REVIEW NOTES - PART I
HUMAN COMMITMENT AS A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE1. Jesus Christ - role model of Christian commitment to service.
2. Jesus as the Servant of the Father and of Men – reasons: baptized in the Jordan River, washed the feet of His Apostles, and crucified in Calvary. 3. Commitment that goes beyond the satisfaction of personal needs – eg. A man who remains true to his wife and family even when what he seeks to satisfy him are absent. 4. Commitment that rises above time: writer who continues developing his craft through long years of failure, husband who is faithful to his wife even after the physical attraction has gone, and soldier who fights on in defeat as well as in victory. 5. Commitment as a religious act means “to point on something beyond” the human realm. “ 6. Commitment involves a response to a transcendental call. It goes beyond the satisfaction of personal needs. 7. The man who is committed sees more in his job or work than just its earning power. 8. The committed person lives in this world beyond practicality where persons and projects are valued for their own sakes. 9. Commitment is an involvement or an act where man has given himself to another person or to some human activity or project. 10. Commitment demands concrete involvement or expression. It goes beyond mere “talk” and ideas 11. True Commitment requires self-forgetfulness. Man “loses” himself in the object of his dedication. 12. Unconditional character to any commitment: DEDICATION NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS 13. Commitment is a Religious Act as shown in its Source (from beyond the person and the human sphere) Inspiration (beyond human power) and Goal (beyond the human world) JESUIT HIGHER EDUCATION 1. major apostolic focus of the Jesuit Education - Service of Faith through the Promotion of Justice. 2. mission of Jesuit Education - form men and women for others. 3. Populorum Progressio - says: “A student is aided, or sometimes impeded, by those who educate him and those with whom he lives, but each one remains whatever be those influences affecting him, the principal agent of his own success or failure..” 4. Pope John Paul II - says: that the Catholic school should be attentive to the specific needs of each student. The Catholic school helps in achieving a double objective: “of its nature it guides men and women to human and Christian Perfection, and at the same time helps them to become mature in their faith.” 5. Spiritual Growth - value embedded in the ADDU Mission Statement as a CATHOLIC School. 6. Faith-Based Social Involvement - value embedded in the ADDU Mission Statement as a JESUIT School. 7. Finding God in all things - an ongoing process of discernment which is at the heart of Jesuit spirituality and education. This process of discernment calls us to recognize and then choose good and reject evil; and to experience the presence of God in all of creation. 8. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam - means that regardless of who we are, or what we do, all that we do should focus on seeking and serving “the greater glory of God,” the God Who created us and Who sustains us. Humanae Vitae (HV) 1. HV considers all therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result therefrom as lawful, provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever. 2. HV condemns, as always unlawful, the use of means which directly prevent conception, even when the reasons given may appear to be upright and serious. 3. The teaching of the Church regarding the proper regulation of birth using Natural Family Planning is a promulgation of the law of God Himself. 4. HV promotes the values of Self-Discipline and Chastity which are essential to Married life. 5. Pope Paul VI – author of humanae Vitae 6. According to HV, the use of Natural Family Planning promotes self-discipline and chastity, whereas artificial contraception "could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards." 7. HV said that "an act of mutual love which impairs the capacity to transmit life . . . contradicts the will of the Author of life." 8. HV explains that the marriage act has both unitive and procreative aspects, which cannot be separated. 9. HV said that Married love is total, faithful and exclusive. 10. HV is an encyclical that begins by noting that "The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator." 11. HV reaffirmed the traditional Catholic teaching on birth control and abortion. Evangelium Vitae (EV) 1. EV affirms of bringing about a true transformation of culture: the promotion of a "culture of life," in which human freedom will find its authentic meaning by joining forces with truth, life and love. 2. EV points out that the "Gospel of life" is at the heart of the evangelizing mission of the church, which must proclaim Jesus, the "Word of life." 3. EV recognizes that the task of civil law is different and more limited than that of the moral law. 4. EV defined Euthanasia as "an act or omission which of itself and by intention causes death with the purpose of eliminating all suffering." 5. EV defined Procured abortion as "the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth." 6. EV declares that "the direct and voluntary taking of all innocent human life" as "always gravely immoral". This principle is applied to abortion and euthanasia. 7. EV reaffirms the absolute and permanent value of the commandment not to kill which is at the heart of God's covenant with man. 8. Human threats are interpreted by EV in the context of the perennial conflict between life and death which sacred Scripture testifies to in the events of Cain, who because of envy "rose up against his brother Abel and killed him". 9. The "culture of death" which threatens man and civilization are traced by EV to a perverse idea of freedom. 10. EV is an encyclical written by Pope John Paul II on March 25, 1995 11. EV is an encyclical that presents the Church's teaching on the sanctity and inviolability of innocent human life, from conception to natural death, with special reference to abortion, euthanasia, and other assaults against life in its most vulnerable stages and conditions. 12. EV addresses the assault on life and dignity of the human person in our modern world. 13. EV called the practice of Natural Family Planning, Organ Donation, Modern Pain Management, and Natural Death consistent with a culture of life, but condemned practices such as Abortion, Exploitation of the Embryo, and Euthanasia as symptomatic of a culture of death. 14. Cain - biblical character who said, "Am I my brother's Keeper" SOCIAL ASPIRATIONS 1. Universal destination of the earth’s goods - norm which states that God gave the earth to the whole human race for the sustenance of all its members, without excluding or favoring anyone. - norm upon which all other rights, whatever they are, including property rights and the right of free trade must be subordinated to. 2. St. James - said that “on earth you have had a life of comfort and luxury; in the time of slaughter you went on eating to your hearts content. It was you who condemned the innocent and killed them, they offered you no resistance. 3. Plenary Council of the Philippines II (PCP II) - document that explains how sins like pride, selfishness, greed, and hatred come to infect habitual patterns of human interaction. This produces “sinful social structures” which can harden into institutions. - admits that worship in the Philippines is seen as one department of life without an intimate connection with social, economic and political life; - challenges ordinary lay people to promote integral liberation both in the temporal and spiritual dimensions when it says that the “laity have to read the “signs of the times” in the light of the Gospel …” 4. Solicitudo Rei Socialis - document that talks about Structures of sin which are rooted in personal sin and thus always linked to the concrete acts of individuals who introduce these structures, consolidate them, and make them difficult to remove. They grow stronger, spread and become the source of other sins, and so influence people’s behavior. 5. Pope Paul VI - urged Laymen to take up as their own proper task the renewal of the temporal order and to infuse a Christian spirit into the mentality, customs, laws and structures of the community in which they live. 6. Pope John Paul II - calls us to offer the five pieces of bread and fish that God deposited in our hands to the needy. 7. CBCP Pastoral Letter - document that says in helping the poor, we must make a conscious effort at changing our mind-sets towards a greater and more efficacious concern for the good of the nation. 8. Gaudium et Spes - document that says “the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well.” - says that the world is not only the place where God is present and speaks but also a place polluted by sins; - says that God meets and calls us in the world and its history in the reality of our present life 9. The social mission of the Church is “Constitutive” not extra-curricular or optional. |
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ECONOMIC ASPIRATIONS1. Why the Preferential Option for the Poor is not Optional?
- an article that tells stories of self-sacrifice and courage of neighbors who saved one another from harm’s way. - an article that tells the story of the three elderly women rescued by a high-school boy who swam back and forth to their flooded apartment and carried each of them to safety on his back, and then left them in search of others. A week later, his body was discovered downstream. - assumes two classes of people in the world: the rich and the poor. The rich do not worry about whether they will eat tomorrow. The poor do. 2. 1979, Latin American bishops in Puebla, Mexico - year and place where the phrase “Preferential Option for the Poor” (POP) originated. 3. reasons why the phrase P.O.P is immediately given attention: predominant experience of the church on poverty, local church history of disinterest and even disdain for the poor, and theologically and biblically sound. 4. To be directly connected to the poor - first step in making preferential option for the poor. SOCIAL ANALYSIS 1. PCP II Decrees – says that worship in the Philippines is seen as one department of life without an intimate connection with social, economic and political life. - challenges ordinary lay people to promote integral liberation both in the temporal and spiritual dimensions when it says that the “laity have to read the “signs of the times” in the light of the Gospel …” 2. Gaudium et Spes - document that says the world is not only the place where God is present and speaks but also a place polluted by sins. - says God meets and calls us in the world and its history in the reality of our present life. 3. The tool of Social Analysis adopted by liberation theology in the 70’s was MARXIST in origin but later CHRISTIAN through the mediation of THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION. 4. Reflected Action for justice – a moment of pastoral cycle which determines what response is called for by individuals and by communities. 5. Theological Reflection – a moment of pastoral cycle which attempts to understand the experience in light of a living faith, scripture, church social teaching, and the resources of a religious tradition. 6. Social Analysis – is a moment of pastoral cycle which studies the interrelationships in the experiences and studies the causes, consequences, linkages, and the actors in the experience. 7. Insertion/Experience – is a moment of pastoral cycle which focuses on what people are feeling, what they are undergoing, and how they are responding. 8. Social Analysis in the narrow sense is not a blueprint for action; it provides no cure to social problems; it is not purely academic but guides to action in the service of justice; it is not value-free; and it needs the mediation of theological reflection. 9. PCP II Decrees - document that decrees the Philippine Church: "A thorough social analysis, structural and cultural, is to be promoted …” 10. Gaudium et Spes - document that says the Church “is obliged to examine the signs of the times and interpret them in the light of the Gospel.” 11. Octogesima Adveniens says that: “It is up to Christian communities to analyze with objectivity the situation which is proper to their own country, to shed on it the light of the Gospel’s unalterable words and to draw principles of reflection, norms of judgment, and directives of action from the social teaching of the Church.” 12. Pope Paul VI wrote the encyclical entitled Octogesima Adveniens 13. Gaudium et Spes (GS) says that the Church “is obliged to examine the signs of the times and interpret them in the light of the Gospel” 14. PCP II Decrees says that the Philippine Church should promote: "A thorough social analysis, structural and cultural.” 15. Insertion/Experience - moment of pastoral cycle that focuses on what people are feeling, what they are undergoing, and how they are responding 16. Social Analysis - moment of pastoral cycle that studies the interrelationships in the experiences and studies the causes, consequences, linkages, and the actors in the experiences 17. Theological Reflection - moment of pastoral cycle that attempts to understand the experience in light of a living faith, scripture, church social teaching, and the resources of a religious tradition 18. Reflected Action for justice - moment of pastoral cycle that determines what response is called for by individuals and by communities 19. The tool of Social Analysis adopted by liberation theology in the 70’s was MARXIST in origin but later CHRISTIAN through the mediation of THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION. 20. PCP II Decrees - Philippine Church document that challenges ordinary lay people to promote integral liberation both in the temporal and spiritual dimensions when it says that the “laity have to read the “signs of the times” in the light of the Gospel …” 21. Gaudium et Spes (GS - document that says God meets and calls us in the world and its history in the reality of our present life Veritatis Splendor (VS) 1. VS is an encyclical written by Pope John Paul II on August 6, 1993. 2. VS emphasizes that "the morality of the human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the 'object' rationally chosen by the deliberate will." 3. VS firmly rejects consequentialism, proportionalism, and teleologism. 4. VS repudiates the theories which exalt human freedom that ended up in the subjectivistic notion. 5. The intention of VS is to state the principles necessary for discerning what is contrary to 'sound doctrine,' drawing attention to those elements of the Church's moral teaching which today appear particularly exposed to error, ambiguity or neglect". 6. VS insists that the invitation to the rich young man to come and follow Christ, the summons to be as perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect, and the new command to love one another even as Jesus loves us are addressed to everyone. 7. VS affirms the essential link between obedience to the Commandments and Eternal Life. 8. VS is a prolonged meditation on the dialogue between Jesus and the rich young man wherein the rich young man asks Jesus, "Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?" 9. VS is an encyclical that confronts the crisis head-on by proposing "to set forth the principles of a moral teaching based upon Sacred Scripture and the living Apostolic Tradition. 10. VS is an encyclical which confronts the crisis that has developed in theological-moral reflection during the postconciliar period. 11. VS points out the natural law is unchanging and universal. VS continues that there is no limit to the greatest commandment, that you should love God and your neighbor as yourself. There is no limit to the amount of love and generosity one can bestow on your family or neighbor. 12. VS is the first encyclical ever in the 2000-year history of the Catholic Church on Christian morality. 13. The dialogue between Jesus and the rich young man (Matthew 19:16-21) is the dialogue that begins when the rich young man asks Jesus, "Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?" (Mt 19:16). 14. The question of the rich young man in the gospel is not so much about rules to be followed, but about the meaning of life...the question is ultimately an appeal to the absolute Good which attracts and beckons us. 15. John Paul II says, "the moral law has its origin in God and always finds its source in him," but at the same time "by virtue of natural reason, which derives from divine wisdom," it is also "a properly human law" (n. 40). 16. John Paul II examines the claim that, because of human historicity, specific moral norms are not immutable but change under varying historical and cultural situations. He repudiates this as a type of relativism utterly incompatible with Christ's affirmation, in his teaching against divorce, of the permanent validity of God's plan from "the beginning" and also with the unity of human nature which all human beings share with Christ who "is the same yesterday and today and forever" (n. 53). 17. In the perspective of Christian moral doctrine anthropology is intimately linked with theology and with Christology. Bioethics 1. St. Thomas Aquinas called the natural law as "the human participation in God's eternal law." 2. St. Augustine defined God's eternal law as "the reason or the will of God, who commands us to respect the natural order and forbids us to disturb it." 3. Nonmaleficence is the warning which says, "Never do harm to anyone." 4. Beneficence refers to the traditional role of the physician as theGood Samaritan. 5. Patient autonomy - is a principle that recognizes the right of the patients to accept or refuse treatment, or allow the natural course of events to take place. 6. Doctor-patient relationship - is a principle wherein the patient trusts the physician to counsel him to make the right decision regarding his care, to ensure his privacy, and to be a patient advocate. 7. Free and informed consent is required for medical treatments and procedures, except in an emergency situation. 8. Doctor-patient relationship has been described by Paul Ramsey as a covenant similar to the pact between Yahweh and his people as recorded in Hebrew Scripture. 9. Essential to Doctor-patient relationship is the element of trust. 10. The tradition of Christian civilization and medicine is founded upon the Biblical ethic and the traditions of our Greco-Roman heritage. 11. Western medicine was founded on our Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman heritage, where the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human person are paramount for decision-making in patient care. 12. Bioethics is an application of our ethical and moral principles to human life issues. JUSTICE IN THE WORLD 1. Distributive justice - deals with a fair distribution of goods and burdens to the citizens by the state representatives. 2. Commutative justice - deals with fairness of exchange between individuals, social entities or between nations. 3. Pope Paul VI - wrote the encyclical entitled Octogesima Adveniens (Call to Action) - said: “The members of mankind share the same basic rights and duties, as well as the same supernatural destiny.” 4. Pope John XXIII - wrote the encyclical entitled Pacem in Terris 5. Pope John Paul II - wrote the encyclical entitled Laborem Exercens 6. Social justice during the Intertestamental period became radically changed and individualized, eschatological and almsgiving. 7. Gospel of Matthew - emphasizes God's justice as tempered by his mercy 8. Gospel of Luke - shows special concern for the literally poor (anawim)- - condemns wealth per se as evil 9. Gospel of John - says: “I ask you, how can God’s love survive in a man who has enough of this world’s goods yet closes his heart to his brother when he sees him in need.” 10. The prophets in the Old Testament had a twofold role: to denounce the social injustices of their times; and to announce the true meaning of religion as doing justice to the poor. 11. Justice in the World - document that says: “Christian love of neighbor and justice cannot be separated.” - first and most explicit church teaching on unjust, sinful situations, systems, institutions or structures of sin. - issued in 1971 by Rome, not from the Pope but from the Bishops. - says that “Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel” – says that the key to attain real progress is equality and participation in society - says: “Love implies an absolute demand for justice, namely a recognition of the dignity and rights of one’s neighbor.” - says that “Christian love of neighbor and justice cannot be separated. For love implies an absolute demand for justice, namely, a recognition of the dignity and rights of one’s neighbor. Justice attains its inner fullness only in love.” 12. JW says that developing nations can bring about justice in the face of International systems of domination when there is Self-Determination and participation. 13. Situational Sin - promotes and facilitates greed and human selfishness 14. Structural Sin - oppresses human dignity and violates human rights and imposes gross inequality between the rich and the poor 15. Social Sin - refers to situations and structures that attack basic human rights and dignity, and infect social relationships between communities. 16. Three Main Parts of JW: Justice and World Society, Gospel Message and the Mission of the Church, and Practice of Justice. 17. Significance of JUSTICE IN THE WORLD: Justice is essential to the Christian Faith, New Concept of Social Sin, and Social sin is not only local or national but also International. 18. Roman Synod of Bishops - refers to the gathering held every three years by all the Catholic Bishops in the world in order to address a global and major social issue. 19. Gaudium et Spes - says “God meets and calls us in the world and its history in the reality of our present life.” 20. Prophets - continuously denounced those who used their economic and political powers to exploit others. 21. Solicitudo Rei Socialis - explains how sins like pride, selfishness, greed, and hatred come to infect habitual patterns of human interaction. - says: "Development is the new name for Peace ... the demand for justice can only be satisfied on that level." 22. Pacem in Terris - says: “It is agreed that in our time, the common good is chiefly guaranteed when personal rights and duties are maintained.” 23. Populorum Progressio - says: “No one is justified in keeping for his exclusive use what he does not need, when others lack necessities.” 24. The two principles of social justice practiced by the Israelites as nomadic people were interdependence and common ownership of property. 25. Amos - Prophet in the OT who compared justice to water and to an "unfailing" stream 26. Laborem Exercens - says: "Commitment to justice must be closely linked with commitment to peace in the modern world" - says: “In order to achieve social justice in the various parts of the world … there is a need for ever new movement of solidarity of the workers and with the workers." 27. Centisimus Annus - says: "Justice will never be fully attained unless people see in the poor person, who is asking for help in order to survive, not an annoyance or a burden, but an opportunity for showing kindness and a chance for greater enrichment." 28. "Just Man" in the Bible is one who is faithful to Yahweh, to his neighbor, and to the land. 29. Rerum Novarum – means Condition of Labor 30. Encyclical Letters - body of Catholic teachings written by the Pope or Bishops about social issues affecting mankind. |
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Nursing Practice (RA 9173)1. Disproportionate means are those that in the patient's judgment do not offer a reasonable hope of benefit or entail an excessive burden, or impose excessive expense on the family or the community.
2. Proportionate means are those that in the judgment of the patient offer a reasonable hope of benefit and do not entail an excessive burden or impose excessive expense on the family or the community. 3. Therapeutic procedures that are likely to cause harm or undesirable side-effects can be justified only by a proportionate benefit to the patient. 4. Compassion means literally to “suffer with.” Nurses are asked to go where it hurts, to enter the places where people suffer. Compassion is not a purely human virtue, but rather a gift from God. 5. Caring is considered by many nurses to be an essential aspect of nursing practice. Caring validates the humanness of both the care giver and the cared for. 6. The license to practice nursing is never a vested right (RA 7164, sec. 13); it is but a privilege conferred by the State to persons of given qualifications and as such it may be withdrawn if the best interest of the government and its people so demands. 7. Nurses cannot demand and receive any commission, fee or any emolument for recommending or referring a patient to a physician, a co-nurse or another health care worker; neither shall they pay any commission, fee or other compensations to one referring or recommending a patient to them for nursing care. 8. The Practice of Nursing is a not a money-making trade or a business but a profession dedicated to the ideal of service. 9. “A person shall be deemed to be practicing nursing within the meaning of this Act when he/she singly or in collaboration with another, initiates and performs nursing services to individuals, families and communities in any health care setting. It includes, but not limited to, nursing care during conception, labor, delivery, infancy, childhood, toddler, preschool, school age, adolescence, adulthood, and old age.” (Section 28, Article VI) 10. “As independent practitioners, nurses are primarily responsible for the promotion of health and prevention of illness. As members of the health team, nurses shall collaborate with other health care providers for the curative, preventive, and rehabilitative aspects of care, restoration of health, alleviation of suffering, and when recovery is not possible, towards a peaceful death.” (Section 28, Article VI) 11. Every aspect of the practice of a profession is interwoven directly or indirectly with legal rules and sanctions. 12. A professional practitioner must be required to know not only the general laws of the land but also the special law governing his profession. 13. The Practice of Nursing is a not a money-making trade or a business but a profession dedicated to the ideal of service. 14. The Amended Code of Ethics for Nurses as adopted by the PNA House of Delegates in 1982 and amended by the Board of Nursing in its Resolution No. 1955, series of 1989, approved by the General Assembly of Nurses on October 25, 1990 enumerated the following guidelines which distinguish the Nursing profession from business: a) Solicitation and advertisement shall not be allowed for personal gains and other purposes that would be detrimental to the profession; b) They shall not demand and receive any commission, fee or any emolument for recommending or referring a patient to a physician, a co-nurse or another health care worker; neither shall they pay any commission, fee or other compensations to one referring or recommending a patient to them for nursing care. c.) Nursing Profession is a duty of public service, of which the emolument is a byproduct, and in which one may attain the highest eminence without making much money. 15. The license to practice nursing is never a vested right (RA 7164, sec. 13); it is but a privilege conferred by the State. 16. Nursing Practice is a Noble Profession because God Himself has entrusted to the nursing profession the noble mission to practice, protect, promote, safeguard, and enhance the quality of life … from the moment of conception to the moment of death and the nurses must carry it out in a manner worthy of their profession. This is also mandated by their Code of Ethics, Republic Act 9173 section 28 and their Oath. 17. Madeleine Leininger (1984) stated that care is the essence of nursing and the dominant, distinctive, and unifying feature of nursing. She says that there can be no cure without caring, but that there may be caring without curing. 18. Jean Watson (1985) described caring as the moral ideal of nursing; it involves the will to care and the intent to care. 19. Caring validates the humanness of both the care giver and the cared for. 20. The practice of caring is central to nursing; it is grounded in a set of universal human values: a) compassion - Compassion means literally to “suffer with.” Nurses are asked to go where it hurts, to enter the places where people suffer (during conception, labor, delivery, infancy, childhood, toddler, preschool, school age, adolescence, adulthood, and old age) and experience their pain and anguish. Compassion is not a purely human virtue, but rather a gift from God. Being compassionate remains the ethical foundation of all Christian behavior and most importantly of all nurses, “be compassionate as your Father is compassionate” (Lk. 6:36). · The mystery of God’s compassion has been revealed to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. All the actions and deeds Jesus performed were done out of compassion. The Hebrew word ‘splangchna’, used to describe Jesus’ feeling compassionate, refers to the entrails of the body, the guts, the place where our most intimate and intense emotions are located. The word comes from the Hebrew word “rachamin,” which means a movement of the womb of God, the center of his being (Proclaiming His Kingdom, John Fuellenbach, SVD, p. 111)· The Nursing Profession, among other professions, is the best venue to follow the compassionate Lord. They offer people comfort and consolation in moments of illness, of real suffering, of mental anguish, of distress and loneliness. They stay, serve and care for people from all walks of life even if they do not know them; they suffer with them in their predicaments without accusing them, or without moralizing anyone; and they are just there simply as companions … as friends. b.) Altruism. It is a concern for the welfare and well-being of others. In Nursing Practice, altruism is reflected by the nurse’s concern for the welfare of patients, other nurses, and other health care providers. c.) Autonomy. It is the right to self-determination. Nursing Practice reflects autonomy when the nurse respects patients’ rights to make decisions about their health care. d.) Human Dignity. It is respect for the inherent worth and uniqueness of individuals and populations. In Nursing Practice, human dignity is reflected when the nurse values and respects all patients and colleagues. e) Integrity. It is acting in accordance with an appropriate code of ethics and accepted standards of practice. Integrity is reflected in Nursing Practice when the nurse is honest and provides care based on an ethical framework that is accepted within the scope of nursing practice. f.) Social justice. It is upholding moral, legal, and humanistic principles. This value is reflected in Nursing Practice when the nurse works to ensure equal treatment under the law and equal access to quality health care. 21. Pro-Life - The conceptus has an absolute right to life from the moment of conception onward;Pro-Choice - Women have absolute rights over their own bodies. 22. The truth that life is a precious gift from God has profound implications for the question of stewardship over human life. We are not the owners of our lives and, hence, do not have absolute power over life. We have a duty to preserve our life and to use it for the glory of God, but the duty to preserve life is not absolute, for we may reject life-prolonging procedures that are insufficiently beneficial or excessively burdensome. 23. The use of life-sustaining technology is judged in light of the Christian meaning of life, suffering, and death. Only in this way are two extremes avoided: on the one hand, an insistence on useless or burdensome technology even when a patient may legitimately wish to forgo it and, on the other hand, the withdrawal of technology with the intention of causing death. 24. While every person is obliged to use ordinary means to preserve his or her health, no person should be obliged to submit to a health care procedure that the person has judged, with a free and informed conscience, not to provide a reasonable hope of benefit without imposing excessive risks and burdens on the patient or excessive expense to family or community. 25. The well-being of the whole person must be taken into account in deciding about any therapeutic intervention or use of technology. 26. Therapeutic procedures that are likely to cause harm or undesirable side-effects can be justified only by a proportionate benefit to the patient. 27. A person has a moral obligation to use ordinary or proportionate means of preserving his or her life. 28. Proportionate means are those that in the judgment of the patient offer a reasonable hope of benefit and do not entail an excessive burden or impose excessive expense on the family or the community. 29. The person in a vegetative state shows no evident sign of self-awareness or of awareness of the environment, and seems unable to interact with others or to react to specific stimuli. 30. A man, even if seriously ill or disabled in the exercise of his highest functions, is and always will be a man, and he will never become a "vegetable" or an "animal". Even our brothers and sisters who find themselves in the clinical condition of a "vegetative state" retain their human dignity in all its fullness. 31. Pope Pius XII: Life, health, all temporal activities on earth are in fact subordinated to spiritual ends" After all, life on earth is not an 'ultimate' but a 'penultimate' reality." 32. Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate. 33. When assessing which means are "ordinary" and which are "extraordinary" (or "proportionate" and "disproportionate," which is the language most often used today) the focus, according to traditional moralists, is not on how basic, simple, usual, or easily available the means are, but rather on what effect the means have, primarily on the patient, but also on the patient's family and on the community. 34. Instances when Moral conduct is absent: a. Moral Turpitude. The term “turpitude” means everything done contrary to justice, honesty, modesty, or good morals. b. Immoral Conduct. An immoral conduct is a personal behavior that is contrary to good morals or inconsistent with the rules and principles of morality; it is a behavior or deportment which is harmful to the public welfare according to the standards of the community. c. Dishonorable Conduct. A dishonorable conduct is a personal behavior that is disreputable, discreditable, disgraceful, shameful, or scandalous. It is that conduct of a person which stains his character or lessens his reputation. |
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