歷年考研英語(yǔ)閱讀理解1997年01

[00:03.90]1997 Passage1 [00:11.47]It was 3:45 in the morning when the vote was finally taken. [00:16.11]After six months of arguing [00:18.13]and final 16 hours of hot parliamentary debates, [00:22.47]Australia's Northern Territory [00:24.39]became the first legal authority in the world [00:27.20]to allow doctors to take the lives [00:29.44]of incurably ill patients who wish to die. [00:33.16]The measure passed by the convincing vote of 15 to 10. [00:37.60]Almost immediately word flashed on the Internet [00:40.52]and was picked up, half a world away, by John Hofsess, [00:44.87]executive director of the Right to Die Society of Canada. [00:49.61]He sent it on via the group's on-line service, [00:52.84]Death NET. Says Hofsess: [00:55.65]"We posted bulletins all day long, [00:58.07]because of course this isn't just something [01:00.58]that happened in Australia. It's world history." [01:05.70]The full import may take a while to sink in. [01:09.39]The NT Rights of the Terminally Ill law has left physicians [01:14.52]and citizens alike trying to deal with [01:17.05]its moral and practical implications. [01:20.17]Some have breathed sighs of relief, others, [01:23.19]including churches, right-to-life groups [01:26.22]and the Australian Medical Association, [01:28.94]bitterly attacked the bill and the haste of its passage. [01:32.74]But the tide is unlikely to turn back. [01:35.37]In Australia--where an aging population, [01:38.49]life-extending technology and changing community attitudes [01:42.30]have all played their part [01:44.21]--other states are going to consider [01:45.92]making a similar law to deal with euthanasia. [01:49.95]In the US and Canada, [01:51.87]where the right-to-die movement is gathering strength, [01:54.89]observers are waiting for the dominoes to start falling. [01:58.66]Under the new Northern Territory law, [02:01.13]an adult patient can request death [02:04.00]--probably by a deadly injection or pill [02:06.62]--to put an end to suffering. [02:08.84]The patient must be diagnosed as terminally ill by two doctors. [02:13.48]After a "cooling off" period of seven days, [02:16.41]the patient can sign a certificate of request. [02:19.64]After 48 hours the wish for death can be met. [02:23.66]For Lloyd Nickson, a 54-year-old Darwin resident suffering [02:28.10]from lung cancer, [02:29.62]the NT Rights of Terminally Ill law means [02:33.45]he can get on with living [02:35.26]without the haunting fear of his suffering: [02:38.38]a terrifying death from his breathing condition. [02:42.13]"I'm not afraid of dying from a spiritual point of view, [02:45.65]but what I was afraid of was how I'd go, [02:48.57]because I've watched people die in the hospital [02:51.29]fighting for oxygen and clawing at their masks," he says.

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