rns the efficacy and feasibility of the relating of natural sociology and moral questions in the nursing context (Johnson, 1990, pp. 1358 1362). While the answer to the implied question is affirmative, the task ahead is substantial (Silva, 1991, pp. 29 43).
Law, as well as ethics, affects the role of the professional nurse with respect to abortion (Bayer, 1990, pp. 564 569). The directive issued by Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan in the Bush Administration, as an example, prohibited nurses from providing counsel to clients regarding abortion. Further, attempts to legally define the point at which at fetus will be viable outside the womb hold the potential to make a mockery of both law and medicine (Beller, 1992, pp. 537 540).
The role of nursing in cases of abortion is especially difficult for many individual nurses. While some individual nurses approach the issue in the context that abortion counseling is all a part of the nursing process, many other individual nurses are ambivalent both toward abortion and the role of nursing in cases of abortion (Kenny, 1984, pp. 22 23). Many anti choice nurses feel it is their duty to counsel clients about the potential for an experience of guilt and grief in a post abortion period (Salladay, 1992, pp. 18 21). In fact, all professional nurses should cover this potential in any abortion counseling. Addressing this issue, however, should not be construed to mean that the full range of a woman's options concerning abortion should not also be discussed during abortion counseling (Burke, 1992, pp. 1263 1269). It is the duty of the professional nurse to assure that a woman is provided with and understands all of the information required to make an informed decision with respect to abortion (Taylor, 1992, pp. 9, 13 14).
This researcher contends that it is the duty of the professional nurse, regardless of her or his personal opinion with respect to abortion, to assur...