Post‐abortion care: Ethical and legal duties

Women who experience complications from abortion, whether unlawful or lawful, induced or spontaneous, need immediate post‐abortion care. Delay in providing care might cause women's avoidable disability, lost childbearing capacity, or death. Rendering care is not an abortion procedure nor illega...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of gynecology and obstetrics 2019-11, Vol.147 (2), p.273-278
Main Author: Dickens, Bernard M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abortion
Abortion, Induced - adverse effects
Abortion, Induced - ethics
Abortion, Induced - legislation & jurisprudence
Conscientious objection
Female
Humans
Induced abortion
Lawful abortion
Postoperative Care - ethics
Postoperative Care - legislation & jurisprudence
Post‐abortion care
Pregnancy
Refusal to Treat - ethics
Refusal to Treat - legislation & jurisprudence
Reproductive Health - ethics
Reproductive Health - standards
Spontaneous abortion
State responsibility
Women's Health
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Summary:Women who experience complications from abortion, whether unlawful or lawful, induced or spontaneous, need immediate post‐abortion care. Delay in providing care might cause women's avoidable disability, lost childbearing capacity, or death. Rendering care is not an abortion procedure nor illegal, and does not justify conscientious objection. Harm reduction strategies to reduce effects of unsafe abortion may legitimately inform women who might consider resort to abortifacient interventions of their rights to professional post‐abortion care. Healthcare practitioners’ refusal or failure to provide available care might constitute ethical misconduct and attract legal liability, for instance for negligence. States are responsible to ensure healthcare practitioners’ and facilities’ provision of post‐abortion care, including both medical care and psychological support, delivered with compassion and respect for dignity, and to suppress stigmatization of patients and/or caregivers. Mandatory reporting of patients suspected of criminal abortion violates professional confidentiality. States’ failures of indicated care might constitute human rights violations. Post‐abortion care is not an abortion procedure, not unlawful, and does not justify conscientious objection. Refusal of care might constitute ethical misconduct and legal negligence.
ISSN:0020-7292
1879-3479
DOI:10.1002/ijgo.12951