The Idea of an Essay, Volume 2

45 to others, treating others as you would want to be treated, equality under God, and freedom of choice. Although most, if not all, of the Nursing ideology is compatible with Christians, one of these components in particular, autonomy, usually becomes a problem that causes Christians to resist in the discipline. ManyChristians in the profession of Nursing find themselves resisting the ideology component of autonomy because of the ethical dilemmas that often are associated with it. Autonomy includes the right of the patient to decide about his or her medical care. This is indeed a very important right of every citizen, but it often tends to lead to medical questions of morality. Regarding controversial issues such as homosexuality, physician-assisted suicide, and especially abortion, medical personnel often find themselves asking questions of “Should we do this?” rather than “Can we do this?” (Orr 49). In other words, the morality of the caregiver comes into conflict with the patient’s right of autonomy. This is especially a problem for Christians in the medical field because Christians possess moral beliefs that are not subjective, contrary to the world’s view of individualized morality. Mark Cherry explains this by saying, “Contemporary biomedical ethics places persons, rather than God, in authority to define the right, the good, and the virtuous…cardinal moral value is instead assigned to individual liberty conceptualized as autonomous self-determination” (27). In this quote we can see that the right of autonomy refers to the patient’s medical decision based on his or her liberty of individual morals. In this context, patients often demand medical treatments, such as abortion, even if the caregiver is morally against it, claiming that their right of autonomy would be violated if the treatment was refused. This poses a problem for medical professionals because autonomy refers to the patient’s right to refuse a treatment (through not signing a consent form), not demand specific treatment. These ethical dilemmas based on the patient’s right of autonomy cause many Christians to resist in the discipline of Nursing. Fortunately, many Christians can successfully resist under the defense of the Right of Conscience. Robert Orr states that, “The right of conscience is the right of an individual to refuse to do something requested by another based on his or her own conscience or religious beliefs….The medical right of conscience has been codified in U.S. medicine, U.S. federal law, U.S. state laws, international law, and international medicine”