Modern liberal opinion is sensitive to problems of restriction of freedom and abuse of power. Indeed, many hold that a man can be injured only by violating his will, but this view is much too narrow. It fails to recognize the great dangers we shall face in the uses of biomedical technology that stems from an excess of freedom, from the unrestrained exercise of will. In my view, our greatest problems will be voluntary self-degradation, or willing dehumanization, as the unintended yet often inescapable consequence of sternly and successfully pursuing our humanization goals. Certain desires and perfected medical technologies have already had some dehumanizing consequences. Improved methods of resuscitation have made possible heroic efforts to "save" the severely ill and injured. Yet these efforts are sometimes only partly successful; they succeed in rescuing individuals but these individuals may have severe brain damage and be capable of only a less-than-human, vegetating existence. Such patients found with increasing frequency in the intensive care units of university hospitals, have been denied a death with dignity. Families are forced to suffer seeing their loved ones so reduced and are made to bear the burden of a prolonged "death watch." Even the ordinary methods of treating disease and prolonging life have changed the context in which men die. Fewer and fewer people die in the familiar surroundings of home or in the company of family and friends. At that time of life when there is perhaps the greatest need for human warmth and comfort, the dying patient is kept company by cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators, respirators, aspirators, oxygenators, catheters and his intravenous drip. Ties to the community of men are replaced by attachments to an assemblage of machines. This loneliness, however, is not confined to the dying patient in the hospital bed. Consider the increasing number of old people still alive thanks to medical progress; as a group, the elderly are the most alienated members of our society, not yet ready for the world of the dead, not deemed fit for the world of the living, they are shunted aside. More and more of them spend the extra years, medicine has given them in "homes for senior citizens," in hospitals for chronic diseases, and in nursing homes waiting for the end. We have learned how to increase their years, but we have not learned how to help them enjoy their days; yet we continue to bravely and sternly push back the frontiers against death. By saying "they are shunted aside" (Line 4, Para. 4), the author means they are ______.

A. treated with indifference
B. shut from their families
C. isolated in the hospices
D. regarded as senior citizens