The politics of “informed consent”

Guttmacher has just released a report revealing how the basic tenets of “informed consent” is violated by states that have strict pre-abortion counseling requirements:

The counseling required by these 23 states in many cases appears to be designed more to influence rather than inform a woman’s decision whether to have an abortion, for instance by exaggerating the physical or mental health risks of abortion, or by including information on certain abortion procedures that is irrelevant to most women, according to the report published in the Fall 2007 issue of the Guttmacher Policy Review.

While the existence of “informed consent” within the spectrum of abortion law has always sounded pretty paternal to me, just as Guttmacher mentions Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion in the Federal Abortion Ban ruling and his “concern” that women aren’t necessarily capable to make decisions for themselves, they state that Kennedy’s opinion “moved the Court—and likely the future of the abortion debate in the states—to the very heart of the issue of informed consent,” in which they then seem to reclaim the term for its bare principles. These principles come together to the ultimate goal of what “informed consent” seeks to achieve for a patient, which is “protection of personal well-being and individual autonomy.” Which is the very opposite of what is really going on.
In short, the ethical base of informed consent has been stripped by misinformation and methods of coercion that exists within current state abortion laws. It’s interesting stuff; read the full report here.