Introduction
Over recent years, religion has become a very crucial part in the health field especially in nursing. The concept of evangelicalism has influenced the health care sector a great deal. According to Thobaben (2010), evangelicalism is a form of social movement that is governed by a certain set of rules. These rules have enabled it to be applied in different areas in healthcare especially in nursing. Leadership and nursing choices are governed by the morals that evangelicalism supports. However, aspects of evangelicalism have affected the health field negatively. The issues of ethics that arise from evangelicalism affect certain health practices. For instance, issues of abortion have influenced evangelical perspectives. Additionally, evangelicalism has also challenged issues of assisted reproduction and human cloning.
Ethical decision-making makes a huge part in making health care decisions. Religious views may influence decision parents may make for their children to receive treatment. Different measures applied may have positive or negative impact on the life of the patient. Healthcare professions may be influenced by their religious views on the various decision-making choices they may select. Issues in healthcare bring many controversy issues in evangelicalism.
Evangelicalism is an avenue used by believers in making social, ethical, and bioethical decisions. The contemporary evangelicals are more vocal about issues such as abortion than issues such as euthanasia. In fact, some evangelicals support what is referred to as passive euthanasia and oppose active euthanasia. Nurses face challenges in the decision making process. This may arise due to conflict between their evangelical beliefs and the scientific approach to healthcare.
Evangelicalism introduces the aspect of spirituality in nursing. There exist a strong link between patient care and spirituality. Spiritual care is important as it serves physical, emotional, spiritual, and social aspects of an individual. It is important for nurses to be able to address the spiritual needs of the patient to promote recovery.
Evangelicals and professions in the medical field have contradicted on issues of birth controls. According to White (2012), in the past Evangelicals have been able to introduce laws, which have linked contraception with abortion, criminalized the use of contraceptives and subdued the spread of information regarding birth control. According to White (2012), the use of contraceptives has been heavily associated with abortion. An evangelical leader had claimed earlier in history that the use of contraception would increase the cases of abortion. The increase use of contraceptives resulted to the increase in cases of abortion. White (2012) supports this claim by providing evidence of a study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, which established that 54% of women who underwent an abortion were involved in using some form of contraception during the month of giving birth. More recently, cases of legalized abortion have drawn much negative support from evangelicals.
The use of the pill has made most of the evangelical pastors to warn their congregations on the possible health dangers that may emanate from the use of certain contraceptives. According to White (2012), the National Cancer Institute has indicated that the use of oral contraceptives increases the risk of cancer for users who take oral contraceptives.
Assisted Reproduction
Assisted reproduction has raised bioethics issues in the healthcare field. Reproductive health problems have resulted to the development of reproductive medicine, which has generated many ethical questions (Schenker, 2011). The adoption of the use of the reproductive medicine is influenced by the extent of the influence of the evangelicals have on their followers. The influence of evangelicalism can even affect certain medical protocols. According to Schenker (2011), healthcare practitioners need to be aware of the attitudes of the evangelicals and understand them if they are to promote the use of reproductive medicine.
According to Evans and Hudson (2007), the use of reproductive genetic technologies has enabled the development of the concept of prenatal genetic diagnosis. Using prenatal genetic diagnosis, parents are able to make decisions such as whether to keep the pregnancy or terminate the pregnancy. Further, genetic tests can be used to select embryos to transfer into a woman’s womb. Such scenarios have generated a lot of controversy and objection from the evangelicals. The use of reproductive genetic technologies can also result to destruction of embryos. According to Evans and Hudson (2007), the death of embryos associated with reproductive technologies provides evangelicals with a reason to oppose reproductive genetic technology in assisted reproduction. The evangelicals link abortion to death of embryos.
Euthanasia
In healthcare, euthanasia has generated a lot of attention from the religious community. According to Schirrmacher (2003), evangelicals are mainly opposed to active euthanasia. Evangelicals believe that causing death of a person is contrary to their beliefs. Active euthanasia involves inducing death through using a foreign substance (Schirrmacher, 2003). On the other hand, the evangelicals may accept passive euthanasia if it is used to save the dignity of dying. Evangelicals have sought to look for alternatives to euthanasia. According to Schirrmacher (2003), evangelicals may be involved in increasing and lobbying for public funds to be used in the research of palliative medicine. Additionally, it can be used to provide better education for healthcare professions.
Conclusion
Medical issues continue and will continue to generate interest and opposition from the religious groups such as the evangelical groups. These groups play a significant role in the health care field. Despite the positive changes and benefits that technology in the medical field may bring, there is always the chance that negative impacts may develop. For instance, cases of abortion have been observed to increase with the increase in use of contraceptives. Additionally, pills have been attributed to have an effect in increasing the risk of cancer. This is bound to have a significant impact on the nursing practice especially for nurses in oncology.
Aspects of evangelicalism help nurses to understand how to handle patients from different religious backgrounds. Furthermore, the nurse’s code of ethics has been able to take into account and ensure that nurses provide an environment in which the human rights, values, customs, and the spiritual beliefs are respected. The only challenge arises when certain aspects of evangelicalism may influence the nursing practice by proving to be harmful to the life of a patient. Certain leaders of the evangelicalism may use their position to misdirect their followers in terms of obtaining treatment. This may lead to cases of death.
Professions in the healthcare field can be able to use religious reasons to refuse to perform inhumane acts such as abortions. This is when they judge such actions to be immoral. The increasing form of assisted reproduction in the form of in vitro fertilization has resulted to the increase in number of embryos that are stored. Evangelicals have viewed that there is a necessity to preserve the embryos, as they are human life with potential. Adoption programs have been developed to facilitate the adoption of embryos.
The changing views of the evangelicals concerning the use of contraceptives have been seen as step towards family planning. This is slowly being embraced since it is significantly improving women’s health via reducing cases of abortions. Nurses are able to use this as avenue to promote the use of contraceptives to promote family planning. Nurses need to understand that their duties in their professions are not obstructed by their religious views. Acting from an evangelical perspective may be detrimental to the nursing profession and may result to lawsuits and criminal charges in cases the nurse fails to administer treatment based on religious beliefs.
Nurses have an obligation to their patient and need to ensure that the patient is coping with the treatment. The right aspects of spirituality even in evangelicalism may help the patient to cope with pain. Therefore, if used together, evangelicalism and nursing practice can help better the recovery of a patient. Nurses can be able to use the spiritual aspect of evangelicalism to help a patient understand the disease or condition they are suffering. Additionally, it may have a significant influence in the way a patient makes health care decisions, which may influence their lives. However, the nursing profession contributes to face new challenges from evangelicals as long as new technological advances are interested in the healthcare profession.
References
EVANS, J. H., & HUDSON, K. (2007). Religion and Reproductive Genetics: Beyond Views of Embryonic Life. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 46(4), 565-581.
Schenker, J. G. (2011). Ethical dilemmas in assisted reproductive technologies. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Schirrmacher, T. (2003). Medical Killing -- An Evangelical Perspective. Christian Bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies In Medical Morality, 9(2/3), 227-244.
Thobaben, J. R. (2010). Health-Care Ethics: A Comprehensive Christian Resource. Chicago, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.
White, C. (2012). 21st-century Evangelicals Revisit Contraception and Abortion. Human Life Review, 38(2), 5-11.
