Norway’s government announced last week a plan to expand the country’s abortion limit to 18 weeks.
Currently, abortion is allowed through 12 weeks of pregnancy, though according to the Associated Press, “many” women request and are granted permission to abort past the 12-week mark.
Norwegian Health Minister Jan Christian Vestre said the proposed changes are “in line with practice today. Almost no one is refused applications for abortion after the 12th week.” He said that “women’s right to self-determined abortion is a fundamental value in Norway.”
Though the Norwegian Institute of Public Health says the abortion rate has been “historically low for several years,” there was also 6.7% increase in abortions in 2023 over 2022, with 12,814 preborn babies killed in the womb — a number that will surely rise if abortions are permitted later in pregnancy.
The government’s announcement follows pressure from pro-abortion activists toward the country’s lawmakers to make a legislative change. A special abortion council commissioned by the government last year recommended that the 12-week restriction be expanded to allow abortion through 18 weeks in most cases, and even later in certain circumstances.
The proposal has faced pushback from the country’s Council of Catholic Bishops, which had previously called a law change “highly problematic.”
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“The law proposal cancels the fetus as a subject entitled to rights,” the bishops wrote in a letter to the Ministry of Health and Care.
“The consideration of abortion has, in the strict sense of this word, a tragic dimension,” they continued. “In every case an accomplished abortion is an occasion for grief, a loss to the community. Only on this basis, such is our conviction, can our society rightly consider the welfare of all parties concerned in a way that is responsible and rational.”
The bishops continued: “The proposal to extend the term of free abortion by six weeks contributes to an erosion of legislation’s chief task: to protect the integrity of individual persons on the basis of a principle of justice, also when the individual person is powerless, without an ability to speak for her or himself. On these grounds we ask that the law proposal be rejected.”
The proposal needs a majority 85 votes to pass the Stortinget, the country’s parliament. According to the AP, 80 lawmakers have thus far said they would vote in favor of its passage.
