Appropriations of Informed Consent: Abortion, Medical Decision Making, and Antiabortion Rhetoric

Abstract

In this article, I consider how politicians appropriate the informed consent process to disseminate antiabortion ideology in the United States. I expand on research conducted by the Guttmacher Institute to explore critically three rhetorical strategies that align the informed consent process with antiabortion ideology. I situate this cooption within societal practices that demean and dismiss women's moral agency and reproductive autonomy, and I unpack the ethical consequences that follow from the distortion of medical information.