informed consent

Ohio Revised Code § 2317.56 requires physicians, absent a medical emergency, to meet with a pregnant patient at least twenty-four hours before an abortion procedure to provide specified information regarding the nature and risks of the procedure. Compliance with these informed consent requirements is a condition of performing a lawful abortion.

The plaintiff sought an order requiring a hospital to perform a tubal ligation on her after she delivered her fourth child. The plaintiff lived in poverty and neither she nor her husband were employed. The trial and appellate courts refused to grant the order, but the Supreme Court remanded the case for the lower court, citing the lower court's failure to examine the facts of the case.