Philosophical imperative to protect children
The Nursing profession has a strong historical foundation in social justice. Social justice is a concept that has been analyzed, argued and debated about for decades in the nursing literature, but there seems to be relative agreement that nursing has demonstrated a commitment to addressing the social determinants of health, to advocating for the underserved and the vulnerable, and for being able to promote the common good while respecting individual freedoms (McMurry, Hunter-Revell, & Roy, 2009). In her article, Megan-Jane Johnstone states that, “the nursing profession has had a longstanding commitment to social …show more content…
I do not adhere to either of these arguments, although both have merit. The concern with following the “rights” argument is that rights can change, not everyone in this country has the same rights, and rights remove the caring necessity for this issue. “If we care about children’s lives, we will have a number of good reasons not to base our arguments on appeals to children’s fundamental rights. All rights based approaches are incomplete in that they tell us nothing about what should be done when nobody has a right to its being done: they are silent about imperfect obligations” (O’Neill, pg. 463). My concern with the obligation approach is that it removes the justice component in that an obligation is usually something we are forced to do, or implored to do, not something that we want to do because it is just and promotes the well-being of humanity. For these reasons, the philosophical approach for nursing to take in combating childhood maltreatment is one of caring and of