Are doctors who perform abortions held to the same standards as other doctors in regard to informed consent and the risks involved?
How do you mean?
If you mean they have to go through the possibility of such unlikely events as a perforated uterus, well, of course they do. Don’t be ridiculous.
If you mean they have to go through every single thing that could ever potentially go wrong, no. That’s not the case with any medical procedure, as far as I know.
In fact, Texas is now requiring doctors to spread false information about the abortion-breast cancer (non)link as a part of their new standards of informed consent.
In Washington State, women who have abortions are required to sign a paper listing all possible risks of abortion, as well as have a sort of counselling session with a qualified nurse to ensure she (a) understands what she’s doing and (b) wants to go through with it. So yes, at least in WA, abortion doctors are certainly held to the same standards, if not even more stringent standards, than regular doctors.
So, before Texas added this law patients were already informed of all the “real” risks?
Is the level of information that has to be given different in each state?
You make it sound like there is a seperate profession of “abortion doctors” who make a living doing nothing but perfroming abortions. Generally speaking, abortions are performed by a regular Ob/Gyn, and the procedure is held to the same standards as everything else they do.
Um, Joe, there ARE some doctors who do nothing but abortions. They’re called abortionists … different from a OB/GYN that just happens to do them when the opportunity presents itself, IMHO.
Anyhow re the OP: it depends on what state you’re in. It took pro-lifers 20 years to get the Women’s Right to Know act passed here in WV. All it does is require abortion clinics to give women who ask for it information concerning the risks, fetal development, etc. It’s not even mandatory that all of their patients receive this information. To hear the other side decry it you woulda thought that WV was outlawing abortion altogether.
Curious- shouldn’t informed consent to Tab include the risks of pregnancy & delivery? Makes sense to me, an MD. Eg, often, not always, informed consent for surgical procedures includes the risks of NO procedure.
In article seems to say that in Texas right now there is no need for informed consent. But this may not be the best cite. I can’t seem to find anything that says abortion is already held to the same standard of informed consent as other medical procedures in Texas.
I’m sure there are OB/GYN’s that do more than their share but…cite please.
You need a cite to know whether or not abortionists exist? Wouldn’t it follow that an OB/GYN who does nothing but abortions is an abortionist? (Abortionist being a generic term here.)
Isn’t “Abortionist” a word so loaded with negative feelings that it could never be used as a “generic term”?
Or does it apply equally to both real MDs and freaks in their basement apt. with a crochet hook?
Indiana has an “informed consent” law. It requires that the patient receive the information in person, far enough in advance to require a 2-day span off work for most patients. Indiana has just a few clinics where abortions are available. What the law amounts to is limiting availability for poor women.
What Lifesite seems to regard as “informed consent” is “you must agree that abortion is murder and look at color photographs”. I used to be a patient escort for a clinic that offered abortions among its other services, several years ago. I looked at the patient consent form, and it listed things that could go wrong, medically. It also said, in plain language, that a woman had the option of carrying a child to term and either keeping it or adopting it out. The form said that help was available for those who did NOT wish an abortion. The clinic did not, as far as I know, provide color photos of fetuses/fetii in any stage. However, it offered ultrasound. It was a general women’s clinic, and offered women a variety of gynecological services.
I’m going to ask that SnoopyFan give a cite of doctors who do nothing but provide abortions. I know that the clinic doctors only did abortions a couple of mornings a week, and did other services (like well woman checks, Pap smears, stuff like that) during the rest of their working hours.
In Texas, abortion services are available in only a very few counties (I don’t know the exact number off the top of my head). Already, women who want an abortion must usually travel to a place which provides them, and of course recover afterwards. This new law is not intended for the benefit of women who want abortions. It’s designed simply to put roadblocks in their way. Most of the women who want to get abortions have already thought about it for some time. Let me also say, that as of a few years ago, it was almost impossible to find a provider that would do an abortion in the second trimester unless the mother’s life was at risk.
In talking to abortion protesters at the clinic, I found that almost NONE of them supported sex education, which might prevent abortions in the first place. Some, in fact, were anti-contraceptive, allowing only abstinence as birth control.:rolleyes:
I could go on and on, but I’m veering too far into GD territory already. Let me just repeat that the new law was ONLY intended to punish women for wanting abortions and to make obtaining an abortion so difficult that some women might not be able to jump through all the hoops in time.
Lynn what I’m having trouble understanding is why you want a cite to prove that there are doctors out there who only do abortions. Given all the doctors out there involved in abortion, can you not see that odds are at least one or two of them solely do abortions?
Sheesh! What am I supposed to do? Plow through page after page of abortion clinic websites until I find a doctor’s profile that says “Doctor So-and-So does abortions all day, every day, for this is their sole source of livelihood” ??
Re: Texas Informed Consent law … how long does the patient have to have this information in her possession before she can get the abortion? If it’s 1 or 2 days I could maybe see why you’d think that was a roadblock but if it’s something like “here’s the info, read it, ok done? Okay, let’s go,” I don’t see how that would be a roadblock.
Snoopy, the new law says 24 hours.
I still can’t find the old law. Any Dopers how work/worked in a clinic in Texas know?
In my experience, EVERY doctor who does abortions only does them as a small part of his/her practice. What I want from you is a cite saying something like “Dr. X specializes in abortions”, in the same way that some doctors will advertise that they specialize in laser eye surgery.
Basically, I don’t believe that there are very many doctors who ONLY do abortions in the United States. I don’t believe that there are many who do PRIMARILY abortions and abortion related services. I think that you are simply using inflammatory language to discuss this issue. I have some personal interest in abortion rights, and I’ve tried to stay current with info about it. This means that I’ve come in contact with doctors and clinics who perform abortions, and your statement does not concur with my experience. You seem to be making a statement based on your beliefs, not on any facts or experiences. You can’t do that in General Questions and expect not to be challenged.
Now, there might be CLINICS that only do abortions, or primarily do abortions, but in my experience, the doctors at those clinics will only do abortions on one or two mornings each.
All of my information/experience is in the United States only. I have only very limited knowledge of abortion issues in other countries.
This is the nub of the argument, I think (and if it’s not, then it’s something I disagree with). Even if an OB/GYN specializes in performing abortions to the exclusion of everything else, s/he is still an OB/GYN, not an “abortionist”. In the same sense that a cardiologist who specializes exclusively in performing angioplasties is still a cardiologist, not an angioplastist. The OB/GYN who mostly does abortions has gone through the same training and has the same capabilities as the OB/GYN who mostly does pap smears and such.
This OB/GYN’s practice specializes in abortion.
http://rwor.org/a/v23/1100-99/1105/pendergraft.htm
This guy specialized in late-term abortions before he went to jail.
http://www.drtiller.com/medir.html
This list wouldn’t be complete without Dr. Tiller.
http://www.prolife.com/NATHAN.html
This guy co-founded NARAL. He no longer does abortions but during his career presided over 60,000 of them. I think it would be safe to call him a former specialist.
http://www.lektrik.com/steir/dp068a.htm
This guy claims he’s done 30-40k of them and calls himself an abortion specialist. Got his license yanked so he’s not doing them anymore.
http://www.amycousinsmd.com/6.html
Here’s another.
And another.
Wow Snoopyfan, I guess you CAN “plow through page after page of…websites”… and in record time, too!
Well, I Googled “abortionist” and came up with that word almost exclusively being used to describe doctors who perform abortions in at least a subtly if not strongly negative way. The only site you linked above that uses the word “abortionist” is pro-life.
Ironically, on the same search I saw a paid listing which led to a directory of abortion clinics. None of the sites paying to appear under “abortionist” (checked Overture too) used the word “abortionist” anywhere on the site, nor did the sites to which they led (not even in the meta tags, though ob/gyn was there). They do, however, use “obstetricians” and “gynecologists” to describe their doctors, even though it is obvious that they specialize in abortions.
http://www.nyabortion.com/home/index.shtml
Looking at the more neutral sites you’ve linked, “abortion doctor” appears to be the generic term here and “abortionist” a degrogatory term. Aside from paying to appear in searches for “abortionist,” they certainly don’t seem to be fond of referring to themselves that way.
D