Is nursing involved in abortion and euthanasia related

3. BIOETHICS

1. Utilitarism: searching for useful solutions.

2. Consequentialism: takes into account consequences that are different to life’s Support.

CHARACTERISTICS OF BIOETHICS:

- Positive: related to personal conditions and circumstances.

- Negative (prohibition): some are non-conditional and others are relative (avoiding less evil).

GENERAL BIOETHICAL PRINCIPLES: (Belmont’s report)

- You shall represent human life an all levels.

- Respect human dignity.

- Both an embryo and an adult person must have independence of their life.

- Procure the good and avoid the malfeasance.

HUMAN LIFE:

- ‘A human being is a rational individual’.

- Rational Soul: men need to think in order to live (thinking is fundamental).

- Body: relation between human intelligence and body morphology:

ABORTION:

- The death of an embryos life.

- The Church considers any form of abortion a crime.

- The Church encourages the families to go through any difficulty for their Unborn life, as it is a blessing

- Science & philosophers say: when there is another DNA (different from Mother and father) there’s a separate human being that will self-develop like a Person.

- A human embryo has a human soul from the moment of the conception. Therefore, He/she has the same right to human life.

- The State cannot recognize the practice of abortion because no one can kill Innocents.

- CASE OF POSSIBLE DEATH OF THE MOTHER WHILE GIVING BIRTH: the only legitimate measure Is to try to save both lives and help the weakest.

- CASE OF HIGH RISK OF MOTHER’S DEATH WHILE PREGNANT: only due to an important illness Or the fact that a mother’s operation´s might endanger the child’s life – the Treatment does not mean to kill the child.

INVITRO FERTILIZATION (IVF): Fertilization of an egg/eggs outside the body.

1. The Church doesn’t like the word ‘artificial’ because everything that is not natural Has a moral connotation and raises a particular problem.

2. That it doesn’t follow a natural process.

3. The problem is that it’s conceived outside the maternal uterus.

4. Having children is a gift that nature and God gives you. If God made you Sterile it’s because of something.

5. It is morally accepted, through deep individual analysis of each case.

EUTHANASIA: ‘Good for death’ in Greek (gentle Death). Types:

A) ACTIVE: overt, deliberate killing of a patient. I.E. Injecting a morphine Overdose.

B) PASSIVE: withdrawing of treatment while the disease process takes its course of Death. You don’t ‘kill’, you let him die.

C) PHYSICIAN ASSISTED SUICIDE: variation of voluntary active euthanasia. The Patient causes his/her own death.