The Faroes’ 68-year-old abortion law lives on
17 May 2024
In an extremely tight result of 15 votes both for and against, a proposal to legalise abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy failed to get the necessary majority in the Faroese parliament on Thursday.
Abortion was one of the major election topics leading up to the December 2022 election, when the current government promised to table the bill to relax abortion laws. The current law, stemming from 1956, forbids abortions unless one of four strict criteria is met.
Despite politician and co-founder of pro-abortion organisation Frítt Val, Hervør Pálsdóttir, calling it a "huge defeat for Faroese women", she sees the tight vote as a big leap forward, arguing this would never have happened just four years ago.
 | Amalie Holmgaard Mersh In recent years, Faroese women have reportedly travelled to Denmark to have an abortion. The current Faroese law is the same as the one Denmark abolished in 1973. A recent parliamentary vote in Denmark, on the other hand, established that the country will change its 50-year-old abortion law to raise the limit for abortion from 12 to 18 weeks. |
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