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

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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 author is most critical of______.

选项 A、the media
B、doctors
C、U. S. Legislators
D、the British government

答案D

解析 态度题。A项“媒体”,只在第1段开始出现,是为了引出器官捐赠这个话题;B项“医生”出现在第2段,说明捐赠同意书的冗长让医生读来很费力;因此,作者对这两类人都没有给出明确的批评态度。第2段提到同意书的起草者,指出他可能“怀有恶意并试图阻止人体运往病理化验所”。第3段作者直接批评《人体法案》的道德短视,该法令的制定者必然也是作者所批判的;第4段首句提到“参议员”,作者对他的“潜在的人”的观点予以驳斥。由此可推出C项“美国立法者”,是作者最严厉批评的一类人。第4段倒数第2句提到“英国政府”,指出英国政府持有与美国不同的立场,允许科学家进行胚胎研究。因此作者对它是持肯定态度的。
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