The continuous evolution of health care technology has brought with it a growing need to evaluate the quality of the lives it saves or prolongs. Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders, euthanasia and living wills all raise the issue of who decides about the quality of a person's life. Although nurses and other health care professionals have developed codes of ethics to deal with these difficult evaluations, ethics are not law. Ethics are derived from culture, religion and societal and individual concepts of morality. Law is the set of rules a society chooses to enact and enforce. Real difficulty arises when health care providers must face a situation where personal and professional codes of ethics clash with the law.
医疗保健技术的不断发展，使得评估其所拯救或延长的生命质量的需求日益增长。“不要复苏”（DNR）医嘱、安乐死和生前预嘱都引发了由谁来决定一个人生命质量的问题。尽管护士和其他医疗保健专业人员已经制定了道德准则来处理这些艰难的评估，但道德并非法律。道德源自文化、宗教以及社会和个人的道德观念。法律是一个社会选择制定和执行的一系列规则。当医疗保健提供者必须面对个人和职业道德准则与法律发生冲突的情况时，真正的难题就出现了。
