If we consider the fetus to be a person, or a partial person with some significant moral status, it does not necessarily follow that abortion would always be morally prohibited. Informed consent should be seen as a process that promotes good communication and patient autonomy. Unfortunately, physicians often see it as a legal requiremet for a signed piece of paper. Patients do not wish to be involved in decision making. Patients report that they want professionals to make treatment decisions for them.
Informed consent takes too much time.
The event model views informed consent as an event that occurs when a patient is informed of the risks and signs a form before undergoing a procedure. The process model, however, attempts to integrate informed consent into all aspects of clinical care. Medical care involves a series of decisions made over a period of time, and these decisions should be made on the basis of opened discussion between patient and physician in which the physician brings technical knowledge, and the patient brings knowledge about his or her life circumstances, in deciding what course of treatment would best suit this particular patient. Veatch argues that informed consent should be used only as a transitional concept until we can develop a newer, more enlightented concept. In the informed consent model, the physician proposes a course of treatment and asks for the patient's consent.