Norway’s Labour-led government unveiled its proposal for what it called a “new, updated and wide-ranging abortion law” that’s more in line with current practice and social values. It expands the rights of women to opt for an abortion from 12- to 18 weeks into a pregnancy, and guarantees that health care personnel have a legal right to reserve themselves against assisting in an abortion if it’s against their conscience.
“A woman’s right to a self-determined abortion is a fundamental value in Norway,” Health Minister Jan Christian Vestre of the Labour Party said when presenting his ministry’s new and more liberal abortion law. “It’s our responsibility to ensure pregnant women equal rights to abortion and access to safe abortions.”
Not much will change in practice, he noted, because “almost no one is denied an application for abortion after week 12.” Under the current law, however, women must seek special permission from a medical commission (called a nemnd) for an abortion after week 12 instead of simply being able to decide for themselves.
Women facing a multiple pregnancy will now also be assured of the right to fetus reduction up to week 18. At the same time, insisted Vestre, the new law also ensures respect for unborn life and the right to carry out a pregnancy. “We think we’re strenthening the law, by being more clear about both the rights of women and the unborn,” he said.
Norway’s current abortion law is almost 50 years old, dating back to 1978, and in some cases, women had to appear before a commission of mostly men who decided if an abortion could be carried out after week 12. Some parties including the Liberals and the Reds wanted to scrap the commissions entirely and the government will do so in their current form. They’ll be replaced, however, with five to 10 new independent and “reformed” commissions that will be led by a doctor, have at least one other professional health care worker and a member with judicial competence.
A majority on the new commissions will be women. The government wants to make sure that women applying for an abortion after week 18 won’t experience any pressure regarding their decision to have an abortion or continue their pregnancy. They’ll also be guaranteed full access to information and support along the way.
The proposed reform of abortion law, which was postponed until this fall, is widely expected to be approved in Parliament. Labour’s government partner, the Center Party, is taking dissens on the extension of self-determined abortion and fetus reduction to 18 weeks but otherwise won’t block the law’s passage. Only the Christian Democrats party (KrF), currently in the midst of a leadership change, has opposed the proposed law, but it doesn’t have enough votes in Parliament to stop it. Former KrF leader Olaug Bollestad called the proposed law “irresponsible and lacking respect” for the abortion issue.
The Progress Party hasn’t supported extension for self-determined abortion from 12- to 18 weeks but at least five of its Members of Parliament do, and will vote in favour of the reform after the party freed them to vote individually. That’s expected to give Labour the support it needs for the law to pass.
The Conservative Party, meanwhile, calls the “right to decide over your own body a fundamental human right.” It wants, however, to maintain the current law with self-determined abortion only until week 12. “It’s a law that functions well,” the Conservatives (Høyre) writes on its website, claiming that it balances women’s rights and the rights of the unborn.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
