Abstract

Evidence suggests that the nurse’s role as an advocate for patients and for the professional right to conscience is being eroded because of a lack of conscience protections in the Patient Affordable Care Act and because of a faulty understanding in general of the separation of church and state. While the main task of the principle of separation of church and state is to secure religious liberty, the principle is increasingly interpreted in a secularist way to mean that religion must be confined to the home and church and that people of conscience may not object to immoral practices in the workplace or public square. If nurses must risk their jobs to advocate for their patients, patient care will suffer. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 14.1 : 47–52.