(1) The doctors wanted to prolong her life, but they also had to respect Li’s living will for a natural death, without machines

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问题     (1) The doctors wanted to prolong her life, but they also had to respect Li’s living will for a natural death, without machines to keep her alive. After half a day in a coma, Li died peacefully in her sleep.
    (2) "Li’s family members were unwilling to go through with her plan at first, but after seeing Li pass away peacefully and dignified, they were relieved," said Zhang Huili, Secretary General of the Beijing Living Will Promotion Association and manager of the website, Choice and Dignity.
    (3) Li signed a living will through the website in 2006. It’s a legal document signed by healthy or conscious people, declaring whether they would want life support, or what kind of medical treatment they would prefer in the final stage of their life when they can’t speak or are unconscious, and cannot express their final life wishes. The living will contains five important details: whether the person wants medical treatment of any kind, whether they want life support, how they wish other people to treat them, what information should be made available to family and friends, and who should come to the person’s aid.
    (4) More people have been signing living wills in recent years. In 2011, when the website publicized statistics for the first time, only 198 people had signed a living will on the website. That number has now increased to 20,000 in 2015, said Zhang.
    (5) Before signing a living will, Li had been suffering from rectal cancer for three years. She had undergone numerous surgeries. One day, she came across the Choice and Dignity website, and agreed upon the principle of making her own end-of-life arrangements. She requested when her condition worsened, she did not want to receive any traumatic life support treatment. She gave her permission to receive painkillers and sleeping pills. Li printed a copy of the online living will, signed it and asked her children to honor her wishes and to hand it to the doctor when the day came.
    (6) Like Li, more people are gaining awareness of making their own end-of-life arrangements. According to research conducted by the Choice and Dignity website, 10.3 percent of 2,484 respondents had made their final life arrangements, while 67.1 percent of them think people should make their own end-of-life arrangements. Zhang said the people who have signed the living wills are from different age groups.
    "Most of them are between 30 and 40 years old, who have a good educational background." Zhang thinks the main reason that more people have started to sign living wills is because they have only recently become familiar with the notion as a result of its promotion through various organizations and the media.
    (7) The high rate of cancer and the rapidly aging Chinese population have also made people face and think more about death, Zhang said. "(People must decide) whether they want to use most of their savings on meaningless and traumatic treatment, or die naturally and make their final days peaceful."
    (8) Doctors on the front lines have also noticed more patients are making their own final life arrangements.
    (9) "On average, we have over 50 patients a month who are in their final stage of life. Around three of them will ask to forego treatment with the consent of their family members," said Zhuang Shaowei, a cardiologist from the Shanghai East Hospital. "I think it’s because people today have more knowledge about dying with dignity which is still more accepted in the West, and patients themselves and their children also tend to respect these decisions more."
    (10) The US "Five Wishes" living will, created by the NGO, Aging with Dignity, has been widely applied in 42 states and the District of Columbia. The living will has also been largely recognized in Europe and Singapore, where governments take the lead in encouraging citizens to complete the standard living will document, and even have regulations to guarantee that it will be obeyed.
    (11) Although the living will and the idea of dying in dignity are gaining momentum in China, doctors and organizers of the Choice and Dignity website say that they have encountered a unique problem when promoting the concept, due to social, cultural and legal issues.
    (12) "One factor is that death is a taboo topic in China," Zhuang said. "Western people’s religious beliefs help them make peace with death, unlike in China, where most people don’t follow a religion, and death holds unknown fears."
    (13) Another obstacle, said Zhuang, is the culture of filial piety in China.
    (14) Zhuang has dealt with many cases in which even though the patient is in a lot of pain and deep down the children know the treatment is of no use, they are reluctant to agree to stop treatment, because they think it goes against filial piety.
    (15) The lack of legal support also makes a living will difficult to enforce, said Liu Xiaohong, an oncologist at the Beijing Union Hospital. "We have received some patients with a living will in recent years, but there is no support in law to ensure its validity, so we still have to consult with the family members, and most of the time, the family doesn’t agree."
    (16) Zhang said her organization is lobbying for a law through the justice department. They have submitted proposals to the legislature five times over the last five years, but there has been no feedback. "Many law professors around the country have given their support for such legislation."
Which of the following best summarizes the article?

选项 A、Li has died peacefully with dignity in the end and her family are satisfied with her decision.
B、Beijing Living Will Promotion Association provides support for legalizing euthanasia and has been very successful.
C、Although more people have started accepting the idea of dying in dignity, there is still a long way to go for China in that direction.
D、Dying with dignity is a different concept in the West and in China.

答案C

解析 主旨题。本题问的是总结全文最好的一句,选项A、B都是只提到了文章的一部分细节,作为总结而言不够全面,排除。选项D是文章表达的一个观点,也不够全面。故选C。
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