NAPW NYT Letter Addresses Informed Consent

In Today's New York Times on-line, NAPW comments on a recent decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court:

September 21, 2007
New Jersey Abortion Case

To the Editor:

Re “New Jersey Top Court Rejects Woman’s Malpractice Suit on Abortion” (news article, Sept. 13):

The New Jersey Supreme Court correctly ruled in the Acuna decision that doctors should not be forced to tell a woman considering an abortion that she is “killing an existing human being.”

The case itself, which stems from strategic anti-choice efforts to create the illusion that women seeking abortions are not adequately informed, distracts attention from those situations where this really is the case.

For example, women who go to term are not informed that 15 to 20 percent of all pregnancies end in a miscarriage or stillbirth.. They don’t usually know their providers’ C-section rate (among providers this number routinely exceeds evidence-based medical recommendations). Or that many hospitals prohibit vaginal births after C-sections, denying women the opportunity to have a trial of labor and avoid unnecessary surgery.

Indeed, there is little evidence that women seeking abortions are under-informed, but a lot to indicate that women going to term could be better served.

Lynn M. Paltrow
Executive Director, National Advocates for Pregnant Women
New York, Sept. 14, 2007