Friday, January 14, 2022
Conflicting Priorities:
The Complex Reproductive Ethics of Incarceration
Andrea Knittel, MD, PhD, FACOG

Assistant Professor, Division of General Obstetrics and Gynecology
Medical Director for Incarcerated Women's Health
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Incarceration introduces ethical challenges in the provision of reproductive health care across the life course – through adolescence, pregnancy, midlife, and beyond. In this case-based presentation, I will discuss how conflict between the priorities of the patient, provider, and carceral institution complicates consent for medical care, sterilization, management of opioid use disorder in pregnancy, and research participation during incarceration. I will also reflect on the potential ethical quandary introduced by the conflicting goals of prison abolition and improving conditions of confinement.