Members of the Michigan Nurses for Life, based in Troy, talk during a meeting Jan. 14. Clockwise, starting at left, are Linda Seng, organization president Diane Trombley, Ann Bellar and Phyl Sallee.Troy — Formed in 1995, the Michigan Nurses for Life realize that being involved in health care means they “are truly in the front lines of life issues,” explained Diane Trombley.
“It is we who are instructed and our mission is to implement doctors’ orders and care for our patients,” said Trombley, president of the Troy-based organization.
However, there are times when a nurse is “put in a position that violates their strongly held moral convictions,” and in these instances, the nurse might struggle from lack of resources and support.
Sometimes the response is “No, I cannot cross that line,” said Trombley, who is Catholic. “It’s very difficult to be a nurse today.”
“All of us went into nursing with the idea that we’re going to help people,” she said, adding that nurses have an affinity for extending themselves for the care of their patients.
But, “if that care has now branched into doing harm to one’s patients, it’s a difficult thing to face,” said Trombley, citing the moral decisions that many nurses face today, including assistance in abortions, physician-assisted suicide and appropriate hospice care.
Trombley said she has been active in the pro-life movement for 45 years and credited her nursing background for bringing her to a pro-life worldview.
Though she retired from clinical nursing years ago, she emphasized that “you’re never not a nurse,” and is still contacted by friends and neighbors seeking medical advice or assistance.
Phyl Sallee takes down notes during a Michigan Nurses for Life meeting at their Troy office.Moral dilemmas
Trombley said a major issue for pro-life nurses today is the issue of hospice care — “protocols that are offered to a patient enrolled in hospice, at home or facility, don’t have the same protections for human life that hospice was originally designed to put forward,” she said.
She added that pro-life nurses are also concerned about the growing use of embryonic stem-cell research, which destroys human life at its earliest stages.
Nurses also face dilemmas when not in a clinical setting. Phyl Sallee, a board member of Michigan Nurses for Life, said educational institutions vary in leniency when it comes to instructors bringing up God, moral dilemmas and life issues.
Having served as both a staff nurse and as a nursing instructor on the undergraduate level, Sallee said that she regularly taught pharmacology (medications) and pediatrics courses until her recent retirement.
Sallee has been a member of southeast Michigan’s Right to Life — LIFESPAN for many years. When Michigan Nurses for Life started up next door, Sallee joined them as well.
“We’re the only, as far as I know, pro-life nursing organization in the state,” said Sallee. “One of the main goals is to educate other nurses about pro-life issues.”
Sallee said when teaching about the levels of pain felt at various ages, she included the issue of pain felt by babies in utero.
“I start talking about neonates, babies in utero,” she said. “Sometimes I explain the different types of abortion procedures,” adding that current studies indicate pain felt by babies as young as 20 weeks gestation, though some data has indicated an even earlier stage.
Baby feet
Ann Bellar, another board member of Michigan Nurses for Life and a nursing instructor, said she has focused her undergraduate and graduate-level nursing lectures on how “people have intrinsic worth and value,” and presents “the appropriate way to respect their bodies.”
Bellar said she believes a nurse’s hands receive a special consecration from God, and that nursing is a calling and vocation.
When teaching at religious institutions, she shares this outright, and at secular schools she points out that “a nurse’s hands are a special set of hands, going to bring the healing touch to people.”
Bellar likes to wear the “baby feet” pin depicting the actual size of a 10-week-old unborn child’s feet, and has worn them to some of her classes.
A student once asked her about the feet, and she explained. The student left without further comment, only encountering Bellar again at the end of the school year.
“Those baby feet saved my nephew,” said the student, explaining that her sister had become pregnant and was considering abortion at about 10 weeks.
“Now we have a beautiful baby boy,” the student added.
Michigan Nurses for Life
Coventry Place Suite G, 1637 W. Big Beaver Road, Troy, MI, 48084-3540
- mnfl.org
- (248) 816-8489
- [email protected]
