HKS Authors

See citation below for complete author information.

Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights, HSPH; Jeremiah Smith Jr. Lecturer in Law, HLS

Abstract

Health care providers are trained to inform, counsel, and provide optimal care to patients, regardless of their setting or immigration status. A key element of this approach is providers’ obligation to ensure patients have sufficient information to safely make decisions in their own best interest and when treatment is selected, provide informed consent. In practice, particularly in constrained settings such as immigration detention facilities, safeguards for these critical patients’ rights are not always implemented. Contemporary U.S. abuses follow a long global history of racially motivated violations of marginalized women's reproductive health.

Citation

Sullivan, Margaret M., Margareta Matache, Samuel Peisch, and Jacqueline Bhabha. "Reproductive healthcare in immigration detention: The imperative of informed consent." The Lancet Regional Health – Americas 10 (June 2022): 100211.