(Download) "Confronting Misinformation on Abortion: Informed Consent, Deference, And Fetal Pain Laws." by Columbia Journal of Gender and Law * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Confronting Misinformation on Abortion: Informed Consent, Deference, And Fetal Pain Laws.
- Author : Columbia Journal of Gender and Law
- Release Date : January 01, 2008
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 352 KB
Description
In the last few years, the topic of "fetal pain" has become a hot one in many state legislatures. Five states now require that some women seeking abortions be told that their fetus may experience pain, with similar bills cropping up around the country. (1) Even Congress has gotten involved, with the outgoing House of Representatives nearly passing a national fetal pain bill in late 2006. (2) These measures are the latest in a growing body of specific informational requirements for abortion procedures, many steeped in scientific controversy. Nearly all of these measures are titled "Woman's Right to Know Acts." (3) These laws abandon well-settled principles of informed consent--which give discretion to medical professionals to determine what information is crucial for patients--in favor of legislative judgments about what particular facts should be told to patients and how these facts should be shared. Informed consent to medical treatment consists of three essential elements: communication of necessary information, comprehension of that information by the patient, and subsequent consent to treatment. (4) The information that must be communicated includes three key elements: the risks of the proposed treatment, viable alternative treatments, and likely outcomes in the absence of treatment. (5) In every doctor-patient relationship, doctors are bound by law to apply these principles on the basis of their best medical judgment: