Norwegian committee advises liberalisation of abortion
An ultrasound machine inside an exam room in an abortion clinic. Photo AFP, Angela Weiss
Northern Europe
The special Norwegian committee that was to research the current abortion laws has presented its conclusions. However, they are internally divided.
Women should be able to terminate their pregnancy up to week 18 instead of week 12. That is the advice of the abortion committee that was appointed by the government to look into the matter. It presented its conclusions last Thursday.
Not only does the committee think it is good to extend the abortion limit, but it also advises the government to incorporate the right to guidance and follow-up in the abortion law, Vart Land reports.
According to the head of the abortion committee, Kari Sønderland, the current law from the 1970s is outdated. "Many of the societal changes are relevant to the abortion issue", she said during the presentation of the report of the committee.
Need
In addition, the committee proposes a number of other measures to improve women's access to abortion. One of them is that pregnant women have a right to conversations and guidance from healthcare workers if they wish. In addition, they should have the right to be informed about the abortion and its side effects, but also about other options, like relevant welfare schemes that might be of use to them if they decide to keep their child. The committee also pleads for aftercare for women who decide to choose an abortion if these women feel the need for this. Furthermore, they want more accessible information online and the possibility to schedule an abortion online via a digital application form.
To ensure that abortions beyond 18 weeks are legal, the committee suggests that five to ten new abortion boards must be created to assess the requests for late-term abortions. These boards, the committee states, must consist of a doctor, a lawyer and a member with medical or healthcare expertise.
Conscience
These boards should also decide about cases in which a pregnant woman wants to reduce the number of babies in her womb, for example, when she is expecting a twin but only wants one baby, the committee argues.
Currently, the members of the committee want a continuation of the conscience clause, which allows doctors to refuse to perform an abortion on conscientious grounds. They are still looking into the possibility of whether abortions should also be performed at home up to the tenth week of pregnancy.
Opinion
However, not everyone on the abortion council agreed with the statement that was presented on Thursday. Two members of the thirteen making up the committee did not agree to the advice to extend the abortion limit in Denmark. One of them, Morten Magelssen, believes that the protection of unborn children should be strengthened instead of weakened, Dagen writes.
Earlier, Magelssen wrote an opinion article together with Marte Kvittum Tangen, the head of the Norwegian General Medical Association, who was also on the abortion committee. In it, they argued that by keeping the current abortion law, the government helped to "protect against less acceptance of the imperfect and that which is different."
Magelssen believes that the Labour Party wants to push a new abortion law through quickly before the election in 2025. He estimates that there is a majority in the Storting that will support the extension of the abortion limit to 18 weeks.
However, he also sees some positive aspects of the advice of the committee. "I support the idea that the right to follow-up for this group is enshrined in law. The committee also proposes to strengthen and legislate the right to guidance in the choice of abortion."
Contraception
The pro-life organisation Menneskeverd is not happy about the advice, Dagen writes. The organisation worries that the number of abortions will increase following the liberalisation of the abortion limit. Kristin Rudstaden, communications officer at the organisation, tells the newspaper that "the legislation is normative, and any extension will shape society's attitude to abortion."
She is especially critical of the fact that most women want to keep the abortion limit at 12 weeks, while men want to extend it. "We know that men are worse at contraception; they are not the ones who have abortions, and it is men who want to extend the weekly limit. That's a provocative disclaimer."
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