I am feeling very conflicted about making a decision in the near future about this, and I would appreciate reliable and honest advice. I am finishing a very difficult 5 year degree, and have wanted a job in healthcare for a long time. I still want to pursue a career part time in what i am studying, which is to be a band and music teacher, and am considering going to nursing school part time during the year and taking summer courses while i teach. I think nursing would be a very rewarding profession, and I think that I would be very happy to be a nurse. I do feel a calling toward a job in the medical field, and I am still young, I am 23 years old, and I feel that if I am going to devote so much more energy, time, and money into a second career I need to decide now.
With everything going on in the United States ( I live in Canada), I am extremely concerned about whether I would actually be able to work as a nurse by the time I graduate or not. I am unapollogetically pro-life, and would never have anything to do with abortion whatsoever. This to me even includes post abortion care. How much trouble will I have? It seems that every hospital that is not a Catholic hospital runs into this situation. I have friends in nursing that tell me that you would jsut work in a different branch of the hospital but then I hear stories about nurses still having to walk away from certain situations having to do with abortion. I would actually really like to work in Cosmetic surgery, but I am not sure how the job market is out there for that. I feel something telling me I should go ahead with it because this is something that I feel I really may be meant to do in my life,, but I will NOT participate in anything to do with abortion ever. My husband has a good career here in Canada, so the chacnes of us moving to another country are slimto none until retirement,
I do not want to start up a debate, I am just an exhausted student who is trying to make a really big decision and is increadibly overwhelmed at what i should do. I really appreciate your responses!
Amen to the last post. You put into words what I was going to comment. How can you want to be a nurse when you think it is okay to judge whom should receive your care. Did not Jesus help the prostitutes, poor, lepers, and criminals?
While I know that the op's original post was not to start a debate, but being pro-life myself and in the process of applying to ns I have thought about this long and hard. I hear this reply often. "How can you determine who gets care and who doesn't?" question. For a pro-life person you must understand that in our opinion that baby being aborted is just as much a person as you and I. To us it is the same as if those babies are toddlers or children and the anger(yes I said anger) we feel when one is terminated and we can do nothing, say nothing. It breaks my heart as much as a toddler's death would break yours. I hate bringing Jesus or God or any other religious figure into the argument, but you said Jesus would help like he helped prostitutes? That doesn't mean he would help them prostitute and be their pimp. It means he wouldn;t turn his back on them and get them on the right path. But as a nurse I would never push my beliefs on someone or try to tell them how they did wrong so I would respectfully ask to not work with any patients that are post op. If I was in ER I would never turn my back on someone is suffering from post abortion. I hope this clears up why I still would be a nurse, why there are thousands of pro-life nurses who do their job with dignity and compassion but who do not bend their beliefs.
it's easy enough to solve your problem. If you don't want to participate in an abortion procedure...don't work where they perform abortions. You have a CHOICE where you seek employment after graduation, and I cannot imagine any nursing school ANYWHERE would put you in a position of assisting with an abortion.
If you can't provide competent, compassionate care to someone who has had an abortion (recently or in the past)....work for a doc who treats men only (is there such a thing? an ED specialist?). Because you WILL see a patient's history that states she has had an elective abortion in her past, even if she is presently in the hospital for toe surgery. It WILL happen. You may be able to get away with refusing the patient on moral grounds...but you will be VERY unpopular with your co-workers after this happens 2 or 3 times. Of course, many people will say you are not at work to make friends, blah blah, blah. Read any of the posts about nurses eating their young. It happens. There is no reason to invite it upon yourself!
I congratulate you on thinking of these things before starting school. As nurses we face many moral delimmas regarding the activities of our patients. Better to clarify what you can deal with now than when faced with it in the heat of the moment.
I think as long as you care for your patients as you would want to be cared for, you will be fine. You will not be performing abortions. You can tailor your career to suit your particular interests/passion; nursing offers a wide variety of specialties and many of them have nothing to do with abortion.
Best of luck to you as you pursue your dreams.
"Be kind, for everyone you know is facing a great battle" ~ Philo of Alexandria
You are exactly right. One of the beautiful things about being a nurse is that the field is so varied and you can tailor your career to an area that does not impose on your views, be it pro-life, Jehovah's Witnesses (who oppose the use of blood and blood products), and there's even "pro-death" who oppose life support especially for the terminally ill or elderly. Point is, there is a niche that you can fit in.
Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
I also suspect that as long as you avoid the above mentioned areas, you should not face issues that compromise your pro-life stance. However, I do wonder what happens if a person came to your area with complications from an abortion. My facility, for example, states that the nurse does not have to participate in abortion procedures, but they can be expected to care for the patient after the procedure is done. To me, that is reasonable-it may not be to a pro-lifer.
You are exactly right. One of the beautiful things about being a nurse is that the field is so varied and you can tailor your career to an area that does not impose on your views, be it pro-life, Jehovah's Witnesses (who oppose the use of blood and blood products), and there's even "pro-death" who oppose life support especially for the terminally ill or elderly. Point is, there is a niche that you can fit in.
Um....have a BIG problem with 'pro-death' as a label for those who think it's wrong to prolong life by hooking elderly people and terminally ill people up to machines....find out what palliative care is really about before making such a comment....
Back to OP: Chances are good you won't run into this issue unless you work OB or ER. But if you are going to get picky and refuse to care for someone based on the fact she had an abortion in the past, then you need to rethink your career goals. It depends on where you are going to draw the line.
You cannot be forced to assist with abortions but you cannot refuse to take care of a patient after one. As a nurse you don't get to pick and choose who you care for. Perhaps you could swap assignments with someone, but then again perhaps that won't be possible. Feeling as you do you would be wise to look into programs that have their affiliations with Catholic hospitals only. Even with doing this there is nothing to say that someone with abortion complications at an outside clinic will not be admitted to your care.
I would advise you to keep your mouth closed during school in what you will or will not do, or, as someone else has already pointed out you may find yourself out of favor with your instructors.
I would work in an environment where you know you can refer a pt to another nurse. If you have a pt that requires any abortion related care and you decline to provide that care, you must refer that pt to a provider that WILL treat them. If the pt came to you and leaves untreated without a referal, that is considered pt abandonment. You likely won't encounter this in a specialty setting--though you'd be surprised at how frequently you will encounter what you would never expect.
As far as treating women who have HAD abortions in the past (or men who have been mutually involved in the choice to abort)--that is obviously unavoidable.
I don't understand why you feel the need to rush into a 2nd career. You're only 23, it seems you haven't even started your first career yet. Why don't you give yourself some time off from school and evaluate what it is you really want to do. If it's nursing, so be it. You'll find a way around your personal issues.
You can support some one without supporting what they do.
Although you can get away with not participating with an abortion, you can not refuse to take care of a patient that is the result of a bad one. When a woman has had an abortion and you are to take care of her because it has gone bad, this is after the fact, it done, over with, finished. Nothing you can do about it now.
A Catholic nursing school or a Catholic hospital will certainly help you avoid such situations. You are likely to find however that relatively few of the people there actually adhere strongly to the church's teaching on life issues - i.e. professors or fellow students advocating abortion or euthanasia, the religious sister/president of the hospital cosying up to pro-abortion politicians.
Avoiding nursing because you fear finding yourself in a conflict only cedes the field to the other side entirely. You most likely WILL be able to avoid conflict, and if a hospital won't honor your conscience, that's not where you want to be working.
During one of my clinicals observing at the OR, I was assigned to watch OB-GYN surgery and noticed that a patient was scheduled for a D&C. I screwed up my courage and told the charge that I couldn't watch if it was for abortion. She said the hospital didn't do abortions but there was no hostility or repercussions because I spoke up.
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hopefulabby
40 Posts
While I know that the op's original post was not to start a debate, but being pro-life myself and in the process of applying to ns I have thought about this long and hard. I hear this reply often. "How can you determine who gets care and who doesn't?" question. For a pro-life person you must understand that in our opinion that baby being aborted is just as much a person as you and I. To us it is the same as if those babies are toddlers or children and the anger(yes I said anger) we feel when one is terminated and we can do nothing, say nothing. It breaks my heart as much as a toddler's death would break yours. I hate bringing Jesus or God or any other religious figure into the argument, but you said Jesus would help like he helped prostitutes? That doesn't mean he would help them prostitute and be their pimp. It means he wouldn;t turn his back on them and get them on the right path. But as a nurse I would never push my beliefs on someone or try to tell them how they did wrong so I would respectfully ask to not work with any patients that are post op. If I was in ER I would never turn my back on someone is suffering from post abortion. I hope this clears up why I still would be a nurse, why there are thousands of pro-life nurses who do their job with dignity and compassion but who do not bend their beliefs.