Treatment of Ethical Dilemmas - Essay Example

So complicated is the issue of abortion that until today, there has not been a general agreement by society as to whether the decision to have an abortion should completely be on a medical basis without considering the rights of the unborn child.

Many religions condemn the ending of life, especially of a defenseless unborn child. The Muslim faith sees life as sacred. The same applies to other religions and hence abortion is strongly condemned. In Kuwait, having an abortion is considered killing the unborn child mercilessly. However, when the life of the person carrying the pregnancy is in danger, the real moral issue as to whether to consider the unborn child as a real human being arises (Lindahl, 1999). Much Muslim faithful in Kuwait view the pregnancy as a person with a soul and hence should be respected as any other human being. In cases where the pregnancy was not planned, or birth control methods did not work, many potential mothers are left with the dilemma of deciding whether to carry the pregnancy to full term or to have an abortion. Reasons for such thoughts could be the financial inability to care for the child or the shame of getting pregnant outside of marriage.

Manysuchwomen would opt to have an abortion to avoid the consequences of having to deal with such a pregnancy. Nevertheless, the thought of killing an innocent "child" with the potential of growing into a complete human being does not stop ringing in their minds thus such women are troubled as to what is the best action to take. Society is bound to shame or completely reject them from associating with other people because of such pregnancies, hence such women are forced to avoid such occurrences by having an abortion. On the other hand, their relationship with Allah never leaves them, placing them in veryunsuresituations as to what is the best way out of such a situation.

Nurses and doctors are not also left out in this never-ending debate on abortion. A religious nurse or doctor might find himself or herself faced with a situation whereby the chances of both the mother and unborn child surviving are zero. In such cases, by agreeing to deliver the child, the life of the mother must be ended due to medical complications. Alternatively, the mother's life could be saved at the expense of the innocent unborn child (Claire, 1995). Faced with such a situation, many nurses or doctors find themselves with difficult moral judgments and ethical dilemmas to take care of. This is so because they could either give the innocent unborn child a chance to live and become someone in life or they could save the mother's life and give her the chance to have more children. It, therefore, remains a big debate as to what is ethically right to do in such a situation.