Ignatius Incognito

This is long, but I’m livid and needed to vent. It’s about abortion, nursing, and extreme unprofessionalism.

nonplussedbyreligion:

So I just read this article:

Nurses Fight For Their Right To Refuse Women Care

A group of nurses have sued for their right to refuse to participate in abortions, citing their anti-choice stance as reason enough to decline to care for women who have elected to terminate a pregnancy. From the way the complaint describes it, you’d think they were being ordered to line babies up and shoot them with a crossbow in front of their children. But they’re not being forced to help out with the procedure at all — nope, these nurses are citing their moral beliefs as justification for refusing to care for women before or after having abortions.

The Washington Post reports that in September, The University of Medicine & Dentistry’s New Jersey hospital changed its longstanding policy that allowed nurses to opt out of participating in any step of a medical procedure based on their religious or cultural beliefs. While medical professionals employed by the hospital would still be allowed to perform specific procedures with which they disagreed, they’d no longer be allowed to excuse themselves from all steps of the procedure; that is, nurses who objected to abortions would now be required to provide pre- or post-surgical care. At the end of October, a group of nurses filed suit against University Hospital, claiming religious discrimination.

A lawyer for the hospital says that the procedures utilized in prepping patients for abortions or assisting their recovery was fairly run-of-the-mill; nurses weren’t going to be required to say a Black Mass and then laugh gleefully while chanting “Huzzah for sluttery!” over the woman’s fetal remains. No matter! Abortion is wrong, and thus the women receiving them don’t deserve any sort of medical treatment. Twelve of the sixteen nurses who work in the hospital’s same-day surgery unit have refused to participate in any stage of care for a woman terminating her pregnancy.

A judge issued a temporary restraining order barring the hospital from requiring nurses to receive training on pre- and post- abortion care, and on December 5th, a judge will hear their case. If the nurses in New Jersey are allowed to use religious or cultural beliefs as grounds to refuse to provide any care to any women terminating pregnancies, their case sets a strange precedent.

How far back could a health care provider’s opposition to caring for women extend? If I had an abortion in 2007 and wanted to get a pap smear, could the nurse refuse to check my blood pressure in 2011? How about if I got in a car accident on my way home from having unprotected sex with a stranger? Could an ambulance driver refuse to transport me to a hospital?

Doctors in emergency rooms have no right to refuse to provide medical care to someone who overdosed on heroin, even though heroin is illegal and many people are morally opposed to its recreational use. They have to care for drunk drivers, even though driving drunk is both illegal and a pretty universally assy thing to do. Why, then, should a hospital be forced to bend over backwards to accommodate people’s religious beliefs surrounding abortion, a legal medical procedure protected by the Constitution?

One of President Obama’s early acts in the Oval Office was eliminating a Bush era expansion of an existing “conscience clause” law that allowed people who worked in health care facilities— from anesthesiologists to cafeteria workers— to refuse to provide care to women terminating pregnancies, or to anyone for any moral reason. Under the Bush law, medical professionals who morally objected to contraception, abortion, or any medical procedure were also under no obligation to provide a patient with a referral to someone who would be willing to help them. The rule’s reversal means that Americans, for the most part, shouldn’t have to deal with their doctor’s kooky morality when they want to, say, get an IUD or vaccinate their child.

Put simply, because the University Hospital nurses’ job is to help patients prepare for and recover from surgery, these nurses are asking for the right to not do their jobs. On what planet is this acceptable?

If medical professionals are going to insist on the right to refuse to do things at work that they find icky, perhaps people in other industries should do the same. I’m morally opposed to mandatory annual regulatory training and the word “webinar” is against my religion. Get on it, government.

New Jersey nurses charge religious discrimination over hospital abortion policy[WaPo]

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The very first reading assignment I ever received in nursing school was on values, ethics, and advocacy.   I remember my instructor saying to us, if you can’t check yourself at the door and show up for your patients, then you probably want to withdraw from this program now.  I actually still have my Nursing Fundamental textbook; I’ve gotten rid of many over the years, but held on this one because in it was this:

[…In their daily work, nurses deal with intimate and fundamental human events such as birth, death, and suffering.  They must decide the morality of their own actions when they face the many ethical issues that surround such sensitive areas.  Because of the special nurse-client relationship, nurses are the ones who are there to support and advocate for clients and families who are facing difficult choices, and for those who are living the results of choices that others make about them…]

I can’t speak for all nursing schools, but before we even learned how to take a blood pressure, we spent an entire week learning about nursing ethics and the nursing code of conduct.  Learning about human dignity, morality, integrity, social justice, and nonmaleficence- the duty to do no harm.  There are International and American Codes of ethics that nurses are held to.   In my opinion , these nurses are absolutely in violation of these ethics and quite frankly sicken me. The preamble of the International Council of Nurse Code of Ethics reads:

Nurses have four fundamental responsibilities: to promote health, to

prevent illness, to restore health and to alleviate suffering. The need

for nursing is universal.

 

Inherent in nursing is respect for human rights, including cultural

rights, the right to life and choice, to dignity and to be treated with

respect. Nursing care is respectful of and unrestricted by considerations of age, colour, creed, culture, disability or illness, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, politics, race or social status.

 

Nurses render health services to the individual, the family and the

community and co-ordinate their services with those of related groups.

 

Healthcare is such a diverse field allowing you to specialize in the type of care you feel is a good fit for you.  I knew with absolute certainty that I would not be able to handle working in Pediatrics or Labor and Delivery, long before I had to live through the horrible clinical experience of both.  However, while I was there, it was not about me.  It was about the patient.  It broke my heart to see a child in a hospital bed broken because their mother’s boyfriend had beaten them.  The fact that the mother was present at the child’s bedside and was upset because her boyfriend was arrested pissed me off to degrees I cannot express in words.  However, I was there for my patient, the child in the bed.  I checked my rage at the door and completed my assignment. 

What these nurses are doing goes against everything I know the profession to be.  I worked in psychiatric nursing, with child abusers and rapists.  I also worked with their victims.  The level of care I provided to both groups could not be differentiated.  With a history of sexual abuse in my past, I could have easily refused to provide care.  I would have been reassigned.  It would have been the end of it.  Nurses have the right to refuse assignments for personal reasons that would render them incapable of performing their job duties competently.  However, we do not have the right to make our decisions impact the lives of our patients.  I’m an atheist and most of my patients aren’t.  I hear them and their families say “Thank God” every single day, and even if I do an occasional mental eye roll, I NEVER allow it to impact my care.  I’m not there for me.  It’s not about me.  I check my shit at the door and show up for my patients.  These nurses should all be fired.  Sounds harsh I know, but I would never want anyone with such deep held prejudices taking care of me in any capacity. ~ Kim (all emphasis mine)

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