Marking of the International Safe Abortion Day

Women’s right to abortion is highly contested across the globe. At a national and international level, groups fight both for the right of women to decide – and against. In 2011, Women’s Global Network for Reproductive rights declared the 28th of September as the day to mark the global fight for the decriminalisation of abortion and for women’s sexual and reproductive rights.

Marking this day, the Centre on Law & Social Transformation and the Centre for International Health invites you to a breakfast seminar with Berit Austveg and Kari Tove Elvebakken, “Norwegian Abortion Policies in a Global Perspective”.

In Norway, the b
attle for legal abortion was won almost four decades ago, and there is considerable support for women’s right to abort. Still, ethical discussions continue and moral censures are being played by opponents. Do anti-choice movements and their moral arguments have the capacity to undermine the legal right to abortion in Norway?

Berit Austveg will present her new book “Abortion – An Ethical Argumentation” in which she studies the Norwegian abortion debate in a global perspective and asks how abortion can be justified ethically. Analysing the rhetoric of the abortion debate, she discusses the main secular and religious arguments.Kari Tove Elvbakken will take the discussion forward from a political and health point of view. She presents a historical account of the legal battle for safe abortion in Norway, and discusses the relevant lessons and implications for policy learning where legal fight for safe abortion is still ongoing. The discussion will be moderated by Bente Moen, Professor at the Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care and Director at Centre for International Health.

After the presentations we will open up for disscussion.

There will be served pastry and coffee/tea.

Berit Austveg is a physician and and Consultant at the Norwegian Centre for Migration and Minority Health. Her main focus in global health has been sexual and reproductive health. She has written textbooks on population issues, sexual and reproductive health, and health work for migrants. In this opportunity she presents us her new book, Abortion – An Ethical Argumentation where she studies the Norwegian abortion debate in a global perspective and asks how abortion can be justified ethically.

Kari Tove Elvbakken is Professor of political science at the Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen. She researches health policy, abortion and population policy, institutionalization processes, professionalization and public health policy and history.

Bente E. Moen is the Director of the Centre for International Health, University of Bergen. Her study focuses on occupational medicine. Epidemiological studies in combination with exposure assessments at work are some of the main areas of her research.

Welcome!