Cloning research has been oversold to the public and has gained an unreasonably high profile. In fact, says Professor Smith, it has limited potential for treating disease and adds little to scientific understanding. In theory, it may be possible to treat people with cloned embryonic stem cells, but the technical barriers would be insurmountable in practice, he told the London Times.

Bioethics "has been largely silent about [economic] pressures, when in fact it has been willing to legitimize individual and social end- of-life decisions even if they reflected such pressures," he says. Two reasons which are often cited in cases of assisted suicide, fear of becoming a burden on others and fear of loss of control and independence, may often be, fundamentally, economic considerations. Contemporary families are so busy and pressured by the "rat race" that they cannot afford the quality of care that the elderly deserve. And in fact, he says, 63% of the people who died in Oregon in 2000 under its assisted suicide law feared being a burden on their families.

Outspoken Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris welcomed the proposal. He said the existing act was "unjustifiable, discriminatory and vindictive. It was also unsustainable in human rights and equality terms. The evidence suggests children do very well brought up by lesbian couples and solo parents, so good riddance."

Dr Calum MacKellar, of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics disputed this: "It is possible that these children may only become aware of any psychological problems when they become adults or consider having children of their own."

Doing away with Dad is only one of 25 proposals to be presented to Parliament. Public health minister Caroline Flint has suggested a raft of changes. Some of these are designed to deal with awkward cases which have arisen over the past few years. These include: a one-year cooling off period after one of the partners wants embryos destroyed; extending the mandatory period for storing embryos from five to ten years; allowing screening of embryos for medical conditions and saviour siblings; gamete donor access to some information about their children; allowing donor-conceived children to find their siblings; and the creation of some hybrid embryos.

"A greater range of persons" will be able become legal parents of IVF children. Presumably this will allow homosexual couples to become parents without having to adopt a child. It is not clear from the information released by the government whether the range will be extended numerically as well to allow 3 or 4 people to become legal parents.

"The propriety of donation after cardiac death is so well established and its potential to ease organ shortages is so great that the Health Resources and Services Administration has deemed it an important goal for the nation," writes Dr Francis L. Delmonico, the medical director of the New England Organ Bank.

Since it is a fundamental ethical rule that patients must be dead before their organs are transplanted, the problem is defining when they actually die. The normal criterion is strict: brain death, even in the brain stem. In other words, no brain function at all. This is less common than cardiac death which occurs when a person's heart stops beating. Lungs, livers and kidneys remain viable after cardiac death.

Normally brain-dead patients have been on a ventilator, with their hearts still beating, until the moment of transplant. This gives the organs a better chance of survival. But many patients die without being on a ventilator. When their heart stops, their organs begin to deteriorate immediately. The contentious issue is how long doctors should wait before removing organs. The standard interval is five minutes. Apparently there has never been a documented case of heart resuming after two minutes.

He led an independent working group that carried out an 18-month study of how non-human primates such as marmosets, tamarins and macaques are used in research. "We are not calling for an expansion in non-human primate research," Sir David said. "Focusing research at specialised centres would have huge scientific and welfare benefits. There is a scientific case for careful, meticulously- regulated non-human primate research, at least for the foreseeable future, provided it is the only way of solving important scientific or medical questions and high standards of welfare are maintained."

Although animal welfare groups immediately slammed the report, Sir David insisted that non-human primates are the only way to ensure that medications are safe and effective before they are tested on people. Rodents and other animals are too different to human beings to provide relevant information.