2. 外语
  3. BBC’s Casualty programme on Saturday evening gave viewers a vote as to which of two patients should benefit from a donation. But

BBC’s Casualty programme on Saturday evening gave viewers a vote as to which of two patients should benefit from a donation. But

admin2017-06-30  53
问题     BBC’s Casualty programme on Saturday evening gave viewers a vote as to which of two patients should benefit from a donation. But it failed to tell us that we would not need to make so many life-and-death decisions if we got to grip with the chronic organ shortage. Being pussyfooting around in its approach to dead bodies, the Government is giving a kicking to some of the most vulnerable in our society. One depressing consequence of this is that a significant number of those on the waiting list take off to foreign countries to purchase an organ from a living third-world donor, something that is forbidden in the United Kingdom. The poor have no option but to wait in vain.
    The Human Tissue Authority’s position on the retention of body parts for medical research after a post-mortem examination is equally flawed. The new consent forms could have been drafted by some evil person seeking to stop the precious flow of human tissue into the pathological laboratory. The forms are so lengthy that doctors rarely have time to complete them and, even if they try, the wording is so graphic that relatives tend to leg it before signing. In consequence, the number of post mortems has fallen quickly.
    The wider worry is that the moral shortsightedness evident in the Human Tissue Act seems to infect every facet of the contemporary debate on medical ethics. Take the timid approach to embryonic stem cell research. The United States, for example, refuses government funding to scientists who wish to carry out potentially ground-breaking research on the surplus embryos created by IVF treatment.
    Senators profess to be worried that embryonic research fails to respect the dignity of "potential persons". Rarely can such a vacuous concept have found its way into a debate claiming to provide enlightenment. When is this "potential" supposed to kick in? In case you were wondering, these supposedly precious embryos are at the same stage of development as those that are routinely terminated by the Pill without anyone crying. Thankfully, the British Government has refused the position of the United States and operates one of the most liberal regimes in Europe, in which licences have been awarded to researchers to create embryos for medical research. It is possible that, in years to come, scientists will be able to grow organs in the lab and find cures for a range of debilitating diseases.
    The fundamental problem with our approach to ethics is our inability to separate emotion from policy. The only factor that should enter our moral and legal deliberations is that of welfare, a concept that is meaningless when applied to entities that lack self-consciousness. Never forget that the research that we are so reluctant to conduct upon embryos and dead bodies is routinely carried out on living, pain-sensitive animals.
The expression "pussyfooting around"(Paragraph 1)might mean______.
选项 A、unfair
B、hesitant
C、secret
D、strict
答案B
解析 词汇题。该词是用来形容“政府对待尸体”态度的，这种态度造成了器官短缺。因此可以推理得知，这个态度是B(犹豫不决)。
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