Monday, August 14, 2006
Cloning Commentary in Song
BY R. ALTA CHARO
GUEST COMMENTATOR

Editor’s note: The recent reappearance of controversial reproductive scientist Panos Zavos, notorious for his attempts to clone human embryos for reproductive purposes,  prompted R. Alta Charo, the Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, to stage a comeback and reclaim her position as a leading bioethicist-songwriter on the national stage. Here we reprint her PanosZavosAntinoriBrigitteBoisselier, originally written in response to a 2001 investigatory hearing at the National Academy of Sciences and now equally apropos.

For more commentary on human reproductive cloning, please see “Wars of Petition” by Professor Charo in the May–June 2002 issue of the Hastings Center Report and Hastings Center President Thomas Murray’s 2002 commentary on human reproductive cloning on NPR’s Morning Edition.

**

To be sung to the tune of Supercalifragilisticexpealodocious.

N.B. (1) For the meter to work you must say Bwa-suh-lee-yay for Boisselier. (2) You have to remember that Boisselier's group — the Raelians — believes we are the cloned descendants of aliens.

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay

PanosZavosAntinoriBrigitteBoisselier!
Even though the three of them
Will never do what they say
If they shout it loud enough
The press will have a field day
PanosZavosAntinoriBrigitteBoisselier!

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay

Alas they are a bunch of kooks
Who only want a show
And think that they can live forever
On a UFO
But when one day they learned about
A sheep that had been cloned
The biggest hoax of modern times
Was what they then proposed!
Oh, PanosZavosAntinoriBrigitteBoisselier!

Even though the three of them
Will never do what they say
If they shout it loud enough
The press will have a field day
PanosZavosAntinoriBrigitteBoisselier!

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay

So when the news has gotten slow
A way out of your plight
Is summon up these three
And then you've got a lot to write
But better use them carefully
Or it may change your life
I'm working now at Weekly World
No Pulitzer in sight!

Oh, PanosZavosAntinoriBrigitteBoisselier!
PanosZavosAntinoriBrigitteBoisselier!
PanosZavosAntinoriBrigitteBoisselier!
PanosZavosAntinoriBrigitteBoisselier!

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