Ethical issues in nursing Ethical issues in nursing practicepractice

Professional commitment is shown throughProfessional commitment is shown through

A desire to help,A desire to help, A sense of obligation,A sense of obligation,

Efforts to enhance competence.Efforts to enhance competence.Professional accountability depends upon an Professional accountability depends upon an

individual sense of individual sense of responsibility and personal integrity.responsibility and personal integrity.

• ICN code for nurses was formed in 1933. • While the international code of nursing ethics

accepted in 1953.• In 1973 the new ICN code of ethics was

approved. It identifies four major responsibilities of the nurse:

• Promote health.• Prevent illness.• Restore health.• Alleviate suffering.

Ethical decision makingEthical decision making::

• Society is rapidly changing its attitude about major ethical issues.• New emphasis on equal rights and individual rights bring up issues such as changes in the role of women.• Changes in health care from remedies to preventive medicine.• Expand in the role of patient or client in making a decision toward his health.• Changing social attitudes about birth control, sterilization, abortion, and the possibility of genetic manipulation• Having to make decisions on ethical issues is a contributing factor to stress in nurses work .• Ethics is a personal matter because every person has an individual concept of what is good and what is evil.

Bioethical issuesBioethical issues

• Are concerned with problems associated with biology or the field of medicine, mainly that are related to birth and to death, and life supporting measures.

• ………..To birth: Involve:• Processes that prevent conception.• Terminate pregnancy maturity.• Process that enable conception and pregnancy to occur

through direct intervention rather than through normal developments.( Sterilization, contraception, and abortion on the one hand, and test-tube conception and artificial insemination.)

SterilizationSterilization

• The reason for elective sterilization.

• Meaning of eugenic sterilization> A couple who fears giving birth to a defective baby because of a genetic trait.

• The choice in front of the male to do vasectomy or the female to do tubal-ligation.

• ( Some state still permit compulsory eugenic sterilization of certain prison and mental hospital inmates to prevent conception of children with various disorders who might become a finical burden to society)

AbortionAbortion

• Elective abortions performed has increased and the procedure has become a major bioethical issues. Abortion is a deliberate termination of the life of a fetus before the end of the sixth month of gestation.

(Contraversery exists about

whether

the fetus is actually a human

being before that time)

• (In 1973, the united state supreme court ruled that it was unconstitutional to prohibit a women from having an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy)

" Until that ruling was made,

Physicians • Generally were called upon to offer a medical

judgment as to whether a dangerous pregnancy should be terminated by therapeutic abortion"

• "The federal government now permits abortions to be performed until the end of six month" the consent of a spouse is not required for an abortion to be performed. Age of consent of a spouse is not required for an abortion to be performed. Age of consent and parental consent are issues in this procedure when minors are involved.”

ContraceptionContraception

The contraversery questions around are

1.Whether individuals have a right to control parenthood?

2.Which type of contraceptive method is best?

3. Who should practice contraceptive?

4.At what age contraception would be used?

Age of consentAge of consent

• Children who are under the age of eighteen years may be sexually active and require health care because of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.

• Some student ask the physician or school nurse for birth control devices.

Artificial inseminationArtificial insemination

• Because Various reasons, including impotence or an inability to carry a child, alternative means of conception may be pursued. The donor of the sperm may be the woman's husband or another man; the woman in whom the sperm fertilized egg is implanted may be the donors wife or another woman (surrogate mother).

1.The legitimacy of the child produced.

2. The paternal/ maternal rights of the man and woman who participate in this alternative form of conception.

3. If the couple is later separated or divorced, custody and visiting rights of the child may also be a problem.

Genetic researchGenetic research

• How much power should present generations assume in making decisions about the nature and characteristics of future generation?

• Who should regulate genetic research and its uses?

• cloning of human being gives rise to many unanswered question

• Genetic screening discovered the potential parents are carriers of recessive genes that could cause disorders, in future offspring.

• Nurses must remember that in this area, as in all other situations, they are ethically committed to a nonjudgmental attitude, to honest, and to protecting the confidentiality and right to privacy of the client.

Test tube conceptionTest tube conception

A conception in between the woman ovum and the husband sperm in the test tube . The fertilized ovum was then implanted in her uterus.

1. It is a medical-scientific achievement.

2. The others, including theologians, expressed great concern about the unnatural method of uniting the fathers sperm with the mothers ovum.