Since 2010, the United States has witnessed a dramatic expansion of state-based restrictions on abortion. The most common of these are ‘informed consent’ statutes, which require that a woman seeking an abortion receive a state-authored informational packet before the abortion procedure can be performed. These laws, often labeled “A Woman’s Right to Know Act,” typically require details of fetal development, information about alternatives to abortions and risks associated with abortion and pregnancy. The impact of these laws is potentially great: 66% of all women seeking abortions in the U.S. live in ‘informed consent’ states. Yet there has been little systematic analysis of the accuracy of materials which states mandate that women view. This paper presents the findings of a comprehensive study of state informed consent materials in 2013, analyzing them for medical accuracy and discussing the implications of these findings for women’s reproductive autonomy.
