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Essay / Ethical Dilemma in Nursing: Abortion and Euthanasia
Table of ContentsAbortionEuthanasiaEthical Decision-Making ProcessConclusionReferencesIntroduction: Nurses face widely controversial ethical issues related to health care and medical practice. Let's say you are a member of a "pro-life" faction and you work at a medical facility that provides abortion services. If you had to participate in an abortion procedure, what would you do? Or perhaps a patient asks you to help them die peacefully due to their condition. Regardless of their current quality of life, would you help the patient end their life to end their inevitable suffering and pain? These are ethical dilemmas that nurses face in their practice. Controversial ethical issues affect nurses on a personal level because they may conflict with their personal values. They may also conflict with the patient's values or with society's ideal values. Thesis statement: Ethical issues are very varied. In this essay, only abortion and euthanasia are discussed. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayAbortionTopic Sentence: The first ethical dilemma is abortion. Evidence and Citations: Abortion is still a very controversial issue, a hot potato if you may, in today's society, just as it was centuries ago. Like Patil, Dode, and Ahirrao (2014), in some places elections have even been lost on the issue of abortion. While abortion was still a major issue a few years ago, doctors had the final say on which procedure was performed on a patient. With the advent of bioethics, various theories, including situational, teleological, deontological, virtue, and care ethics, have gained wide application. Doctors must now consider a wide range of possibilities when making decisions on behalf of patients. Additionally, doctors, including nurses, must adhere to a set of principles: ; autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. Autonomy recognizes that the patient has the right to choose or refuse treatment based on their beliefs, values and interests. Beneficence requires that the physician put the best interest of the patient first. Based on the principle of non-maleficence, the doctor must always be careful not to harm the patient. Finally, a healthcare practitioner must ensure justice in the allocation of healthcare resources, including treatment. All of these factors are taken into account when considering abortions. The biggest questions, however, include the right to life, when life begins, whether fetuses have rights, and whether the rights of the fetus are superior to those of the mother. Topic sentence: On an individual level, I believe that each individual has the right to choose and a right to life. Evidence and Citations: My position on abortion is that an individual should have the right to an abortion. Indeed, imposing limitations only makes the situation worse. Those who cannot have a legally authorized abortion will still seek it elsewhere. Such illegal abortions endanger the life of the mother. This is my position as a health care practitioner. However, my personal belief is that life begins immediately upon creation. Once fertilized, basic biological processes come into play to support the new life. These processes are automated but aim to create an autonomous being. In this regard, I would not personally induce an abortionunless it is a matter of life and death. My position is that of a pro-life group that identifies the fetus as an individual and abortion as a violation of its rights. However, this does not prevent me from helping patients wishing to have an abortion. If it is legally permitted, I would have no reason to impose my will on a patient. To apply Kant's ethics, that people should act according to this maxim that they want to become a universal law, I believe that abortion should not be made illegal. Comment: To make it illegal would be to suggest that abortion is wrong in all circumstances. This would mean, according to universal law, that even if the mother were to die as a result of the pregnancy, she would still have to carry the pregnancy. No one would wish that on their wife, mother or daughter. Additionally, not all women seek abortions anyway.EuthanasiaTopic Sentence: Euthanasia goes by many names, including mercy killing. With euthanasia, “a physician administers a lethal dose of medication with the intent of ending a patient's life” to a person with a painful, incurable illness. Evidence and Citation: Euthanasia is illegal in most parts of the world. Euthanasia is divided into active, passive and voluntary euthanasia. Active euthanasia requires the administration of medication to end a patient's life and suffering. This version is illegal almost everywhere. The passive version comes in the form of withdrawal of the life support system. The voluntary version, on the other hand, is where an individual expresses, through a living will, their wishes regarding their time and the management of their death to a doctor. The doctor assists by providing the patient with a means of obtaining a lethal drug. Nurses are very involved with patients, including patients at the end of their lives. According to Yousefy, Rezaei and Beigzadeh (2015), nurses are very involved in euthanasia. In a survey of doctors, 38 doctors who admitted to helping a patient end their life did so 57 percent of the time by asking a nurse to administer the drug. In some states, this allowed doctors to help patients die. In such cases, the nurse and doctor are released from any criminal liability regarding the death of the patient. Besides being illegal, euthanasia poses serious moral, social and ethical challenges. The ethics of nursing practice prohibit nurses from participating in actions that contribute to ending a patient's life. Instead, a nurse should help a patient by providing medical interventions that relieve them of pain and other uncomfortable symptoms and should not have the intention of ending their life. In most nursing societies, the participation of nurses in euthanasia is expressly prohibited. Some, however, allow nurses to determine whether their ethical and moral values allow or prohibit them from participating in the provision of care to a patient who wishes to end their life. Personal values are essential in deciding whether to become involved in assisting a patient who wishes to end their life. My system of moral values is not consistent with assisted dying of any kind. Even if I don't agree, I might not have to impose my will on a patient who wants to exercise their right to die. Respecting the patient's wishes is one of the requirements of good care practices based on the principle of autonomy. Either way, I wouldn't help a patient die. If this were to happen, I would have to ask someone else to do it on my behalf..