What Swedish media won't tell you about abortion

“The longing for a child came after two days after the abortion. I feel/felt so empty. Since the abortion, my life has been in complete shambles,” an anonymous user wrote on the Swedish forum site, Familjeliv."

But is the general public aware of these stories? Despite more personal anecdotes appearing, the Swedish media continues to tell a different narrative. According to Brita Storlund, these stories tend to favour abortion as the default choice and minimise its psychological impact. Storlund is a communicator and writer at Människovärde.

Storlund recently wrote a report: Media and Abortion: How Agenda- Setting Journalism Misleads the Public about Abortion. She and the pro-life organisation, Människovärde, analysed at least 186 news articles and broadcasts from January 2024 to April 2025. While investigating, they assessed several questions: Are both sides presented equally? Is language neutral and accurate? What sources are referenced?

The media outlets analysed included SVT, SR, TV4, DN, SvD, GP, Aftonbladet, and Expressen. Opinion pieces were excluded. Storlund found that Swedish media often relied on content from American and British outlets such as ProPublica, Politico, CNN, the BBC, and the AP.

She says many of these sources contained visible biases and often used favourable language to describe abortion itself. For example, the terms “abortion rights” and “abortion care” were used, despite not being mentioned anywhere in Swedish law. What's more, the content shared by these outlets used identical language and examples, indicating an overreliance on international media organisations, a study says.

Storlund also confirmed that when Swedish media cite international sources, they often skip vital verification and nuance checks. Many of these reports paraphrase earlier content and ignore original reporting, she says.

Opposing perspectives were often eliminated or under-represented in such reports. Storlund concluded that only 3 percent of the reviewed items contained perspectives critical of abortion.

Approximately 7 percent of the sources analysed presented both pro- and anti-abortion viewpoints, though they often still favoured a pro-abortion stance. Pro-abortion advocates were given more coverage and were less frequently challenged.

Those who were critical of abortion did not appear in any reports. The term “unborn baby" was mentioned in only 4 percent of sources. In most cases, the term was not mentioned at all, since ”foetus” is often used instead, she says.

The report also cites a statistic from the Pew Research Center. It indicates that 95 percent of the Swedish population supports abortion in most or all cases. Pew Research Center concludes this high percentage suggests media influence, Storlund says in the report.

When describing pro-life movements or views, the media often use language that is considered divisive or polarising. A conscientious objection to abortion was also framed sceptically. This contrasts with how it appears in European human rights law, according to the report.

When abortion bans were described, another association often appeared: bans were linked to high mortality rates. This is not necessarily the case, Storlund says.

Storlund cites WHO data that Sweden has a higher maternal mortality rate than Poland, an EU state where abortion is restricted to exceptional cases. In 2021, Poland’s maternal mortality ratio was 2.5 deaths per 100,000 live births, while Sweden’s was 5.1 deaths per 100,000 live births from pregnancy-related causes. These pregnancy-related causes often include deaths from abortion.

Setting aside negative portrayals from online media, the report is a wake-up call to keep standing up for life. She encourages those in Sweden to contact the nation’s MPs in the EU Parliament when they see legislation that threatens the unborn.

“We need to speak up more; we are not as few as we might think,” she says. “It’s important to get the facts. No one wants women to die. People need to follow pro-life organisations and not just trust mainstream media.”