Kontakt 2008, 10(2):303-309 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2008.046

Moral aspects of the human foetus in practice of midwivesNursing

Eva Urbanová

Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave, Jesseniova lekárska fakulta v Martine, Ústav nelekárskych študijných programov

The target of the research described here was the recognition by midwives of the moral statute of the foetus based on comparing their attitude to the position of the ontological personalism and moral gradualism.
Seventy-nine midwives were included into the study, who participated in taking care of women who underwent interruption in the second trimester of pregnancy. The attitudes of the midwives were identified with the help of specific theses in a non-standardized questionnaire with the use of the Likert scale of summed estimates. Particular theses respected the internal structure of the attitude, which means that they were divided into groups following the attempting (conative or behavioural), emotional and cognitive components of the attitude. The respondents had a possibility to express their agreement/disagreement with the thesis on an assigned scale from number 1 through 5 (1 - I disagree, 5 - I agree). The reliability and validity of the questionnaire was supported by a preliminary research. The midwives assigned a moral status to the foetus, which coincided with the stand on ontological personalism to a considerable extent. In contrast, the respondents took a rather negative stand on moral gradualism. The research results demonstrated an interesting statistical difference (p=0.0000***) between the demographic item location and recognition of the foetus moral status. In smaller cities, the midwives rather agreed with the position of ontological personalism compared with the largest city (Bratislava). Respondents, who already have had children (the measure of agreement was of 4.55 on the scale) compared to those who have not had children (3.75 on the scale) rather agreed with the position of ontological personalism. A question was also considered in the research whether, in the case of foetus survival after the pregnancy interruption, the respondents would take a care of the foetus, which could provide its quiet and worthy death. The association was supported that depending on the recognition of the foetus as a human being, the respondents agreed with taking care of it in the case of its survival after the pregnancy interruption (p=0.001***).

Keywords: moral status of foetus; midwives; midwifery practice

Received: October 10, 2008; Accepted: November 11, 2008; Prepublished online: December 17, 2008; Published: December 17, 2009  Show citation