pro life to work in ER OR OB

Nurses General Nursing

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I had made a post about this earlier. I would like to go into nursing, but am against abortion completely at all times, I am Catholic, and I would never ever take part in an abortion procedure, nor would i want to care for someone immediately after they had the procedure becuase without me there to do that, the abortion couldnt have happened, so in a way i am still contributing to the abortion. I will make this clear from the start, If somebody had an abortion a year prior or a month prior or whatever else of course i would still care for them. As long as i am not being responsible for that abortion happening,, I could still care for them.

Alot of people said, that is fine just don't work in the ER, OR, OB/GYN areas.. but truthfully i would like to work in all of these areas more then others.... is this possible?

Note: I do not feel that it is any of my business if my patient had an abortion in the past and i would never treat anybody differently becuase they had one in the past. I just need to know that when i sleep at night I am doing the right thing and not going against my beliefs and I think that i deserve those rights..

Thanks for your input! i would love to hear from other pro life nurses most of all and any experiences you have had with this

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JayMar23 said:
I had made a post about this earlier. I would like to go into nursing, but am against abortion completely at all times, I am Catholic, and I would never ever take part in an abortion procedure, nor would i want to care for someone immediately after they had the procedure becuase without me there to do that, the abortion couldnt have happened, so in a way i am still contributing to the abortion. I will make this clear from the start, If somebody had an abortion a year prior or a month prior or whatever else of course i would still care for them. As long as i am not being responsible for that abortion happening,, I could still care for them.

Alot of people said, that is fine just don't work in the ER, OR, OB/GYN areas.. but truthfully i would like to work in all of these areas more then others.... is this possible?

Note: I do not feel that it is any of my business if my patient had an abortion in the past and i would never treat anybody differently becuase they had one in the past. I just need to know that when i sleep at night I am doing the right thing and not going against my beliefs and I think that i deserve those rights..

Thanks for your input! i would love to hear from other pro life nurses most of all and any experiences you have had with this

Do you have Catholic hospitals where you are?

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I will be moving to Calgary in May where my husband has a permanent job and no there are no Catholic Hospitals... there has actually been alot of uproar at the foothils hospital there about nurses being forced to do things against their personal beliefs,,, which is really concerning to me. We are planning to mvoe to the caribean in a few years so if i finished my scool there would be a good chance we would move, and that of course wouldnt be a problem in any of those countries for me to work there.... I guess theres always places like cosmetic surgery, oral surgeons, and other places like that where that is not even an issue whatsoever,, but i would mostly like to work in a hospital

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You can work in a hospital, but as someone told you, if you work in the ER/OR/OB/GYN, you MIGHT be faced with that ethical dilemma. There are other areas of the hospital where you will likely never encounter that situation, cardiac for instance.

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How about pediatric nursing?

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spesrn said:
How about pediatric nursing?

I was going to suggest this as well, but wasn't sure if a teenager who had an abortion would ever be placed on a pedi unit?

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Specializes in ER.

Well, the possibility to care for a post-op abortion pt is possible in ANY area of nursing. I've even seen it happen on peds. So.

I am personally against abortion. I am not Catholic, but I have nothing against Catholicism the way some in the southeast do. My views on religion are pretty tolerant since my own beliefs are contraversial. Anyhow- there are other things that go against Catholicism... so the problem is not so much caring for post-op abortion pts as it is how strict you are in general with your beliefs. I'm all for personal beliefs.... but there is a fine line in pt care- and eventually we all do something we'd rather not do. However, we had our beliefs and convictions before working as a nurse- so we make our own choices.

An absolute devout Catholic wouldn't even work in a hospital that performed abortions, D&C's, dispensed birth control, etc. If you are that steady in your conviction- I applaud you- but you're not going to find many places to work outside of a Catholic-run hospital.

Otherwise- there are ways around it, even in ER, OB, and OR. You just have to find the right place. If you live in a really large urban area.... it will be fairly easy in most regards beyond OB, if you can work in a strictly adult or peds hospital. For example- I once worked at a huge facility where peds and OB/women and infants are stand-alone facilites but still a part of the whole hospital complex- so most things you would have the biggest problem with never went to the 'regular' hospital. Each had it's own ED and OR. (By the way, this was in a Catholic-majority northeast state) I now work in a very small rural ER, so the same, to an extent, applies there. No abortion services exist close to home, and our OB unit doesn't care for post-op D&C's because most of our pts who need those are devestated at the loss of their child- it happens d/t fetal demise, so they are rarely placed on OB... and if so... again, fetal demise. Elective D&C's d/t birth defects and the like are rare in our hospital- they are usually sent to a speciality center but if not, they definatley don't go on OB. What few occur are usually a life and death situation- as in, Mom will die if something isn't done now. However, almost any ER will administer Plan B in some situations, so if you have a problem with that it may be tricky if your coworkers are not willing to administer it for you- even a Peds ER does this. I have a Catholic co-worker, and I have no problem with administering Plan B for her pts... but not all nurses are willing to do so. We have had a few pts who showed up w/ day one post-abortion complications.... she doesn't agree w. their decision, but doesn't let that impact her pt care. The choice was already made, she's not supporting it. She doesn't let her beliefs prevent her from saving someone's life- as that's judgemental and not very Christ-like.... her words, not mine.

As for OB.... again, even at a facility that doesn't perform abortions, all OB units I know of offer the Depo-shot post delivery if Mom wants it. There's also elective tubals which you'll see in OB and OR. So, if you are against all forms of BC, you'll have a problem.

So I think it can be done if you can find the right facility.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
JayMar23 said:
I had made a post about this earlier. I would like to go into nursing, but am against abortion completely at all times, I am Catholic, and I would never ever take part in an abortion procedure, nor would i want to care for someone immediately after they had the procedure becuase without me there to do that, the abortion couldnt have happened, so in a way i am still contributing to the abortion. I will make this clear from the start, If somebody had an abortion a year prior or a month prior or whatever else of course i would still care for them. As long as i am not being responsible for that abortion happening,, I could still care for them.

Alot of people said, that is fine just don't work in the ER, OR, OB/GYN areas.. but truthfully i would like to work in all of these areas more then others.... is this possible?

Note: I do not feel that it is any of my business if my patient had an abortion in the past and i would never treat anybody differently becuase they had one in the past. I just need to know that when i sleep at night I am doing the right thing and not going against my beliefs and I think that i deserve those rights..

Thanks for your input! i would love to hear from other pro life nurses most of all and any experiences you have had with this

Will you care for a drug addict, a murderer, someone who drinks to excess, someone who lies, cheats or steals? I feel if you start saying that you WILL not care for one area of the patient population you had better be equal across all populations. We are there to give nursing care, not to judge people by their circumstances. No one is perfect, if we were then we wouldn't need nurses in the first place.

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Specializes in Psych, Med/Surg, LTC.

I am a Catholic pro-lifer, too. We sometimes have to make sacrifices. For me, that means no working in area's where it is likely I will be put into the situation of having to care for someone who very recently had an abortion.

I have no problem taking care of them if say, 2 weeks down the line they have complications from it or whatever. I just don't want to be in the OR/post-op area/OB/ER when this is actively happening. I feel what is done is done, I just don't want any part of it while it is occurring, planning before hand, or immediatly there after. I have worked in med/surg, ltc and psych. I have never had the problem in these areas.

I don't see a problem with this... Some people don't like working with drunks or drug addicts or even kids/babies so they work in areas where those patients are rare to occur.

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Specializes in ER.

You can't pick and choose your patients. You have to take them as they come. This is so true for the ER. I have no idea what is gonna be rolling through the door next but if it's my turn, they are my patient. Maybe you should consider other careers in healthcare- like a respiratory therapist or Xray tech.

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

"Will you care for a drug addict, a murderer, someone who drinks to excess, someone who lies, cheats or steals? I feel if you start saying that you WILL not care for one area of the patient population you had better be equal across all populations. We are there to give nursing care, not to judge people by their circumstances. No one is perfect, if we were then we wouldn't need nurses in the first place."

With all due respect, I don't think this is the issue. The OP has stated that he would still provide care to someone who had a past abortion, so I would venture to say he understands and is capable of providing non-judgemental care to all those populations listed above. However, he does not want to take part in the act itself, or be in a position that would "allow" the act to take place.

Much like he probably would not be comfortable providing drugs, alcohol, a murder weapon, etc. . . .

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ED.

Your previous thread on the same topic went on for fifteen pages. I'm curious what you think will be said in this one that hasn't been said before.

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