What is it about?
The study, “Informed or Misinformed Consent? Abortion Policy in the United States,” analyzed statements about embryological and fetal development from information booklets produced by 23 states that require informed consent. The study found 31 percent of the information to be medically inaccurate, and that the highest percentages of inaccuracies are found in the first trimester of pregnancy, when 90 percent of women have abortions.
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Why is it important?
Patients should be confident their doctor is providing them with accurate information. Misinformation is a threat to the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship and to the medical system as a whole, especially in decisions about pregnancy.”
Perspectives
The Rutgers study team defined medical accuracy as information that was both “truthful and nonmisleading,” constitutional standards set by the U.S. Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania et al. v. Robert P. Casey et al. in 1992. Our findings suggest these laws may produce ‘misinformed consent’ and may require the court to rethink the constitutionality of abortion-related informed consent laws as a whole.
Professor Cynthia R Daniels
Rutgers University New Brunswick
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Informed or Misinformed Consent? Abortion Policy in the United States, Journal of Health Politics Policy and Law, January 2016, Duke University Press,
DOI: 10.1215/03616878-3476105.
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