Passage 2　　A new form of cloning to provide every baby with an embryonic “twin”, from which spare body parts could be grown and life threatening diseases treated is expected to be approved within weeks by senior government advisers on medical ethics.　　If their report is accepted by ministers, it would mean that Britain—which 20 years ago pioneered the test tube baby and last year produced Dolly, the world’s first cloned mammal—could be the first to clone a human embryo.　　A working party from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and the Human Genetics Advisory Commission is expected to come down firmly against reproductive cloning, the process of replicating a living human being. It is expected to recommend government support of so called stem ceils. Stem cells are extracted and used to grow spare parts, treat diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s or address the debilitating effects of cancer, strokes and heart attacks.　　Dr Austin Smith, the scientist likely to be granted the first licence for the work, said that within the next 12 years it would be routine for every baby to have an embryonic clone.　　“All it takes now is financial investment,” said Smith, director of Edinburgh University’s centre for genome research. The crucial discovery of embryonic stem cells, from which skin, bone, muscles, nerves and vital organs grow, was made earlier this month by scientists in America.　　In a submission to the HFEA, Smith said that in order to isolate these cells it is only necessary for the embryo to develop in the laboratory for six days, well within the 14-day limit of current regulation.　　The cells would then be grown and manipulated to make anything from blood or brain cells to tissue for repairing damaged organs and, ultimately, parts that could be transplanted without fear of the host body rejecting them.　　The development is likely to meet strong opposition from the church. Dr Donald Bruce, Director of the Society, Religion and Technology Project of the church of Scotland Said that creating an embryo in the knowledge that it would then be destroyed was “very disturbing” to most people.　　Father Paul Murray, secretary to the Catholic bishops joint bio-ethics committee, said that whatever the potential benefits, it should be regarded as “intrinsically evil” because the research depended on the use of foetal material.　　However, Professor Christine Gosden, professor of genetic medicine at Liverpool University, one of the four senior government advisers on the cloning sub-committee, said there would be no opportunity for abuse.　　For many years, patients with Parkinson’s disease who did not respond to drugs have been treated with brain cells extracted from aborted foetuses, a practice approved by a committee led by the Rev Dr John Polkinghorne, the prominent ethicist.　　Gosden said the arguments for the use of aborted foetal cells and therapeutic cloning were similar: “Before you have a disease, it is easy to say, ‘I would not use cells derived from a foetus’, but if you suffer from that disease, and that is your only hope, your approach can be quite different.”　　1. What is the new form of cloning discussed in the passage? What is the purpose of such cloning?　　2. Summarise the different views on embryo cloning discussed in the passage.　　3. Explain the statement “All it takes now is financial investment.” in para. 6.　　4. What is the significance of the discovery of embryonic stem cells?

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