Behavior: Nurses and Abortion

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A nurse is trained to do all in her power to save a premature infant, no matter how defective or fragile it may be. When a fetus is aborted, however, a nurse is required to discard it—no matter how well-formed and active it appears. This paradox has already caused acute emotional problems—anxiety, insomnia and depression—among nurses in Hawaii, which a year ago became the first state to legalize abortion on request. At a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, Psychiatrists Walter Char and John McDermott of the University of Hawaii School of Medicine reported that nurses in Honolulu hospitals suffered "acute identity crises" or doubts about their roles in aiding abortions.

Taught to venerate life, to sympathize with patients and to respect doctors, they became increasingly distraught about the aborted fetuses and angry both at patients for having abortions and at doctors for performing them.

Called in to give some psychiatric first aid, Char and McDermott found that unrestricted abortions were not only troubling the nurses' consciences but also bringing to the surface all of "their deep, unresolved personal conflicts regarding birth, death, sex and aggression." Setting up a number of group meetings, the two psychiatrists encouraged the nurses to talk freely about their pent-up thoughts. It soon became evident to most that their turbulent feelings and reactions were widely shared, normal and perfectly understandable to the psychiatrists.

The sessions also gave the nurses a better understanding of both their patients and themselves. Many of the nurses allowed themselves to admit that "beneath the seemingly brazen patient, there might be a frightened little girl who needed help." One nurse, critical of her patients' sexual permissiveness, made a frank confession: "I guess I'm jealous that they're having so much fun."