A (Norwegian) Clone is Born

After these past two days, we pick up where we left off with Donkey Boy:

Translation, emphases, and [snark] mine.

Kristin G. Andresen ordered several clones of her horse. Now the clone of Donkey Boy is here.

By Maren Kvamme Hagen, NRK.no, 23 April 2026 [source; archived]

Last year, NRK followed Kristin G. Andresen to the American cloning clinic Viagen. Andresen, who is married to billionaire Johan H. Andresen, Jr., had ordered several clones of her favourite horse, Donkey Boy.

Now a clone has been born in the USA, Andresen tells NRK. After a long wait, she recently received a photo from the company Viagen, which showed that the clone had stood up and started drinking breast milk [that’s all one gets, apparently, no birth certificate, DNA testing incl., or the like: a photograph—but you gotta trust them, too]:

I was so happy when I saw that the clone was well-shaped and looked like Donkey Boy. I can’t wait to meet him.

And she has a name ready:

He will be called Donkey Double.

When asked if there are more clones on the way, Andresen points out that the clinic mentioned that ‘mares’ in the plural were ready to give birth. She doesn’t even know how many she’s talking about [well, perhaps she’s senile, perhaps she’s pretending—but last year, we learned that ‘three pregnancies have been confirmed’, sayeth ViaGen’s Blake Russell, and while I’m sure it’s possible Ms. Andresen doesn’t know, there may be more]:

Here, it’s just crossing your fingers and everything you have. And hoping that there might be one or two more, because I would have thought that would be really fun [yeah, rich people fun™, I suppose, is to clone majestic animals, such as horses, to make their otherwise boring life a tad more … exciting].

After the visit to the US, Andresen ordered another pool of embryo transfers [unsure if that’s illegal in the US, probably not, but it’s illegal in Norway—but, hey, if the state broadcaster rah-ports™ it like this, guess what’s next …].

ViaGen confirms to NRK that this is the first Donkey Boy clone, but that they hope for more.

When NRK visited the clinic last year, three mares were pregnant with Donkey Boy clones. Andresen got to meet one of them [ah, look, the NRK journo™ remembers her piece, too].

ViaGen CEO Blake Russell states that this mare lost her feeling during the journey, and that the clone that has now been born comes from another mare [so, there may be ‘just’ one more currently in the works, I suppose].

He told NRK last year that he could not guarantee that all the clones would be born, and that they would lose a little more than during a normal pregnancy [meaning that while ViaGen successfully turned even mammalian reproduction into a throw-away commodity, this is all fine and dandy because, apparently, no-one gives a shit].

Although cloning is banned in Norway, Norwegians can freely travel abroad and clone their animals.

To the best of NRK’s ​​knowledge, Andresen is the first Norwegian to be allowed to clone a horse. But there is no way to know for sure, since there is no obligation to register a clone when importing it to Norway [are such clones ‘fit’ in terms of: can they reproduce?].

She herself is not that keen on being the first:

I am most keen on the clone being healthy and whole.

[here follows an infobox] Cloning of Animals

Cloning means making a genetic copy of an individual.

The clones were created by taking eggs from mares, emptying them of DNA and filling them with Donkey Boy’s DNA, before the embryos were inserted into surrogate mares that carried the clones for eleven months.

Unlike a normal horse with two parents, they only carry the genes of one animal—Donkey Boy [unsure if this is true, for the horse’s sperm was used to fertilise an egg].

Many people are concerned about species diversity and animal welfare related to cloning [or stuff™ related to discarding unwanted excess copies, perhaps?].

Cloning is banned in Norway, but there is no ban on ordering clones abroad and bringing them into the country [hey, what’s the carbon footprint of this entire undertaking?; end of the infobox]

When NRK reported on the cloning of Donkey Boy last year, Centre Party leader Trygve Slagsvold Vedum stated that an import ban on clones should be considered, if the scale of the issue increases [note the Climatology™ parallel mentioned in the infobox: if stuff™ outside one jurisdiction becomes an issue, let’s all ban shit here to save the world or whatever; note that Mr. Vedum appears the sanest of Norway’s politicos™, but that’s not saying much].

Kristin G. Andresen is not concerned about an import ban [of course, for she’d bring in the clones before this ever becomes an issue; in addition, she’s a billionaire’s wife and for her ilk, other rules™ apply]. She points out that the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses has opened the door for breeding associations to register clones with them [so far to prevent fraud as high-profile race horses are very expensive].

You can compete with clones in many shows and competitions. The clones are judged individually, and if they are good enough, they are allowed to start. So this just shows that Norwegian politicians are not up to date with what is happening in the world.

She plans to visit the clone soon, and then the plan is to bring him home to Norway next year, where he will meet the original Donkey Boy.

Apparently, it is now kinda commercially viable to clone™ a quite complex mammal, that is, if by cloning is meant: IVF of a donor’s egg with sperm. So far, nothing out of the ordinary in terms of technology, it would appear.

Yet, we’re inching closer and closer towards Blade Runner territory here.

Why the registration of clones with whatever sports™ federation? My best guess is to at least acknowledge the potential massive fraud involved in the horse-trading of prize stallions and the like; here, the parallels to the modern art market™ are obvious: if you or I use duct tape and a banana, it’s worthless; if some deranged gazilllionaire pays several millions of dollars for a banana, it’s, of course, money laundering.

Next up, issues related to jurisdiction and enforcement, for it’s obvious that some people are more equal than others. Here, we have the egregious and premeditated illegal acts of a bored billionaire wife, rah-ported™ by the state (!) broadcaster as if this was just another human interest story. Never mind that cloning itself is illegal here, for as long as the importation of clones is tolerated, it’s all fine and dandy.

If you’re up for a thought experiment—admittedly, it’s not a big leap and perhaps on your mind—let’s talk ‘surrogacy’ for a moment: that kind of stuff is also illegal in this or that jurisdiction but legal elsewhere, and it is literally the same as the perhaps-almost-fall from political grace of former German Health Minister Jens Spahn indicates; I’ll let Wikipedia tell you the gist of this:

Following the birth of his son with his husband via surrogacy in the United States, a scandal erupted as both the CDU and Spahn himself have opposed legalizing surrogacy in Germany, leading to him resigning as leader of the CDU in the Bundestag following the scandal.^[28]

That child, however, is Mr. Spahn’s lawful son now, and though surrogacy is illegal in Germany, one could just mail-order a child from abroad.

Thus we add dystopian shit from movies, such as ‘Gattaca’, and, of course, classics like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to the ‘Blade Runner’ notions.

Mr. Spahn, by the way, is also close with Palantir’s Peter Thiel.

So, from chit-chat about horse cloning as hobby for bored billionaire wives we’ve moved seamlessly into the main issues betroubling the powers-that-be.

For them, though, there are no consequences to even the most blatantly absurd coverage by state (!) media of the bending of Norwegian law and the premeditated conspiracy to commit crimes under Danish law (as cloning is also forbidden there, but as the first two parts showed, Ms. Andresen got the DNA sample there).

Some animals are, indeed, more equal than others.