单选题 When a Scottish research team startled the world by revealing 3 months ago that it had cloned an adult sheep, President Clinton moved swiftly. Declaring that he was opposed to using this unusual animal husbandry technique to clone humans, he ordered that federal funds not be used for such an experiment—although no one had proposed to do so—and asked an independent panel of experts chaired by Princeton President Harold Shapiro to report back to the White House in 90 days with recommendations for a national policy on human cloning. That group—the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC)—has been working feverishly to put its wisdom on paper, and at a meeting on 17 May, members agreed on a near-final draft of their recommendations.
NBAC will ask that Clinton"s 90-day ban on federal funds for human cloning be extended indefinitely, and possibly that it be made law. But NBAC members are planning to word the recommendation narrowly to avoid new restrictions on research that involves the cloning of human DNA or cells—routine in molecular biology. The panel has not yet reached agreement on a crucial question, however, whether to recommend legislation that would make it a crime for private funding to be used for human cloning. In a draft preface to the recommendations, discussed at the 17 May meeting, Shapiro suggested that the panel had found a broad consensus that it would be "morally unacceptable to attempt to create a human child by adult nuclear cloning." Shapiro explained during the meeting that the moral doubt stems mainly from fears about the risk to the health of the child. The panel then informally accepted several general conclusions, although some details have not been settled.
NBAC plans to call for a continued ban on federal government funding for any attempt to clone body cell nuclei to create a child because current federal law already forbids the use of federal funds to create embryos (the earliest stage of human offspring before birth) for research or to knowingly endanger an embryo"s life, NBAC will remain silent on embryo research.
NBAC members also indicated that they will appeal to privately funded researchers and clinics not to try to clone humans by body cell nuclear transfer. But they were divided on whether to go further by calling for a federal law that would impose a complete ban on human cloning. Shapiro and most members favored an appeal for such legislation, but in a phone interview, he said this issue was still "up in the air".
单选题 We can learn from the first paragraph that ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 从文章第l段的内容可知,当苏格兰的一个研究小组透露,3个月前他们已克隆了一只成年绵羊后,克林顿总统立即作出反应;他宣称他反对利用这种特殊的畜牧业技术去克隆人,同时下令禁止联邦基金用于此类实验;他还要求成立一个独立专家小组在90天内向白宫提交报告,为国家有关克隆人的政策提出建议;该小组将其明智的看法写成公文,在5月17日举行的会议上,委员们就这份接近定稿的报告书达成了共识。据此可知,美国总统对有关克隆的消息反应强烈,并迅速采取行动。B项与文章的意思相符,因此B项为正确答案。
单选题 The panel agreed on all of the following except that ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 从文章第2段的内容可知,NBAC将要求克林顿总统应该无限期延长联邦基金不得用于克隆人的20天禁令;如有可能,应该将此禁令定为法律;但是NBAC的成员正在计划准确表达建议报告,以避免对涉及人类:DNA克隆或细胞克隆产生新的限制;不过,专家小组对是否建议将私人基金用于克隆人的行为法定为犯罪行为,尚未达成一致意见;从第3段的内容可知,Shapiro暗示,“从道义上讲,试图用成人的细胞核克隆出婴儿的做法令人难以接受”,专家小组在这一点上已达成共识。据此可知,A、B和D三项都是专家小组赞同的;只有C项与文章第2段最后一句话的意思不符,因此C项为正确答案。
单选题 NBAC will leave the issue of embryo research undiscussed because ______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 本题可参照文章的第4段。从中可知,因为目前的联邦法律已经禁止联邦基金用于克隆胚胎以进行研究或故意危害胚胎的生命,所以NBAS将对胚胎研究不发表意见。据此可知,NBAC之所以不讨论胚胎研究问题,是因为联邦法律已经禁止联邦基金用于胚胎研究。D项与文章的意思相符,因此D项为正确答案。
单选题 It can be inferred from the last paragraph that ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 本题可参照文章的最后一段。从中可知,NBAC的成员还暗示,他们将呼吁那些受私人基金资助的研究人员和专科医院不要尝试通过人体细胞核的移植来克隆人;但是,对于是否进一步要求制定一项完全禁止克隆人的联邦法律,NBAC的成员意见不一致;Shapiro和大多数成员赞成要求制定这样的法律,但在一次电话采访中,他说,这个问题仍然“悬而未决”。据此可知:并不是所有的NBAC成员都赞成完全禁止克隆人。A项与文章的意思相符,因此A项为正确答案。