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Distinctions in Disclosure: Mandated Informed Consent in Abortion and ART

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Judith Daar
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Extract

Transparency and disclosure in the health care realm occupy a vital link between the delivery of medical services and patient autonomy. In her article, “Disclosure Two Ways,” Erin Bernstein skillfully explores this link in the context of abortion and assisted conception services, keenly observing the rise in mandatory disclosure laws in both arenas. Her thesis, as I understand it, is that laws that require enhanced disclosure above traditional informed consent thresholds can be understood as neutral tools in the name of patient protection, even — or perhaps especially — when their effect is to persuade a patient to forego the requested treatment. She combats the critique that pre-abortion required disclosures are sui generis, arguing against their uniqueness by analyzing them alongside a swell of mandated disclosure laws in the assisted reproductive technologies (ART) context.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , Summer 2015 , pp. 255 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2015

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References

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Though many argue ART should be regarded within the reproductive liberty realm. See, e.g., Robertson, J. A., Children of Choice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
For example, commercial surrogacy is banned in 9 states. See Daar, J., Reproductive Technologies and the Law, 2d ed. (New Providence: Matthew Bender & Company, Inc., 2013): At 439.Google Scholar