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Abstract
Studies of apologia have typically focused on powerful individuals and institutions responding to charges from equally powerful opponents, the struggles between elites and counter‐elites. This essay argues that apologia may also be a tactic of resistance as subordinate groups answer the charges of superordinate groups. An examination of the American Nursing Association's response to research indicating many nurses had participated in assisted suicides suggests tactical apologias blend various postures of apologia and seek to confuse rather than dispel the accusatory situation.