Should We Accept Denial of Our Right to Informed Consent about Abortion?

By Michele Jackson

Abortion advocates want us to think that to require that there be informed consent and waiting periods before a woman aborts her child creates a barrier to obtaining abortions. These advocates would have us believe that abortion is not a significant surgical (or chemical) procedure, even though it is irreversible for the babies destroyed and can leave women with lifelong psychological and/or physical problems, including a 25% chance of sterility.

Informed consent affords the woman information about the medical nature and risks of the abortion procedure, alternatives to abortion, and scientifically accurate medical facts about the gestational age and development of the unborn child, prior to her making a decision to have an abortion.

Moreover, the thinking of abortion advocates on informed consent and waiting periods runs contrary to what consumer advocates have espoused for the last 30 years. Consumer advocates have fought hard to ensure that today the law requires health care professionals to explain to patients the nature, benefits, and risks of most significant surgical and chemical procedures.

As black people, we ought to be cautious of any group that wants to deny people's access to informed consent and waiting periods before life-altering surgical and chemical procedures. We should recall noteworthy times when American health care professionals betrayed the trust and privilege society has given them by irreparably harming innocent citizens.

In the early 1900s, many who favored eugenics were bent on curtailing the birthrates of the "unfit," including Black Americans. For several decades, peaking in the 1970s, government-sponsored family planning programs coerced Black women into being sterilized.

Another example involves sickle-cell anemia. Sickle-cell anemia is a blood disease, which involves a recessive gene, and disproportionately affects African Americans, as well as several other ethnic groups.

Only children who receive copies of the affected gene from both parents will have sickle-cell disease. Carriers of only one copy of the gene, called sickle-cell trait, exhibit no symptoms. While one in ten Black Americans is a carrier for sickle-cell trait, only one in 500,000 has two copies of the sickle-cell gene and is therefore likely to develop symptoms of the disease.

However, in the 1970s, some sickle-cell screening programs offered little counseling. Even worse, sickle-cell screening became the basis for proposals to restrict Black women from seeking childbirth. That same screening became the basis for proposals to deny Black American sickle-cell carriers certain jobs and insurance coverage, or to charge higher premiums.

Another terrible example: From 1932 to 1972, researchers conducted what came to be known as the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. Black men who had contracted syphilis were lied to by re-searchers; they were told they had "bad blood."

The unsuspecting men were not given antibiotics so that researchers could observe the results of non-treatment.

Thus, our history teaches us that informed consent and waiting periods help protect us from abuse from the medical community and preserve our right to make informed choices. It is critical that African-American women know about the potential consequences of abortion.

Some of the short-term physical complications of abortion are slow hemorrhage, pulmonary embolism, infection, and fever. Some of the long-term physical complications are chronic infection, an inability to carry a subsequent pregnancy to term, and sterility. Some of the psychological aftereffects of abortion are depression, guilt, remorse, anxiety, alcohol and drug abuse, sexual dysfunction, and poor self-esteem.

Informed consent laws are in effect in 13 states. Two additional states, Montana and Florida, have their laws enjoined, with cases pending.

Abortion clinics, Planned Parenthood, and other pro-abortion groups have challenged most of the state informed consent laws in court. Nearly all of these challenges were defeated, resulting in the upholding of the informed consent legislation and the establishment of informed consent as constitutional.

The original case that determined the constitutionality of informed consent is Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. In this 1992 case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the informed consent statue after Planned Parenthood challenged the law passed by the Pennsylvania legislature.

Please contact your local National Right to Life affiliate and see what you can do in your state to help the passage of informed consent and waiting periods. Stop our people from perishing for the lack of knowledge.