(Bloomberg) -- The Norwegian Parliament voted to extend abortion access to 18 weeks into a pregnancy, adding six weeks to a limit set in 1978 when the procedure was first legalized.
“It’s time for a new and updated abortion law that is better adapted to today’s society,” Norway’s health minister Jan Christian Vestre, from the Labor party, said before the vote in Parliament on Tuesday.
The change brings the Nordic nation in line with regulations in neighboring Sweden and Denmark. The number of abortions performed in Norway has fallen steadily since 2008, with some 84% taking place before the ninth week of pregnancy, according to government figures.
The UK and the Netherlands allow a pregnancy to be terminated as late as 24 weeks, Iceland 22 and Sweden by week 18. According to the new Norwegian guidelines, a council consisting of two doctors will decide in cases where there is a wish to terminate pregnancies between week 18 and week 22.
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