Distinguishing between elective and therapeutic abortions undermines the moral agency of patients and disproportionately amplifies moral rather than medical dimensions of the procedure.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(12):E1175-1180. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1175.
The social institutions of medicine and the state have a complex history of interaction in which doctors have been the originators of political ideals, goals, and social change but equally often have found themselves to be instruments of political authority.
More anti-abortion legislation was passed in 2011 than in any other year since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. In the first half of the year, more than 80 abortion-related restrictions were enacted across the United States.
State laws prohibiting sodomy were on the books throughout US history until struck down by the US Supreme Court, which argued in Lawrence v Texas (2003) that the state cannot criminalize private sexual conduct.
When patient autonomy became a closely held value in medical ethics in the 1960s and '70s, the physician’s conscience-based right to refuse to deliver a given service began to be contested.