ABSTRACT
This chapter examines autonomy violations by physicians’ withholding or misrepresenting information to patients about options and risks in the context of consent to interventions in or relating to childbirth, and how the law should respond to such events. Potential autonomy violations lie on a spectrum from major surgical interventions to which patient consent is altogether lacking to failures to provide information to patients, enabling them to make decisions about treatment according to their values. On the most extreme end of the spectrum, there are forced caesarean sections against valid refusals. Less extreme examples include insufficient information disclosures and interventions designed to alter women’s preferences in favour of vaginal birth over caesarean delivery (or vice versa). This chapter elucidates what kind(s) of autonomy violations these interferences are, and the law’s ability to protect the autonomy interests involved. It argues that the case of interventions relating to childbirth illustrates some important gaps in the legal protection of patient autonomy, that is, ways in which the law might not protect seemingly important autonomy interests. In particular, it argues that insufficient information disclosure might remove control from women in ways against which the law does not provide sufficient protection.
