I have written on diminished autonomy for pregnant women before for IJFAB blog in my piece,  Not All Objectification Is Sexual: The Return of the Fetal Container.   That piece, like Minkoff and Lyerly’s excellent 2010 piece in Hastings Center Report, dealt broadly with the choices which pregnant women are or are not constrained from making during their pregnancy, allegedly by state-imposed duties to their fetuses.  There is another aspect of constrained medical autonomy for pregnant women, however, and it has to do with the priorities of some physicians (and patients) with respect to how risk and other concerns are viewed.

While dozens of states in the US continue to make efforts to undermine reproductive rights, less attention has been given to the high cost and relatively poor outcomes for childbirth in the US. This New York Times article details the … Continue reading →