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  3. In 2010, Pamela Fink, an employee of a Connecticut energy company, made a new kind of discrimination claim: she charged that she

In 2010, Pamela Fink, an employee of a Connecticut energy company, made a new kind of discrimination claim: she charged that she

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问题     In 2010, Pamela Fink, an employee of a Connecticut energy company, made a new kind of discrimination claim: she charged that she had been fired because she carries genes that predispose her to cancer. Fink quickly became the public face for the cutting edge of civil rights: genetic discrimination.
    The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which was passed out of concern for just such cases in the wake of huge advances in genetics testing, took effect in late 2009. GIN A, as it is known, makes it illegal for employers to fire or refuse to hire workers based on their "genetic information" — including genetic tests and family history of disease. GINA doesn’t just apply to employers: health-insurance companies can be sued for using genetic information to set rates or even just for investigating people’s genes.
    The numbers of genetic-discrimination complaints will almost certainly increase greatly in coming years, for the reason that, as biological science advances, there is likely to be even more genetic information available about people. Even though this sort of medical information should remain private, employers and insurance companies will have strong financial incentives to get access to it—and to use it to avoid people who are most likely to get sick.
    When genetic-discrimination claims start showing up in the courts in significant numbers, they are likely to get a sympathetic hearing. There are two major reasons that so many people—even congressional Republicans who are highly skeptical of civil rights laws—like GINA. First, there is the kind of discrimination it is aimed at: penalizing people for strands of DNA and RNA that they inherited from their parents through no fault of their own. In general, our society has decided to protect people for qualities that are " immutable" —that is, something about them that is impossible or, at least, very difficult to change.
    So we make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, skin color and sex. On the other hand, we generally do not protect people who are not hired because they lack a high school diploma or because they wear a beard. Our response to those people is that if you want the job you should get more education or shave. Genes are a classic immutable characteristic: outside of some complicated medical procedures, we’re pretty much stuck with the genes we were born with.
    The second major reason genetic-discrimination laws are popular is that this is a kind of bias everyone feels they could be exposed to. None of us has perfect genes—and for the most part, we have no idea what is lurking in our DNA and RNA. Our genes are complex enough that we all have some negative information encoded in there—and none of us wants to lose a job or be denied insurance over it. When juries begin to hear these cases, they are far more likely to identify with the plaintiffs than with the companies that discriminate. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be plenty of companies looking to benefit from genetic information, but if they use it, they may well have to pay.
The last paragraph suggests that______.
选项 A、genetic discrimination only concerns those who are predisposed to terrible disease
B、the appeal of plaintiffs subjected to genetic discrimination will terminate favorably without exception
C、judges and juries always bias in favor of people with whom they share similar experience
D、it is believed from the genetics perspective that no one carries perfect gene
答案D
解析 这一题主要考查对最后一段内容的理解。[A]选项错误，最后一段中提到反基因歧视法之所以如此受欢迎的一个重要原因就是每个人都有可能存在基因缺陷，都有可能因为这样或那样的基因缺陷而遭到歧视，因此不能说基因歧视只涉及少数一些有严重疾病倾向的人。[B]选项错误，虽然最后一段提到当陪审团审理和基因歧视相关案件的时候，很有可能因同情原告而判有歧视行为的公司败诉。但我们并不能就此得出这样的结论，遭到基因歧视的原告会毫无例外地胜诉，这样的说法过于绝对。另外也不能得出[C]选项中的结论，虽然法官和陪审团因为觉得基因缺陷人人皆有，而对基因歧视案件中的原告产生同情，从而有助于原告的胜诉，但我们不能就此得出结论说陪审团往往都会偏袒那些和他们有相似经历的人，这种说法也是过于绝对。只有[D]选项是正确的，最后一段中有这样的原句“Our genes are complex enoughthat we all have some negative information encoded in there．”“我们的基因十分复杂，在每个人的体内都多多少少潜伏着负面基因信息，没有人的基因是完美无缺的。”
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