Ethics paper???

So, I have to write and ethics paper for my maternity class this up and coming semester and i need help finding a topic to write about that would be easy to research. It doesnt really have to do with maternity nursing or anything just has to tie in to nursing in some way. Sooooo any help would be very much appriecated! :-)

~*Mesha*~

Stem cell research and end-of-life issues come to mind for me. But I'd guess they're both well-covered topics already, if that's a concern for you.

Hey the better its covered the easier it should be for me to research :-) thanks for the topic choices!!!

I'd look at mandatory vaccinations.

An idea that comes to mind immediately is abortion. The Roe v. Wade (1973) Supreme Court decision legalized abortion. Ever since, there has been controversy and ethical debate. You could relate this to nursing depending on which side of the issue you are, or explore both. The refusal of staff to treat patients terminating their pregnancy r/t moral objection. Or, nurses caring for patients and placing their personal feelings aside.

I did mine on circumcision (I'm against it). Some topics that my fellow students in my clinical group did was stem cell, abortion, forced sterilization on drug addicts....I can't remember what else. Good luck!

I did mine on forced sterilization of sex offenders. There was much more info out there than I thought there'd be and it was a really interesting topic.

Some others in my group chose level of care for infants that are going to die (like those bone with anencephaly), abortion, forced vaccinations...I can't remember the rest. There are a ton of topics out there.

After my instructor encouraged us to find some "new" topics, I did mine on growth attenuation. It's using hormone therapy (along with hysterectomy, oophorectomy, breast bud removal in some cases) to keep profoundly developmentally delayed children from growing to regular adult size, ostensibly to allow their family to continue to care for them at home. Google Ashley X if you're interested.

Here's a long standing ethics debate about end of life care in "persistent vegetative state" Karen Ann Quinlan (Granted wikipedia is not a scholarly source of information)

Karen Ann Quinlan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Other issues include parental rights vs. child's rights. For example when legal charges of medical neglect against parents who elect to not adopt modern medicine and choose prayer as the treatment for their ill child. Who's rights are violated the parents who want to stay within their strict tenets of their beliefs? Or the child who gets no choice in the matter and gets more ill or worse dies?

Thanks guys for quick responses and great idea!