NEGLIGENCE AND ABORTION – DOCTORS’ DUTY OF CARE CHALLENGES AND POTENTIALS IN LIGHT OF MONTGOMERY V LANARKSHIRE HEALTH BOARD

This paper is exploring how the Supreme Court Judgment in Montgomery affects doctors’ duty of information disclosure in the abortion context. Through an analysis of the materiality test of information disclosure, it will seek to highlight both challenges and potentials for the doctor-woman relationship in the abortion setting. In particular, it will ask how doctors’ duty to information disclosure should be interpreted in this context in light of two principles of medical partnership and authentic autonomy.

The Supreme Court judgment in Montgomery marked a crucial step in the debate concerning doctor-patient relationship and informed consent. Patients and doctors are no longer to be regarded as antagonists, but as partners striving for the delivery of the best healthcare outcome for the patient. At the same time this judgment recognizes that the information disclosure process would serve patients’ needs and values. Montgomery hence made a room for both medical partnership and patient’s autonomy.

The aim of this paper is to show that Montgomery has the potential, amongst others, to shape doctors’ duty of care well beyond the mainstream medicine context and affect also the abortion arena. It will highlight the crucial role played by informed consent discourses in the abortion context, while also suggesting possible ways to minimize still existent challenges so as to better safeguard both medical partnership and a thick concept of autonomy (i.e. authentic).

WHITE COATS, STETHOSCOPES, AND PICKET SIGNS

This paper is exploring how the Supreme Court Judgment in Montgomery affects doctors’ duty of information disclosure in the abortion context. Through an analysis of the materiality test of information disclosure, it will seek to highlight both challenges and potentials for the doctor-woman relationship in the abortion setting. In particular, it will ask how doctors’ duty to information disclosure should be interpreted in this context in light of two principles of medical partnership and authentic autonomy.

The Supreme Court judgment in Montgomery marked a crucial step in the debate concerning doctor-patient relationship and informed consent. Patients and doctors are no longer to be regarded as antagonists, but as partners striving for the delivery of the best healthcare outcome for the patient. At the same time this judgment recognizes that the information disclosure process would serve patients’ needs and values. Montgomery hence made a room for both medical partnership and patient’s autonomy.

The aim of this paper is to show that Montgomery has the potential, amongst others, to shape doctors’ duty of care well beyond the mainstream medicine context and affect also the abortion arena. It will highlight the crucial role played by informed consent discourses in the abortion context, while also suggesting possible ways to minimize still existent challenges so as to better safeguard both medical partnership and a thick concept of autonomy (i.e. authentic).