The Raelians are a truly weird cult, that is for sure, and the fact they are claiming to have produced the world’s first cloned human is hardly going to calm feelings about the technology. However even if their contention to have done so is true (not surprisingly I am disinclined to just take the word of a group which claims humans are the descendents of bio-engineered clones created by space aliens), I must say that I find it hard to get all that excited about the whole matter.
Although I do have worries that the technology and underpinning science is sufficiently immature that there is cause for concern for the health of a cloned child, the principle itself does not bother me at all… a child is a child is a child, and the manner of its creation does not give it any less worth or intrinsic rights.
However the issue of how to assign paternal and maternal responsibility for the child is, of course, going to keep a small army of lawyers busy for quite a while! I would be quite interested to see what people’s views are as to “who is left holding the baby”, if you will forgive the expression 
My only concern about this is that there might be some health problems with the child. Cloned animals have had health problems, and it’s highly irresponsible to subject a child to this potential harm when tests can just as easily be done on animals.
(1) humans are not entirely equivalent to other animals, cloning techniques don’t work entirely the same, results and success may differ.
(2) by doing an end run around the various governments, these loonies may have done us all a favor. They’ve shown that regulation is futile, and also it will be harder to argue for bans from sheer revulsion when the cloners can retaliate by showing a cute kid and saying “would you wish her dead?”
I think the opposite danger is greater: that the cloning, done prematurely, without rigorous scientific methods, will result in some disaster or monstruosity, that will give cloning a bad reputation.
Well, the reasons that I’ve seen posited for why the cloned animals have health problems are common to all mammals, notably humans. Humans are, in fact, very similar to sheep and mice at a cellular level, and the problems were at a cellular level: the animals aged quickly.
I think Jacob is probably right–in ten years, the child might have the body of a 40-year old. That would give cloning a bad name.
I find it a chilling commentary on our “culture” that amid the outraged bellowing about this “cloning” claptrap, Channel 4 is defending its screening of a cannibal (whom it calls a “performance artist”) eating a dead baby.