Analysis of an Ethical Dilemma Part 3: Aaron
Aaron Merry
Grand Canyon University
As registered nurses, adherence to bioethical principles and a stringent Nursing Code of Ethics is a crucial component to the foundation of our profession. The nurse’s priority is to advocate for their patients to ensure their well-being and safety. To be able to advocate effectively, the nurse must gain the trust of the patients and their families, which is achieved through compassionate care. These authors have come to a decision that assisted/voluntary euthanasia should not be legalized due to the fact that it violates the nurse’s Code of Ethics and ethical principles, in which they are required to follow to provide care that is considered ethical. According to The American Nurses Association (2010), “nurses have an obligation to provide humane, comprehensive, and compassionate care that respects the rights of patients but upholds the standards of the profession in the presence of chronic, debilitating illness and at end-of-life”. These authors believe that if a nurses assists or participates in assisted/voluntary euthanasia, it will destroy the nurse-patient trust relationship. As stated by Echlin (2010), “Professional health care relationships among doctors, nurses, patients and family members are based on trust. Asking professional health care providers to kill, or give the means to kill, will destroy this trust relationship” (para. 4). Legalizing euthanasia could have a negative impact of how society views healthcare professionals as a whole. If euthanasia was legalized, it would be extremely difficult to regulate and could potentially be abused; vulnerable patients could fall prey to problems with legalized euthanasia. If healthcare professionals are allowed to take the lives of others, how can they be trusted to do what is in the best interest of the patient? As for those who are in favor of euthanasia, they want society to believe that the...