3 ms·
As a Swedish expat, I would like to state that history around abortion is more complicated than “allowed since 1938”. Here is the first paragraph from Wikipedia
by ninjin 7y ago
As a Swedish expat, I would like to state that history around abortion is more complicated than “allowed since 1938”. Here is the first paragraph from Wikipedia from the article on abortion in Sweden [1] and it summarises things very well:
“Abortion in Sweden was first legislated by the Abortion Act of 1938. This stated that an abortion could be legally performed in Sweden upon medical, humanitarian, or eugenical grounds. That is, if the pregnancy constituted a serious threat to the woman’s life, if she had been impregnated by rape, or if there was a considerable chance that any serious condition might be inherited by her child, she could request an abortion. The law was later augmented in 1946 to include socio-medical grounds and again in 1963 to include the risk of serious fetal damage. A committee investigated whether these conditions were met in each individual case and, as a result of this prolonged process, abortion was often not granted until the middle of the second trimester. As such, a new law was created in 1974, stating that the choice of an abortion is entirely up to the woman until the end of the eighteenth week.”
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Sweden
Thus “free” abortion was not introduced in Sweden until 1974 and at least as late as the 60s proponents of more liberal legislation organised trips to Poland where the laws were less restrictive [2] (the best reference I could find in English, here is a more opinionated one in Swedish [3]). The great irony of course is that today Polish women may seek to make the trip in reverse given the recent political changes in Poland.
[2]: https://www.thelocal.se/20180524/the-history-of-legal-abortion-in-sweden-liberal-laws https://www.thelocal.se/20180524/the-history-of-legal-aborti...
[3]: https://www.rfsu.se/vad-vi-gor/i-sverige/fragor-vi-jobbar-med/ratten-till-abort/abortrattens-historia/60-talet-riskera-fangelse-for-abort-i-polen/ https://www.rfsu.se/vad-vi-gor/i-sverige/fragor-vi-jobbar-me...