what legal ethical coads apply to dilemma?

[the tooth]

i am first semister nursing student, and i am writting an ethical dilemma paper. i found a good one on this site, and i am having trouble finding the legal ethics or laws that apply. if anybody could give me some help i would geratly appriciate it. i looked at the ana code of ethics and cold not find anything that was helpfull, or at least i couldn't figure out how to. so a point in the right direction would also be appreciated. also, if anyone has some moral ethics or values that they would concider in that situation, i woudld love to hear them. below is the scenario, thank you

a 34year old with possible terminal cancer and 3 children under 4 was undergoing tests to locate the primary. at this point there was a lot of suspicion that the ca was terminal, but without finding the primary tumor the doctors didn't want to make a solid statement.

the patient had presented to the a&e several months prior with serious back pain, and after x-ray was found to have several tumors on a number of vertebrae. the pt's medical history was four elective terminations of pregnancies, one when she was 18 and another at age 20, 21 and 24. post the second termination she suffered complications relating to retained fetal parts, and post the fourth termination had suffered a serious of ovarian cysts.

her children were born after the fourth termination.

anyway, long story short, the doctors eventually found the primary - it was located on uterine scaring, the doctors were all in agreement the primary cancerous growth was caused by the terminations. (it was a lot more complicated and lengthy explanation).

here's the ethical problem - the pt had suffered post abortion depression and had made 3 suicide attempts within months of the first three terminations. the pt explained that she'd continued to have top because she had wanted to get pregnant again after each top because she felt "empty" and was hoping the soul of the babies she'd "murdered" would return to her, but each time she got pregnant the circumstances which "required" the top still existed.

anyway, she had made comment to myself, and several other nurses and doctors that she believed her cancer was a punishment from her dead babies for killing them.

so, the doctors told her they had found the primary on her vera brae and it was no where near her uterus to ensure she didn't get "depressed" or blame her tops for her "death sentence". however, the pt asked on occasion to check the uterus for cancer, as she thought it might have been there, because of all her tops.

she wasn't an adherent to any major religion, but was very "spiritual" and followed a bunch of varying beliefs she had taken from a lot of asian and pagan religions.

sadly, the woman died several months after my clinical finished.

[Agnus]

I am wondering what made them say the termination of the pregs caused the cancer. What research supports this? Or was it just because it was found the the surgical scar tissue?

[Agnus]

This is probably not what you are looking for but I think some emotional / psyc counseling and education would have been more helpful than their apparently feeble attempt to spare her depression by withholding information.

Sounds to me like the docs were protecting themselves from having to deal with her emotional issues more than they were in protecting her, as she was clearly already depressed (probably chronic)

[the tooth]

i don't know, i found this scenario on this site from march 5