Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

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Recent advances in cloning have offered hopes for disease treatment and resolving some other difficulties related to health, but this technology comes with social, legal, ethical, religious and other questions, and has caused different reactions worldwide. While some countries have enacted legislations on cloning, other countries have no clear law. Many countries and organizations, for various reasons including ethical concerns, have taken strong stand against reproductive cloning, and some even against research cloning. Some refer to the positive results of cloning and are in favor. Overall, most are in favor of cell and tissue cloning for therapeutic reasons and against reproductive cloning. In general, cloning is an important development in genetics and biotechnology that can be both lifesaving and destructive. Therefore, decision makers should be aware of its positive aspects for human health and prevent potential social and ethical problems through appropriate legislation In this paper, we present the opinions of opposers and supporters, and an overview of the position of countries and organizations regarding human cloning.

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Nurses in the intensive care unit face a variety of ethical issues that can lead to moral distress. Nurses need moral courage for correct moral performance in a state of moral distress. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between moral courage and moral distress in nurses. The descriptive-analytic study of correlation type which aimed to investigate the relationship between moral courage and moral distress in nurses. A total of 310 nurses from special units of educational hospitals in Kerman were selected by census method. The tools Sekerka's moral courage and Corley's moral distress were used to collect data. Data were analyzed by descriptive and analytical tests of SPSS version 24.  Mean score of moral courage of nurses was 42.71 ± 9.67. Moral courage was the highest in moral agent. The mean of moral distress was 56.03 ± 18.21 and the most moral distress was in the dimension of errors. There was a significant and negative relationship between moral courage and moral distress (R = -0.166; p = 0.003). Moral courage was different in position, type of department, and marital status. Moral distress differed only from type of department. The results of study indicated a significant and negative relationship between moral courage and moral distress. Strengthening the moral courage of nurses plays an important role in controlling and reducing moral distress. Therefore, nurses can reduce their moral distress by reinforcing moral courage and, instead, increasing the quality of care for patients.