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  • Title: Ethical issues in U.S. family planning policy.
    Author: Benshoof J.
    Journal: Draper Fund Rep; 1983 Aug; (12):11-2. PubMed ID: 12338973.
    Abstract:
    2 concepts are central to the ethics of government family planning policies in the US: the goal of equality for women depends on control over their reproductive lives; and the Constitution protects liberty and privacy. Both of these considerations are grounded on constitutional principles that recognize the primacy of individual decision making, particularly when that decision making involves religious, ethical, or moral choices about private areas of one's life. The guarantee of individual liberty requires that both privacy and personal choice prevail over the mandatory imposition of a family planning policy for either demographic, religious, or ideological reasons. The Supreme Court, when it overturned restrictive abortion laws in 1973, based its decision on the constitutional right of privacy. Poor women and minors are particularly vulnerable to restrictions in the areas of family planning and reproductive health. For both of these classes of women, the ability to make choices has been diminished by such legal requirements as mandatory parental involvement or by the withdrawal of public funds for contraceptive or abortion services. For those persons who must depend on public assistance for medical care, legal restrictions on how public money is spent can be as effective as outright prohibitions. Nor are physicians exempt from financial restrictions. If doctors who counseled patients about family planning or provided them with contraceptives were rendered ineligible from government benefits, the effect would be similar to that of making the activities illegal. In 1976 Congress virtually ended public funding for abortion services, although it continues to fund all other legal and medically necessary services. Through financial restrictions, the US family planning policy treats poor women in a discriminatory manner. Although the Supreme Court has stated that minors have a right to both contraceptives and abortion, minors as a class enjoy less constitutional protection than adult women. Consequently, minors' rights to confidential reproductive health care are increasingly being limited. The articulated purpose of laws restricting minors' confidentiality is to involve parents and thus somehow enhance the "wisdom" of a minor's decision, but such laws have an impact that is punitive. In June 1983 the Supreme Court reaffirmed its 1973 decision when it ruled that the government cannot interfere with a woman's "fundamental right to the highly personal choice whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."
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