This ANA statement sounds much more nefarious than "we are just following orders".
"ANA has consistently upheld the right of patients, or if the patient is incapacitated [as Terri is], the right of the designated surrogate [i.e. Michael Schiavo], to decide whether to submit to or continue medical treatment [that is, to decide whether Terri should die or not].
I didn't mean to be flippant. Nurses are required to do things in most hospitals I couldn't do according to my conscience as in too many other professions today, so apart from the ones who don't seem to go about their duties robotlike, I don't care much what they say.
I have listened to what some local nurses are talking about. One nurse claimed that this didn't happen often in the nursing home she worked in, but it did happen sometimes.
I was getting signed up for surgery and the last nurse in the chain I had to deal with upset me so much I walked out of the hospital and never got the surgery. That was over 10 years ago. She almost didn't seem like a human being she sounded so cold and clinical.
The first thing they asked me when I went in there was, "Do you have a living will?" That really inspires confidence when you are already a little scared. I don't want to read what nurses write except a couple on this board who claim to be nurses and who still have a conscience.