“Abortion tourism” feared as “right” will be extended to foreign women
By Dave Andrusko
I claim no expertise on the status of abortion laws in the Scandinavian countries but a newspaper in Norway is reporting that not only may Norwegian woman abort a perfectly healthy twin, but also that this “right” must be extended to women from other countries.
Not unexpectedly, according to The Local Norway, the ruling from the Minister of Health “is expected to open the way for women from neighbouring Sweden and Denmark, where the procedure of ‘selective reduction’ is not permitted.” In other words, “abortion tourism” made possible because hospitals will no longer be required to ask for a fixed address.
Indeed, the nation’s public broadcaster [NRK] is reporting that Norwegian hospitals have already been contacted by several women from other Nordic countries.
Torunn Janbu from Norway’s Directorate of Health told NRK,
“All women, regardless of whether they are Norwegian or foreign women residing in Norway, have the same right to abortion and fetal reduction.”
Many doctors oppose the carte blanche change, Local Norway reported, not because they oppose aborting a second baby in principle, but out of fear that selective reduction “carries risks for the health of both the mother and the remaining fetus. ”
“We have not found any medical benefit from this,” Dr. Birgitte Heiberg Kahrs, a specialist in fetal medicine at St Olav’s Hospital in Oslo. “On the contrary, it exposes the second child in the womb to danger as the abortion risk increases.”
“Our recommendation was that this should only be allowed for twins if one fetus showed developmental abnormalities, and that it should be done between weeks 12 and 14 to reduce the abortion risk.”
Janbu’s shrug- of-the-shoulders response was classic: “We don’t as the Directorate have anything to say about the ethics,” Janbu told The Local. “We just inform the local health services about how to apply the law.”
Why are “multifetal pregnancies” becoming increasingly common? Because of IVF, where multiple embryos are implanted in a woman’s uterus.
Editor’s note. Tip of the hat to Life News.