Planned Parenthood, Women's Health Issues, Nurses could rule the US

[Karen]

With more than 3,000,000 nurses, yes that is 3 MILLION PLUS nurses in the US why aren't we ruling? Just think if every nurse emailed their representatives in government and told them to stop trying to block access to contraceptives, sexual education, and attempting to squash Planned Parenthood. Or donated 1, 10, or 100 dollars to the ANA PAC? Nurses votes ALONE could determine who is President. Even more important nurses can play a huge role in local politics, what are a few deciding for all at local school board meetings?

Doesn't it bother anyone else that the whole health care system was set up to benefit Drs and Hospitals, nurses were put in the bed charge because at the time when insurance companies and hospitals were developing nurses didn't matter and had no power. Why nursing care is not paid for directly (which would also make nursing the most revenue producer in a hospital rather than a revenue drain) Why chronic disease management by RN's is not reimburseable even though research shows its extremely effective. Blah blah blah, honestly after going on 27 years in nursing I feel like nothing has changed at all. Isn't it time we had a revolution?

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

Many years ago in the 80's, as a CRNA student, I worked in the abortion room on Fridays. For those of you too young to have any historical reference, abortion were MUCH more common those days. In MY experience, the majority were young teens and Grandma was in her 30's. They were NOT giving these babies up for adoption (and I didn't see any "pro-life" people lurking around the hallways to take these babies to a safe and loving environment). I did a c-section on an 11 year old and we couldn't find the mother for a consent issue - she was in the cafeteria with her boyfriend, the father of the baby (thankfully got arrested).

The "normal" women often carried babies with really bad fetal abnormalities (not talking about Down's here) and it was very sad.

So don't anyone tell me about their "pro-life" proclivities until Mother Hale House and foster parents are put out of business. These children have a short and brutish life. I gave them their giant IM injections for lead poisoning and treated burns from being dropped into boiling water (not so rare). Now for hospice morphine. After 40 years of nursing, I've never seen a lethal dose given. The ethical dilemmas come with respiratory rates of 7 or 8. At last, the patient seems peacefull - no pain, no air hunger. What do you do then? Agreed I don't work in hospice but did work on chemotherapy unit in the 70's. Ethics haven't changed - same problems.

[CFitzRN, ADN]

CFitz I did not say that at all. I said that if I am suffering and there is no chance, please help me endure the suffering with pain relief. I agree with you regarding Hospice at times. I have had bad experiences with Hospice. I believe that they serve a purpose but a little part of me believes that Hospice truly gets some sort of pleasure from their over drugging. Please any hospice nurse out there, I appreciate what you do for some but not for a lot. I want to stick to our thread and not go off on another subject.

In my post I referred to nurses or doctors choosing to give lethal doses to "end suffering". You said "what's wrong with ending someone's suffering?" - you made direct reference to my post, which was specific to giving a lethal dose of morphine. If you didn't mean ending someone's life (like I was saying) you should have made that clear. I agree that at times hospice seems to be carrying out an agenda - as though they have a secret pact to over-drug people at the end of life. I don't believe they do it because it gives them some evil pleasure - I believe they do it because they believe it is "the right thing to do." I just don't agree with them, that they should have that right, or authority, to end someone's life. This is all speculation so I'm not accusing anyone of anything.

[PMFB-RN, RN]

PMFB, I understand abortions are PERFORMED whether legal or not, but this does not even begin to address my questions about inherent value of human beings.

*** As an amature history buff my impression is that never in human history has human life been more valuable than it is at this moment. Take heart, we (those of us who hold human life at great value) are winning!

Just because something is done anyway does not mean our nation should make it legal or advocate for it. That's just ridiculous.

*** Sure, I guess so but that isn't what you were saying.

That is called EUTHANASIA, and it is still (thank God) illegal in this country

*** Assisted sucide IS legal in at least one state that I know of. I would give a lethal dose of medication to certain of my patients in a heart beat if it was legal and I knew that is what the patient wanted. I would do it with a clear concious too. My concious is already dragging around a lot of baggage from patients for whome I could not do such a thing, despite their wishes. To this day the memory of a patient I will call John bothers me. He wanted nothing more than to die. He was literaly rotting from the inside out. His legs where withered and rotting, his bowels who necrotic. John was a DNR until one day he didn't wake up but continued to breath. His estranged (but still married) wife showed up and changed his code status to full code and John was intubated and taken to the ICU to linger for another 6 weeks and be coded twice. One code was while he was under my care. I refused to take part on moral grounds. I fully expected to lose my job, or at least get a repremand, but nobody in managment ever said a word to me about it. I knew john before he was intubated and knew he only wanted to die. He had had enough long before. Turns out his wife was dependant on his disabiliety checks and didn't want to to stop coming. Our doctors, ethics team and managers were fully cowed by the very aggresive wife who drew her lawer like a six gun.

[CFitzRN, ADN]

1800s: "I personally believe slavery is wrong, and I would never own a slave myself, but people in the south are going to own slaves anyway so it should be kept legal. That would inhibit the underground trade."

2000s: "I personally believe abortion is wrong, and I would never have an abortion myself, but people are going to have abortions, so it should be kept legal. That would inhibit back alley abortions."

It is the same thing, except that slaves weren't usually killed simply for existing. Both slavery AND abortion are wrong, period. There should be no "but" involved.

[PMFB-RN, RN]

It is the same thing, except that slaves weren't usually killed simply for existing. Both slavery AND abortion are wrong, period. There should be no "but" involved.

*** It is widely agreed on in our society that slavery is wrong. Despite this slavery continues on a wide scale.

Abortion being wrong is your opinion. A great many people agree with your opinion but a great many do not share your opinion. For example some people think it is wrong to force a woman to produce babies against her will and if it means abortion to prevent such things from happening then it is a cost they are willing to pay.

I was always against abortion until while in the army I served in Bosnia. While there I had the opportunity to meet a number of women who had been held as sex slaves in Serbian concentration camps. These women and girls, many not even in their teens yet, where gang raped on a daily basis and not released until confirmed pregnant. Since then I have acquired a more nuanced view of abortion.

[nicurn001]

time to lighten this up a bit , here is a link to a site that explains the attitude of some to birth control ( of which abortion should be the last resort )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0kjhqpvgb8

back to reality now.

if you are pro life , that should not be a label to hide behind your attempt to impose your relious dogma on all . if you are pro life then you should not only be worried about protecting the creation of life , you should be protecting against the early termination of life ie. euthanasia and the death penalty ( the latter may in some cases be repugnant to all , but it is logical if you believe that we are here by gods will and return to him in the same manner ).

if you are going to remove the right of the mother to end her unwanted pregnancy , you will have to ensure that all girls recieve education to know how they become pregnant and how they can avoid pregancy ( from abstinence thru contraception ).you will have to ensure easy access to contraception , if the woman ( to me any girl who can become pregnant is a woman )who has an unwanted pregnancy ,has to carry that fetus to birth then you need to say what you will do with these unwanted children ( here again if you are pro life and wish to remove choice from pregnant woman , you should also be prepared to take on the care of these unwanted children , who you otherwise condemn to the care of someone who neither wants , or often is unable to care for them ).then you should ensure that those you have forced to have these unwanted children recieve the psychological care they need for having gone through with the pregnancy they did not want . you would have to have a federal safe haven law so that these women could place these unwanted children in a safe location rather than drop them in some garbage skip .i'm sorry to go on like this but being pro life is not just a comforting label , but if you take the choice away from women then you have to work through the consequences of that decision and have all the outcomes of that decision covered .

in the end this discussion is futile because religious zealots only wish to impose their dogma on all because they know best and of course they have decided they are only implementation ( their intepretation of) of gods will .

[CFitzRN, ADN]

"In the end this discussion is futile because religious zealots only wish to impose their dogma on all because they know best and of course they have decided they are only implementation ( their intepretation of) of Gods will . "

Well how convenient for everyone that you have it all so neatly sewn up and figured out.

I am a Catholic woman who lives her faith, certainly not a "religious zealot", as I do not expect everyone to live my faith. What I -do- expect and work toward is for people to see every human being as inherently valuable as the framers of our Declaration of Independence did when they said "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." LIFE. It is the first of the rights to be named. What is an unborn human being? It is a living human being in an early stage of development. Ending its life is denying it the right to ALL the rights - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I see euthanasia as a grave wrong. Assisted suicide is euthanasia. I realize there are people who would call that unfeeling or unkind and I actually understand their feelings on that, but I personally think it is wrong.

I believe the teachings of the church on capital punishment. Catholic Answers says the following:

"The Church continues to uphold its traditional teaching that the state has the right and duty to protect general society from violent offenders, including by means of the death penalty if non-lethal means are insufficient to protect lives in an individual case. What the Church strongly encourages today is that the state do all that it can to satisfy its duty to protect society through non-lethal means, which are in better conformity to the human dignity of the offender and prevent the state from growing callous and imprudent in its application of the death penalty. It also prevents society from developing the "hang ’em high!" attitude that is unfortunately all too prevalent in countries that permit widespread use of the death penalty. As for scriptural support for the Church’s modern pastoral approach to the death penalty, we can look to God’s mercy on murderers such as Cain and King David (cf. Gn 4:1–16, 2 Sm 12) as examples of extending mercy to those who, by reason of their crimes, could justly have been put to death."

In other words, only in severe cases where the public's safety is at grave risk.

I don't know that my religion is the only thing that makes me pro-life. I was pro-life before I really began to live my faith on a daily basis. While it is handy to dismiss people like me as "zealots", I believe it is a flippant and wholly fictional accounting.

[nicurn001]

"I am a Catholic woman who lives her faith, certainly not a "religious zealot", as I do not expect everyone to live my faith

"

This is the crux of our disagreement , you see it that you are protecting a right , I see it as an imposition of your faiths dogma . Fortunately we live in this wonderful country in which we can express our opinions freely . I say this discussion is futile as we have fundimentally differing views of this matter .

Far greater minds than ours have tried to define life and when it begins , discussing that here would open a whole different can of worms , needless to say I believe we would disagree upon this.

Honestly I have simply placing before you a different point of view .

We have seen the results of the attempts to impose a particular dogma upon all , 911 and the Troubles in Northern Ireland for example and many more conflicts throughout history , these are the reasons I fear the attempts to impose any particular faith based law / code of laws in anywhere .

live in peace

[nicurn001]

How would you address the questions I posed re.what should be done about the problems created by the unwanted children of the pregnancies that were not terminated should abortion be banned ?.

[lrobinson5]

How can you compare euthanizing the elderly to terminating a pregnancy? I think abortion is sad, but an unborn fetus doesn't want to live... it doesn't "want" anything. Killing an older person against their will for any reason is completely different.

[Karen]

Here's the thing people believe life starts at a certain point based on science and/or their religious beliefs. I feel religious beliefs have no business deciding law because that is a persons personal belief and should not be forced on anyone. Now even contraception is being attacked by right wing religious conservatives. Initiatives are being made in many states to what will in effect outlaw most forms of birth control. What seriously ****** me off is not people disaggreeing with what I think but that women are standing by allowing MEN to make decisions regarding our reproductive rights and sexuality. That even a person can make a comment like if you became pregnant by rape just make the best of a bad situation, that is total crap and he is running for president. That Catholic Bishops can make decisions of whether women can receive basic health care. That organized religions dominated by men can suppress and pervert a women's sexuality. Our elected officials villify Planned Parenthood which was started by a nurse that was willing to go to jail to just to educate women about how their bodies worked and whos main focus is not abortion but prevention of abortion.

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

How can you compare euthanizing the elderly to terminating a pregnancy? I think abortion is sad, but an unborn fetus doesn't want to live... it doesn't "want" anything. Killing an older person against their will for any reason is completely di

fferent.

Hey, who was talking about euthanizing old people ? IA previous poster discussed the right of people in Oregon to take a lethal dose of a prescribed sedative to end their life. They actually have to swallow the stuff on their own and it tastes awful. There was a wonderful

documentary on HBO about a year ago called "How to Die in Oregon." Very, very touching.

For everone out there (not you Irobinson5) who is trying to use dogma to prove your argument....CUT IT OUT! I do not impose my dogma, voodoo on you (yes, I have my own) and you shouldn't impose your voodoo, dogma on me. Can be please elevate the content of these posts to a respectable debate? Peace.