然而，仍然有很多人坚决反对使用安乐死。"反安乐死健康医疗"组织的主席安德鲁·福格森说："在使用安乐死的大多数病例中，患者实际上需要的是其他的东西。他们可能需要在健康专家的指导下，与所爱的人或家人进行交流。"英国晚期病人收容所有着牢固的传统，一种专门护理垂危病人并满足他们特殊需要的特殊医院。国家收容所委员会主席和收容运动的发起人茜西莉·桑德斯认为，使用安乐死把护理垂危病人的其他方式都排除了。她还担心允许使用安乐死会减少很多人对于照顾和关心的要求。"在今天的社会里，这样很容易使老年人、残疾人和靠他人生活的人们感到自己是社会的负担，应该从生活中消失掉。我觉得法律上任何允许缩短人们生命和作法都会使那些人变得更容易受伤害。"

　　很多人发现禁止一个人选择死亡的权利是没有道理的。尽管他们也认为生命很重要，并且应当尊重生命，但是生活的质量也不容忽视。范·奥依金医生认为如果人们想死，他们应当有选择死亡的权利："那些反对使用安乐死的人们是在告诉我们要死亡的人没有这种权利。当他们病重时，我们害怕他们会死去。但是有的情况下死亡是人们的朋友。在那种情况下，为什么不使用安乐死呢?"

　　但"为什么不呢?"是一个会引起强烈的情感的问题。那部反映齐斯·范·温德尔死亡情景的电影既感人又发人深醒。很显然，这位医生是他们一家人的朋友;温德尔的妻子也是一心为丈夫好。然而，有些人争论说用这种特殊事例来支持安乐死是危险的。再说，不是所有的病人都会受到如此周到的个别护理和关注。

　　Advantage Unfair

　　According to the writer Walter Ellis, author of a book called the Oxbridge Conspiracy, Britain is still dominated by the old-boy network: it isn't what you know that matters, but who you know. He claims that at Oxford and Cambridge Universities (Oxbridge for short) a few select people start on an escalator ride which, over the years, carries them to the tops of British privilege and power. His research revealed that the top professions all continue to be dominated, if not 90 per cent, then 60 or 65 per cent, by Oxbridge graduates.

　　And yet ,says Ellis, Oxbridge graduates make up only two per cent of the total number of students who graduate from Britain's universities. Other researches also seem to support his belief that Oxbridge graduates start with an unfair advantage in the employment market. In the law, a recently published report showed that out of 26 senior judges appointed to the High Court last year, all of them went to private schools and 21 of them went to Oxbridge.

　　But can this be said to amount to a conspiracy? Not according to Dr. John Rae, a former headmaster of one of Britain's leading private schools, Westminster:"I would accept that there was a bias in some key areas of British life, but that bias has now gone. Some time ago - in the 60s and before - entry to Oxford and Cambridge was not entirely on merit. Now, there's absolutely no question in any objective observer's mind that entry to Oxford and Cambridge is fiercely competitive."However, many would disagree with this. For, although over three-quarters of British pupils are educated in state schools, over half the students that go to Oxbridge have been to private, or "public" schools. Is this because pupils from Britain's private schools are more intelligent than those from state schools, or are they simply better prepared?

　　On average, about ￡5,000 a year is spent on each private school pupil, more than twice the amount spent on state school pupils. So how can the state schools be expected to compete with the private schools when they have far fewer resources? And how can they prepare their pupils for the special entrance exam to Oxford University, which requires extra preparation, and for which many public school pupils traditionally stay at school and do an additional term?

　　Until recently, many blamed Oxford for this bias because of the university's special entrance exam (Cambridge abolished its entrance exam in 1986). But last February, Oxford University decided to abolish the exam to encourage more state school applicants. From autumn 1996, Oxford University applicants, like applicants to other universities, will be judged only on their A level results and on their performance at interviews, although some departments might still set special tests.

　　However, some argue that there's nothing wrong in having elite places of learning, and that by their very nature, these places should not be easily accessible. Most countries are run by an elite and have centres of academic excellence from which the elite are recruited.

　　Walter Ellis accepts that this is true:"But in France, for example, there are something like 40 equivalents of university, which provide this elite through a much broader base. In America you've got the Ivy League, centred on Harvard and Yale, with Princeton and Stanford and others. But again, those universities together - the elite universities - are about ten or fifteen in number, and are being pushed along from behind by other great universities like, for example, Chicago and Berkeley. So you don't have just this narrow concentration of two universities providing a constantly replicating elite."

　　When it comes to Oxford and Cambridge being elitist because of the number of private school pupils they accept, Professor Stone of Oxford University argues that there is a simple fact he and his associates cannot ignore:"If certain schools do better than others then we just have to accept it. We cannot be a place for remedial education. It's not what Oxford is there to do."

　　However, since academic excellence does appear to be related to the amount of money spent per pupil. This does seem to imply that Prime Minister John Major's vision of Britain as a classless society is still a long way off. And it may be worth remembering that while John Major didn't himself go to Oxbridge, most of his ministers did.