Running Head: How ethical, professional and legal issues underpin health care professionalism
How ethical, professional and legal issues underpin health care professionalism
How ethical, professional and legal issues underpin health care professionalism
Abortion
Introduction
This is the process of terminating a pregnancy by removing the uterus of a fetus or embryo before fetal viability. It is said that approximately 205million pregnancies occur each year worldwide, out of this 205million. Out of this 20-30 million legal abortions are performed and a further 10-20 million abortions are performed illegally (Suzanne R Trupin, 2011). This act has been a problem in for many years and in many countries, the question being asked is if the process should be legalized and if so done, is it safe for the patients?. Medical practitioners every time find themselves in the tough spot of deciding whether to perform the process on a patient or not, they have to make this decision based on all grounds. Below is a discussion on how the ethical, professional and legal issues underpin health care professionals. The process also has its pros and cons, they include;
Pros and Cons
Abortion helps to safeguard women’s health, those who have kidney diseases, severe hypertension and heart diseases; it also provides the parent with the opportunity to choose on whether to have the child or not (Forrester, K.et.al, 2005). When a woman is raped she can decide to abort the child leaving her with some peace at mind.
Included in the cons side are the facts that, if not performed properly it can lead to medical complications such as recurrent miscarriages, sepsis and many others, it can cause psychological impairments such as depression and guilt. Its considered a brutality as the mother denies the child a right to live and last but not least women use it as birth control mechanism hence promoting infidelity. (Intecon, 2004)
Each and every day medical practitioners find themselves trapped in ethical dilemma, having to make decisions that may not be secure when undertaken. Ethics is the ability to examine values, choices and actions in order to determine right or wrong. The medical practitioners have to follow the codes of ethic within the limits of the law (Chisholm, R.et.al, 2002). Abortion is protected by section four of the 1976 Abortion act. Though legalized in some countries other countries still consider it a crime for one to perform an abortion and it’s penalized in the court of law. (Staunton2004).
The practice not only affects the child and the mother but also the community at large, when a woman wants to perform an abortion and she finds no problem in it, then she will be encouraged to practice infidelity and the community will be affected for the women in the area will be of no moral behavior. There are activists who have tried to campaign against abortion but they receive a lot of barriers, this process has been proved to be helpful in a woman’s life. Due to this issues Medical practitioners undergo a great deal of stress when trying to make a choice between performing the process or not and he chooses the later he should be able to defend it and give the reasons as to why he has opted to perform it, they have to consider if the process is of benefit to the client and the benefit should be not be of selfish interest.
Medical practitioners also have to consider Nonmaleficence, they have to consider if the process will do no harm to the client (Mathes, 2004; Cribb, A. & Duncan, P., 2002), and if it does then they should not involve themselves in it. Justice is another thing medical practitioners should consider, this is the obligation of being fair to all, when the abortion is being done then the rights of the child in question are being violated and can be punishable by law.
Despite the fact that the law has legalized this process in some countries, the decision of performing the process still lies with the medical practitioner, if the process will be harmful to you as a client then they have a right to reject or refuse to perform the process. The law should be applicable to all and this can also be considered at a personal level, when a person doesn’t want to go against his ethics, you can’t force him or her, when the doctor decides not to perform the process then they can’t be forced, the law gives them the right of making sound decisions that they are comfortable with. (Staunton, 2004; Mappes, T. A., & DeGrazia, D., 2006)
Medical practitioners have a primary responsibility to serve their clients, this is their professional duty. A client’s autonomy should be respected but the doctors have the last say on whether the process will be helpful to the client (Thompson, 2006; Johnstone, M., 2004). Women this days abuse their autonomy when it comes to abortion but as we can see courts and legislature are increasingly being called upon to restrict the autonomy of pregnant women by requiring them to behave in ways that are best for the fetus that they carry. Though the fetus does not qualify to be a person, it has been formed hence should be taken care of. The use of contraceptives should be encouraged and it will decrease the number of abortions that take place in the world.
Conclusion
The above issues affect the decisions made by medical practitioners, some of them strengthen their decisions and character and other give them power to do things that may not be good to the society and the patient. Abortion can be considered as a problem and a solution in different ways and the people in charge of performing it should be well trained in order to perform it in the best possible manner to avoid complications. It should also not be treated as a child birth control mechanism, the risks involved should be told to everyone. In order to reduce the rate of abortion the use of contraceptives should be encouraged and the materials needed to make this possible be made available to everyone at a reasonable price.
The medical practitioners should also keep to their code of ethics and ensure that they only perform this procedure if the patient’s life or medical condition is in danger, they should not just perform it for the sake and because it has been legalized in some countries. If the above issues are taken seriously then we will experience a reduction in death due to medical complication after an abortion and the population size as a whole can be controlled.
References
Chisholm, R.et.al (2002). Understanding law (6th Ed.). Sydney: Butterworth.
Cribb, A. & Duncan, P. (2002). Health promotion and professional ethics. Berlin, Germany: Wiley-Blackwell
Forrester, K.et.al (2005). Essentials of law for health professionals (2nd Ed.). Sydney: Elsevier Mosby.
Johnstone, M. (2004). Bioethics: A nursing perspective (4th Ed.). Sydney: Harcourt.
Mappes, T. A., & DeGrazia, D. (2006). Biomedical ethics (6th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Mathes, M. (2004, December). Ethical decision making and nursing. Retrieved August 24, 2011, from findarticles.com: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FSS/is_6_13/ai_n17208036/
Staunton, P.et.al (2004). Nursing and the law (5th Ed.). Marrickville, NSW: Elsevier.
Thompson.et.al (2006). Nursing ethics (5th Ed.). Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.
Intecon. (2004). Abortion. Authorhouse.
Suzanne R Trupin. (2011). Abortion. e medicine health .
