Deputy Health Minister Jet Bussemaker thought so, but for a different reason. "The most important finding of the research... is that 80% of euthanasia cases are now being reported," she said. It was a pleasing improvement from 2001, when only 54% of euthanasia cases were reported. The Dutch doctors' lobby group also welcomed the improvement in transparency. "Doctors have shown that they are open to scrutiny."

However, the figures, which are set out in a detailed report in the New England Journal of Medicine by a group of Dutch doctors, including some of the country's leading advocates of euthanasia, can be spun in quite a different way. These show that a small decrease in voluntary euthanasia has been more than offset by a hefty increase in what is called "terminal sedation". Patients are given drugs which sedate them "continuously and deeply" until death, in 8.2% of all deaths.

In 7.1% of all deaths, hydration and nutrition were withheld in 2005, compared to 5.6% in 2001. In other words, 7.1% of all people who died in the Netherlands in 2005 died in much the same way as Terri Schiavo, of starvation and thirst, in conjunction with the course of their own disease. To put it even more starkly, voluntary euthanasia (7.1%), non-voluntary euthanasia (0.4%) and terminal sedation accompanied by withdrawal of nutrition and sedation, accounted for nearly 1 in 10 Dutch deaths.

What is the explanation for the shift in the pattern of deaths? The report in the NEJM mentioned three causes, all of them interesting. First, because of the rapid ageing of Dutch society, there are more people over 80, which -- surprisingly -- is the age group least likely to request euthanasia. Second, doctors increasingly favour palliative care, at least a Dutch version of it, and are using more terminal sedation. Interestingly, the over-80s don't like this either.

Third, the goalposts for "non-voluntary euthanasia" have shifted. Where some doctors used to do this with opiates, it now appears that opiates don't really do a good job. They may be doing the same thing, but not calling it "non-voluntary euthanasia".

How about her arguments for a process which she acknowledges has a big "yuk factor"? Are they also viable? Her first point is that "pregnancy is barbaric". It is unjust that half of the population undergo its dangers to renew the population. An injustice calls for a remedy. Second, pregnancy "often takes a serious toll on [women's] autonomy". Ectogenesis would provide this.

Furthermore, nine months in a test tube would be unlikely to affect children. If one were to say that gestation is needed for a mother to bond with a child, all step- and adoptive parents would be insulted. "Physical gestation of a child is thus neither necessary nor sufficient for the development of a loving parental bond," she says.

The Washington Protection and Advocacy System (WPAS), which represents people with disabilities, found that Seattle Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center violated the constitutional and common law rights of six-year-old Ashley by performing a hysterectomy without a court order.

The hospital has acknowledged its error, but blames the slip on flawed legal advice obtained by the parents. The case became known after the doctors involved published an article in a medical journal describing the procedure.

Ashley, or the "pillow angel", as her parents call her, has static encephalopathy, a severe brain impairment. She cannot walk, talk or swallow food. Her mental age is measured in months rather than years. To make it easier for her parents to care for her, the doctors at the hospital surgically removed her breast buds, her uterus and her appendix.

The neuroscientists studied people who had injured an area that links emotion to cognition which is located in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex several inches behind the brow. When they were asked to consider hypothetical moral dilemmas which involved taking one life to save others, they felt no compunction whatsoever.

The experiment highlighted the importance of unconscious empathy and emotion in guiding decisions, the scientists contend. "When that influence is missing," said University of Southern California neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, "pure reason is set free."

This suggests to Harvard neuroscientist Marc Hauser that the brain is hard-wired for morality. He says that most moral intuitions are unconscious, involuntary and universal, based on surveys of thousands of people in hundreds of countries. He feels that this may proves a shared innate capacity for morality.

Because of the intense scrutiny that these trials are sure to receive from the US Food and Drug Administration, from the media, and from hostile critics of the ethically contentious technology, extensive preparatory work has taken place. Animal tests have already showed that nerve cells grown from human embryonic stem cells can repair spinal cord injuries in rats. "Paralysed rats can walk again," says the Financial Times, although this has been disputed by critics.

Mr Okarma claims that rapid progress has been made since human embryonic stem cells were first isolated in 1998. Even more ground could have been covered except for the intransigence of the Bush Administration. However, he and his supporters are wary of raising public expectations too high. Hans Kierstead, head of the embryonic stem cell team at University of California Irvine, says: "I find it unfair that people demand so much from such a young field. Just look at the strides we have already made."

And Bob Klein, the chairman of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which has been authorised to a spend at least $3 billion over 10 years on stem cell research, told the BIO biotechnology conference in Boston recently that good spin doctors would be needed to put across the right message in the event of setbacks.

No one is comfortable with payments for eggs, an invasive and uncomfortable process at best, and painful and dangerous at worst. Little research has been done on the long-term effects of fertility drugs.

Bioethicists also worry whether the allure of dollars to cover college fees or credit card bills might cloud young women's judgement. "We hear about egg donors being paid enormous amounts of money, $50,000 or $60,000," Josephine Johnston, of The Hastings Center told the New York Times. "How much is that person actually giving informed consent about the medical procedure and really listening and thinking as it's being described and its risks are explained?"