Informing Patients

I appreciate the good intentions of my colleague Evin Whittington, author of the blog My Only News Source is Jon Stewart, as he wants doctors to provide--and patients to receive--the best treatment possible. However, I would disagree with him as to what that entails. In his article, "Pushing Doctors", he holds the position that Texas' new sonogram bill will be forcing abortion doctors to do something against their will and potentially do something not in the best interest of the patient. 

The bill only says that an abortion doctor needs to provide the option to allow the woman see a sonogram of her baby and hear the heartbeat if she desires. This is simply allowing a woman to see critical information that might be very helpful as she considers exactly what she wants to do. The bill is about a woman's right to know. Once she has an abortion, it cannot ever be reversed so this is a very significant decision. 

This should actually help with the doctor-patient relationship because the patient could trust the doctor to provide her with important information. For example, if I needed to make a decision about a potential back surgery, I would want to be as informed as possible about the surgery. If my doctor purposefully held back information about the surgery, I would consider my physician to be a neglectful and untrustworthy doctor.

I believe that if a good doctor is only looking out for the best interests of their patient, they should like this bill because it would add to a patient's trust and it would enable the patient to make an informed decision. However, bad doctors who are only looking for money very likely wouldn't like this bill because some women might choose not to have an abortion after seeing a sonogram and hearing a baby's heartbeat. But if that is what's in their patient's best interest, shouldn't that be fine with them? That is, unless the doctor just wants the money that comes from performing an abortion.