Conscience Schmoncience! Who cares what you believe?

Nurses Activism

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uRNmyway, ASN, RN

1,080 Posts

Specializes in Med-Surg.
*** The government isn't forcing anything. Those people went way out of their way and worked hard to get into their CHOSEN field. They had the oppertunity to never have to dispence Plan-B or oral contraceptives but they deliberatly chose to work in a field where it would be expected of them. There ar plenty of pharm and physician jobs where they will never have to face the issue.

To me this is exactly like a person with strong religious beliefes about pork going to work in a BBQ restaurant and complaining that handeling pork offends their religion.

Oh come on, that is being ridiculous. To use your comparison, it is like a person going to culinary school and getting a job at a restaurant with a menu that has THOUSANDS of items, but one of them is pork, and since it is against their religious beliefs to handle pork, they refuse to serve this ONE item. Come on now. You will criticize those with religious, more conservative beliefs if they make silly, exaggerated statements, then you go say something like that.

uRNmyway, ASN, RN

1,080 Posts

Specializes in Med-Surg.
*** So under the Bush rules it was OK to FORCE employers to keep employes who were refusing to do their jobs.. How is it OK to FORCE the owner of a pharmacy to continue to employ a pharmacist who is failing to do the job hired to do?

Seems this ruling is a huge victory for the personal liberty folks.

Ok, so if the pharmacy is privately owned, by the pharmacist, can he/she THEN choose not to dispense birth control or plan B, as a private business owner?

uRNmyway, ASN, RN

1,080 Posts

Specializes in Med-Surg.
As a nurse, I respect my patient's decisions. If I were to disagree on moral grounds, I would ask another provider to take over, not simply refuse to give the med. My patients come to me for nursing expertise, not judgment.

So if a pharmacist refuses to dispense, and then gives you a list of providers who WILL, does that let them off the hook?

MunoRN, RN

8,058 Posts

Specializes in Critical Care.

A basic ethical requirement of Pharmacists, Doctors, Nurses, etc. is that they perform their duties without substituting their own personal decisions for those of their patients. This may mean providing a service, treatment, medication, etc that may differ from what the provider may chose in the same situation. An inability respect the personal decisions of your patients means the provider is unable to comply with the basic ethical requirements of the role.

MunoRN, RN

8,058 Posts

Specializes in Critical Care.
So if a pharmacist refuses to dispense, and then gives you a list of providers who WILL, does that let them off the hook?

I have an acquaintance who once told me she would have a hard time being a Nurse. She believes that God gives homosexuals diseases to punish them, and that it is therefore unethical to treat any illness a homosexual suffers from. She asked if she could still be a Nurse if she just had other Nurses give these patients their medications, etc, if she was assigned these patients. If she directed these patients to other Nurses who wouldn't withhold care because of her personal beliefs, would that let her off the hook?

uRNmyway, ASN, RN

1,080 Posts

Specializes in Med-Surg.

I have an acquaintance who once told me she would have a hard time being a Nurse. She believes that God gives homosexuals diseases to punish them, and that it is therefore unethical to treat any illness a homosexual suffers from. She asked if she could still be a Nurse if she just had other Nurses give these patients their medications, etc, if she was assigned these patients. If she directed these patients to other Nurses who wouldn't withhold care because of her personal beliefs, would that let her off the hook?

Depends, if she is a Christian, it probably isnt an option. If she were Muslim, that might fly. ;)

Specializes in Ambulatory Care-Family Medicine.

I believe as health care professionals we should provide the patient with ALL available options and let them choose. I am personally and religiously pro life and will not work somewhere I had to participate in an abortion but have no problem providing that info as an option for my patients as well as adoption, keeping it, or plan b if appropriate. It's not my choice or my body it is my patients but I would not directly be able to participate (like opening the packaging handing them the plan b pill and a glass of water). I'll discuss it as an option but could not actually participate but each person has their own choice and line to draw in the sand.

MunoRN, RN

8,058 Posts

Specializes in Critical Care.
Depends, if she is a Christian, it probably isnt an option. If she were Muslim, that might fly. ;)

?

You lost me there.

Clementia

113 Posts

This issue isn't a matter of forcing beliefs on anyone. I do not believe that anyone -- Christian, Jewish, Muslim, pagan, agnostic, atheist, whomever -- has the right to demand that another person follow their beliefs against that person's own conscience. Refusal to dispense or administer a drug is just that -- a refusal based on conscience. In essence, the refusing pharmacist is saying to the patient, "You have the right to make whatever decision you please, but I cannot aid you in carrying out the plan you have decided on because it goes against my beliefs."

Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.

I would hope that people would step back enough to understand that when you throw "personal liberty" as a moral preference, REMEMBER that ONE's personal liberty may look MUCH different from EVERY individual...so while one is banging about "my personal liberty" they may be violating MY personal liberty...just a thought...

And BTW...WHY on earth would one who is soooo concerned about "personal liberty" be in every household, bedroom, dark back road of America??? Why not just focus on respecting "personal liberty???" You can't have it both ways...just as one is concerned about personal "liberty", then you cannot ignore and alienate the rest of society or bend society to fit into a "personal liberty"...so for those purposely blocking individuals choices, sorry you are interfering with "personal liberty" whether you like it or not; it's just not YOUR personal "liberty" that you may feel is under attack, now you attacking others.

Where's the respect???

uRNmyway, ASN, RN

1,080 Posts

Specializes in Med-Surg.
I would hope that people would step back enough to understand that when you throw "personal liberty" as a moral preference, REMEMBER that ONE's personal liberty may look MUCH different from EVERY individual...so while one is banging about "my personal liberty" they may be violating MY personal liberty...just a thought...

And BTW...WHY on earth would one who is soooo concerned about "personal liberty" be in every household, bedroom, dark back road of America??? Why not just focus on respecting "personal liberty???" You can't have it both ways...just as one is concerned about personal "liberty", then you cannot ignore and alienate the rest of society or bend society to fit into a "personal liberty"...so for those purposely blocking individuals choices, sorry you are interfering with "personal liberty" whether you like it or not; it's just not YOUR personal "liberty" that you may feel is under attack, now you attacking others.

Where's the respect???

Again, unless the pharmacists are physically restraining these women or calling all surrounding pharmacists and putting them on some kind of 'do not dispense' list, they are not being stopped, their liberties are not affected.

PMFB-RN, RN

5,351 Posts

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
Well, with that logic, would you tell a Jehovah's Witness nurse who refuses to administer a transfusion that she chose the wrong profession?

*** Given the large number of RN jobs that would never require her to administer blood products I would tell he she was in the wrong profession. I ertainly would tell her she is in the wrong nursing specialty. Is she has a religoud believe that prevents her form administering blood products then she needs to NOT seek a position where that would be a normal expected part of her daily practice, like ICU nursing. I would no problem firing her for refusing to preform her job.

Or that she just needs to suck it up and do it anyways, regardless of it being against their religious beliefs?

*** Yes she should have to live with the concequences of her choices. If she chose to work in a unit that required blood administration, and deliberatly ignored all the other RN jobs where it would not be an issue I would tell her to suck it up or hit the road.

Or what if you had a Muslim nurse, male or female, who adamantly refused to perform peri-care on a patient of the opposite sex? Would you condemn them the same way?

*** Of course! If a nurse doesn't wish to provide pericare then they should not choose to work in an area where that is a normal and expected part of their job. The should have personal responsibiliety for their actions and choices.

I find it extremely insulting and frustrating that every other religion (or at least that's the way it seems) gets the right to freedom of religion, but Christians get treated like poop by everyone.

*** From my perspective it is Christians treating everyone else like "poop".

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