BREAKING: Proof That Informed Consent Matters
A disturbing realization has been made based on evidence from the partnership between the University of New Mexico and Curtis Boyd’s late-term abortion facility. The two formerly worked together in using the body parts of aborted babies for medical research. Now we’re sharing just what led to a documented instant decline in Boyd’s fetal tissue donations to UNM.
As documented in the UNM Fetal Tissue Log for years, it was not uncommon for Boyd’s SWO clinic to be sending the bodies of numerous babies a week to be dissected for research at UNM. But in the winter of 2015-2016, after pushback from local pro-life groups and attorneys, something changed. The first three months of 2016 allegedly had no fetal tissue being donated from Boyd’s at all. At this time, we now know that UNM began using a new informed consent form for donating fetal tissue after abortion.
The prior version of the “informed consent” form used at Boyd’s SWO facility had a mere one sentence regarding tissue donation hidden in the middle of the form with absolutely no information included. Women weren’t opposed to giving consent to donating their babies’ bodies to UNM in the years leading up to 2016 because they weren’t actually informed of the fact that they were giving consent to doing that.
The new consent form, for the first time, gave women going to Boyd’s facility the opportunity to really see what it was they were saying yes to...and that caused them to stop saying yes.
It’s clear, based on the dramatic change of pace documented in the UNM fetal tissue log, that informed consent makes a difference in the decisions women make.
“Informed consent is vital in order for women to make fully informed decisions based off ALL of the facts.” says the president of New Wave Feminists, Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa. “When women are denied such information because we are deemed to be “too emotional” for basic knowledge regarding how a procedure will happen or what all is involved before, during, and after, providers are simply upholding a patriarchy fueled capitalism. They see women merely as customers to make a buck off of and not full human beings with agency, capable of making the best choices based on all of the facts.”
If so many women declined to give consent for fetal tissue donation based on the detailed information they were finally given, perhaps some of those women declined to give consent to their abortion procedure altogether. If the “informed consent” forms for the abortion procedure itself were as clear as the fetal tissue donation consent forms now are, would there be a dramatic decrease in the number of women who sign those forms too? We think it’s pretty clear based on this evidence that informed consent matters.