Abstract

Nursing prides itself on a commitment to caring for patients and their families. Daily, nurses support patients and their families as they face life-threatening disease and injury and help them through the painful decisions to initiate or remove ventilators, artificial nutrition and hydration, and other life-sustaining technology.The opinions of the Second and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals, in Compassion in Dying v. State of Washington and Quill v. Vauo, strike at the heart of the nursing value system. If the United States Supreme Court upholds either opinion, physicians will be legally allowed to help patients die, and nurses will be called on to assist with this process, just as nurses have assisted with electroconvulsive treatment, abortion, and other controversial procedures. Advanced practice nurses, who are licensed to prescribe drugs, may also be allowed by law to assist patients to end their own lives.