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Professionalism and Ethics
Professionalism deals with the development, monitoring, and maintenance of procedures to ensure that the needs of professional staff are met. Ethics includes identifying, monitoring, and disseminating codes of professional conduct; understanding the implications of ethical decisions, providing procedures to monitor standards of behavior within the organization; and determining, maintaining, and monitoring accountability procedures.
Obama's Freedom of Choice Act
Posted by:
Patrick Sauer on
January 16, 2009 at
8:53PM EST
I know health care professionals will all soon face a huge ethical dilema. No one issue is more devisive than abortion. However, those people who have moral and ethical reservations about a woman's right to abort her child will no longer be given an option to not participate. Obama's FOCA will force health care providers to fullfill without question a woman's decision to abort.
FOCA States as follows:
SEC. 4. INTERFERENCE WITH REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH PROHIBITED.
(a) STATEMENT OF POLICY- It is the policy of the United States that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.
(b) PROHIBITION OF INTERFERENCE- A government may not--
(1) deny or interfere with a woman's right to choose--
(B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or
(C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or
(2) discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth in paragraph (1) in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.
(c) CIVIL ACTION- An individual aggrieved by a violation of this section may obtain appropriate relief (including relief against a government) in a civil action.
How can this law remove any consideration of the ethics process and the moral and ethical reservations from that of the health care provider from the equation? Nelson did state that an issue may be legal; however, it does not mean it is ethical.
I am curious what the thoughts of my collegues on both sides of the fence think of FOCA and the ethical choices it places health care workers who oppose abortion to either support it or leave your job.
(4) Comments
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Early in my career as a circulating nurse, I was required to participate in an abortion of a fetus that was approximately 4 months in utero. As we laid the perfectly-formed baby on the instrument table, I fought back nausea. I had 5 children of my own, and I had just participated in what I believed to be murder. I requested not to be assigned to these cases, but was rebuffed by administration. I quit my job and went to a hospital run by a religious organization that did not allow abortions.
This is all theoretical until you are asked to participate in an act that goes against your value system. Then it becomes a personal choice for the healthcare worker. Not everyone can leave their job to avoid this situation. I am shocked that the government is taking away the ability of the healthcare provider, who has taken an oath to preserve life, to choose not to participate in this ghastly practice. Priscilla E. Neils, RN, BSN, DHSc, MEd, CNOR, TNCC
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The FOCA listed above has been around since 2004. I wasn't aware that Obama had signed on in this past year as a cosigner. I knew that Hillary Clinton was a cosponsor. I also know that Obama promised Planned Parenthood in 2007 that he would gladly sign the bill if he were to become president.
In 2006, Governor Rod Blagojevich (Illinois) mandated that all pharmacies would provide the morning after pill. 4 Walgreen Pharmacists risked losing their jobs becuase they had ethical problems with distributing a pill that they felt equated to giving an abortion. Clinical staff should have the choice to be involved, or not involved, with any procedure that violates their moral beliefs. To a few, organ transplant could also violate their ethical beliefs. HCOs should allow their staff to identify their ethics, avoid punishing or assigning staff to perform procedures that violate their beliefs, and staff accordingly.
Bill S.96 has recently been sent forward by 4 Reoublicans that would prohibit health care providers from being penalized for refusing to participate in abortions. With the variety of hospital chains in metropolitan areas, it should be possible for religious hosipitals to refuse to conduct an abortion on ethical grounds while referring an individual to an organization willing to conduct it. The religious hospital should not be held liable in a civil action suit for following their organziation's moral beliefs.
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I agree with Terrence.
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Posted by: Saqib Dara on February 13, 2009 8:36PM EST
I think that healthcare providers should not be forced into a situation by law where they may have to shut out their conscience.
The society should allow for physicians to openly disclose to their patients, when their personal values may not allow accomdoation of a patient's request.
Saqib Dara, MD, FCCP
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