Jody Steinauer, MD, MAS and Carolyn Sufrin, MD, MA
Legislative policies that require a physician to misrepresent the risks of abortion to patients and to show the patient an ultrasound and those that allow physicians not to provide referral for abortion create a conflict between the physician's obligations to the patient and to the law.
A growing number of states is enacting laws to protect the right of health care workers to conscientiously object to perform certain services that are morally opposed to.
When a pregnant woman is knowingly causing harm to her unborn child, there are various legal interventions that can be taken to protect the rights if the fetus.