rape Archives - Off the Charts

A Nurse Ethicist’s Analysis of a Recent Nursing Home Sexual Consent Case

By Douglas P. Olsen, PhD, RN, associate professor, Michigan State University College of Nursing in East Lansing, associate editor of Nursing Ethics, and a contributing editor of AJN, where he regularly writes about ethical issues in nursing.

scales of justice/by waferboard, via Flickr

An 78-year-old retired state legislator and farmer in Iowa is currently on trial for having sex with his wife, who has severe Alzheimer’s disease, in her shared room in a nursing home. He has been charged with rape.

The case highlights two ethical questions or conflicts:

When is protection needed and when is it intrusive and harmful?
What are the mental abilities required to consent to sex?

Consenting to sex is not the same as informed consent for treatment. In treatment, a clinician obtains consent to act on (treat) the patient in a way that will benefit the patient. By contrast, proper consent for sex is mutual and both parties benefit.

To extend the comparison: a patient’s decision to consent to treatment is generally made by balancing the benefits, harms, and risks to the individual patient. The decision to engage in sex often involves consideration of another’s satisfaction—it is not unknown for one spouse to agree to sex to please the other, even though he or […]

Guest Author2016-11-21T13:02:41-05:00April 21st, 2015|Ethics, Nursing, nursing perspective, Patients|4 Comments

Sexual Assaults: Is the Military Finally Starting to Get It?

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

March 26, 2010: A poster supporting the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) program. (U.S. Navy photo illustration/Wikimedia Commons)

On June 7, the U.S. Air Force command named Maj. Gen. Margaret H. Woodward director of its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. She replaces her predecessor, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, who was charged with sexual assault in early May.

Announcement of his arrest came the day before the Department of Defense was to hold a press briefing to tout changes intended to improve the handling of sexual assaults. Also on June 7, the U.S. Army command suspended Major General Michael T. Harrison, the commanding general of the U.S. Army in Japan for failing to “to report or properly investigate an allegation of sexual assault.”

At the press briefing, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said he was “outraged and disgusted” at the allegations against Krusinki. Hagel also asserted that “ [a]ll of our leaders at every level in this institution will be held accountable for preventing and responding to sexual assault in their ranks and under […]