fast rules..

That's where the standard caveat comes in, Mike.

How can that happen? Depending upon the jurisdiction, in some or all of 
the following ways:

1. The father signs an affidavit of parenthood, without any deception or
 fraudulent inducement, acknowledging his paternity.

2. The mother (or the state on behalf of the mother) brings a paternity 
action, the putative father stipulates to paternity, and an order of 
paternity is entered by the court.

3. The putative father brings a paternity action, the mother does not 
challenge his claim of paternity, and an order of paternity is entered 
by the court.

4. The parties divorce, and the issue of paternity is not raised during 
divorce proceedings.

This item linked to cyberpunk in the hope that y'all will start talking
about clones again as was the subject of #0.

This guy is a complete idiot.
The other time he went to newspaper he inseminates a 65 years old
woman.

luca_

ha ha ha this is being very funn y.

bubba_

meat is gross... and id like a clone... he'd go become an IT professional
while i go skating everyday..
yup..
that'd be pretty damned great i think.

sounds more like you want a slave

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