Life Illumined
An Unworthy Law Proposal
Last March, Norway’s Council of Catholic Bishops responded to a hearing proposing new legislation on abortion. We asked for the proposal to be rejected. That call has met with no resonance. The proposal was recently subject to a public hearing at the Storting. A final call for responses is now ben made, with a deadline tomorrow, 16 October. Here is the text which the Council has submitted:
To the Committee for Health and Welfare, Stortinget
RE THE PROPOSAL FOR NEW LEGISLATION ON ABORTION
Norway’s Council of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) refers to the invitation issued by the Committee for Health and Welfare inviting written responses to Proposal 117/L, ‘Law on Abortion’, which will now be treated by the Storting.
The NCCB consists of the bishops who govern the Catholic Church in Norway, made up of the diocese of Oslo, and the prelatures of Trondheim and Tromsø. After the [Lutheran] Church of Norway, the Catholic Church is the country’s largest denomination, counting between 150,000 and 200,000 registered members. At present the NCCB is constituted by Bishop Bernt Eidsvig (bishop of Oslo) and Bishop Erik Varden (bishop of Trondheim and Apostolic Administrator of Tromsø).
In March the NCCB submitted its response to the ministry’s hearing regarding NOU 2023:29 Abortion in Norway: A New Law and Improved Service. Our response is mentioned a couple of times in the proposal put forward by the government of Prime Minister Støre. The NCCB notes with satisfaction that MPs from Senterpartiet expressed dissent on crucial points when the proposal was presented to the King in Council.
The NCCB refers to its previous statement. We cannot see that any element in the subsequent process has weakened our strong reservations with regard to the proposal. Nor can we see that government has taken any note at all of our strong objections to the proposal.
In the estimate of the NCCB current legislation on abortion and the practice ensuing from it are extremely problematic. The problematic aspects are exacerbated by the new proposal, partly on account of its statements of principle, partly on account of the proposal that the temporal limit for ‘free abortion’ shall be extended from the 12th to the 18th week of pregnancy, with further provision being made for abortion until the end of the 22nd week.
The law proposal pretends to balance the pregnant woman’s ‘right‘ to free abortion with respect for the unborn child (§ 1). The NCCB cannot see, however, that this statement of intent has had any effect at all on the material decisions made.
Whereas existing legislation lays down the purpose of keeping the number of abortions as low as possible, this purpose has been eliminated from the new text. The ministry’s proposal for ‘a new abortion law better adapted to today’s society’ appears as pure propaganda, unbased on any scientifically proven understanding of the embryo and its relationship with its mother, and with society. There is no sign anywhere in the proposal of engagement with a scientific fact: that human life begins at conception.
In the response already submitted by the NCCB we wrote: ‘Of course the state should not subjugate women. Of course women, as men, should enjoy autonomy and the right to dispose of their bodies. The question of abortion, however, cannot be reduced (as the Bill tends to reduce it) to a question of gender conflict. What makes the question complex is the fact that it touches, not just one subject – the pregnant woman – but two subjects, in as much as the unborn child must also be recognised as a person.’
The only case in which the proposal specifically rejects abortion is that of ‘selective interruptions of pregnancy … based on the embryo’s distinguishing features such as gender or potential handicap.’ Thereby ‘gender’ appears a category more worthy of protection than human life as such.
The NCCB notes that ‘capacity for independent life’ is no longer included as a decisive criterion against abortion; no, the proposed ‘right’ attaches purely to calculations of the length of pregnancy. In the Middle Ages, even Catholic philosophers and theologians connected the embryo’s human status with the length of pregnancy, basing themselves on Greek philosophy. The Church has long since distanced itself from this position, regarded as pure fantasy without scientific foundation. Yet this fantasy is a carrying principle in the proposed legislation. We wish to repeat this statement from our previous response: ‘In practical terms this presents us with the hypothetical scenario of two women both eighteen weeks pregnant turning up at the same hospital: one, desiring to interrupt her pregnancy, is referred to the abortion clinic; the other, desiring to keep her baby, is referred to the maternity ward.’
On the terms of the law proposal the least and most vulnerable human beings, supremely in need of protection, are considered objects, not subjects, and submitted to an unprincipled fate.
We do not primarily speak on behalf of ourselves, of the Catholic Church, or of Catholics in Norway. We are doing what has always been the Church’s call and task: we speak on behalf of the weakest, in this case unborn children with a personal history running to between four and five-and-half months. We speak up for them to the strong, in this case the politicians of the Storting, with a mandate to decide over life and death.
Norway’s Council of Catholic Bishops asks the Storting to reject the entire proposal, unworthy of a truly humane society in which each human individual is accorded respect.
Oslo, Trondheim, Tromsø, 15 October 2024
BERNT EIDSVIG CAN.REG
Bishop of Oslo
ERIK VARDEN OCSO
Bishop of Trondheim stift and Apostolic Administrator of Tromsø