Opting In or Out – Abortion and Nursing
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Harrison
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abortion birth control healthcare laws nursing pro choice pro-abortion Religion rights women's issuesThere was an interesting post on a friend of Just Politics..?, Beers for Demo. The issue was a nurse who was against abortion being told to assist in this procedure despite her employer knowing her feelings on the matter. Had she declined to assist, she could have lost her job and her nursing license. As it turned out, she participated in the procedure.
Abortion is a topic that gets some pretty hot reactions from people. One commentor, Theresa, didn’t like my opinion that a nurse is employed by the healthcare industry and thus should be prepared to do whatever might be asked of her in that role. My feelings are that if she didn’t want to participate in abortions that is her choice… she could simply find a different job.
There have been other issues similar to this which have come about over the years including pharmacists who are against birth control and thus refused to dispense it. Some states, including Mississippi, Arkansas, and South Dakota, have passed laws which allow for providers to “opt-out” of doing things which, while legal, go against their beliefs.
In the case of one pharmacist in Wisconsin it was not enough to simply refuse to hand out birth control pills:
In Madison, Wis., a pharmacist faces possible disciplinary action by the state pharmacy board for refusing to transfer a woman’s prescription for birth-control pills to another druggist or to give the slip back to her. He would not refill it because of his religious views.
My personal views are that if it’s legal, and if your job might require you to do something with which you don’t agree then you need to get a new line of work. In the matter of birth control it could very well be there are women living in a small town where there is only one pharmacy and if the person working there refuses to fill a valid and legal prescription it might be very difficult or impossible to get what you need someplace else thus a legal drug has effectively been made illegal because one cannot get it.
Employees have the right to refuse to do a certain task just as soldiers have the right to refuse an order but I think it is out-of-line to expect that no disciplinary actions would be taken against either one for doing this. After all, society is based upon laws and rights which have been legally agreed upon to allow people with different beliefs and interests to all live together in peace. Giving certain groups or types of people an out with regard to participating in this process will only bring hard feelings, disharmony and, eventually, revolution into the streets.
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5:38 PM
Harrison, you know my thoughts on the matter so I won’t rehash old territory. Thanks for the link!
.-= Dean´s last blog ..Single issue voting =-.
9:32 PM
Come on, Harrison. You’re totally wrong here. I’m a retired RN. In Canada, since our ultra socialist Pierre Trudeau decriminalised abortion (1969), it has been performed in General Hospitals, on the D&C (dilation and currettage) department. I have always refused to work on those floors. For me, it has never been a question of religion but a question of promoting life versus killing it. I’m speaking for the defenseless child. I’m all for birth control methods (pills/condoms/abstention). Totally opposed to abortions (as birth control) unless there is a danger to the mother.
Any hospital who would have tried to force me to participate would have been brought into court. And I would have won. My refusal to help abort a defenseless child doesn’t disqualify me as a nurse. On the contrary. It guarantees you that, if you are my patient, I will treat you with the utmost respect and competent care because I’m totally devoted to your life. That’s why I became a nurse. Killing a defenseless child is not part of my vocation. No doctors could ever be forced to do it either.
9:46 PM
I try not to condemn people, specially when I don’t really know all the details of the situation. But it’s a rare case when a nurse would be FORCED to help perform a procedure she doesn’t morally approve. That person had a voice, didn’t she? You don’t live under a nazi government, do you? Was there a soldier with a gun at her back?
10:55 PM
Nobody is forced to do anything at work. I have known plenty of people who quit their jobs and got new ones. If I were a nurse, I was against abortion, and my employer told me to assist or quit I would quit.
But more importantly, before I took the job I would learn whether I’d be expected to assist in procedures with which I disagreed. If I could opt out, I would get it in writing. If I was told I could not opt out I wouldn’t take the job. I don’t see it as the employer’s responsibility to make sure every one of their staff has their moral needs met… that is the employee’s responsibility unless required by law.
12:38 AM
I would do exactly as you. Get it in writing. And if the employer would still insist at one point, I would quit. But I wouldn’t quit nursing, Harrison. Never! Plenty of good jobs, plenty of specialty departments that would want a good nurse like me. In the 60s, I was in Houston Texas. And the great Dr.DeBakey (first open heart surgery), hired me right on the spot, a young French Canadian nurse, and trained me to take care of his heart patients. I saw him operate at the Methodist Hospital. That’s one doctor who would never have aborted a baby. He was much too intent into keeping people alive.