The Nordic Countries: Time for Consistency on the Unborn

Eight years ago, something little noticed but possibly profound happened. The Finnish Medical Association, whose 19,351 members include almost all the doctors in Finland, proclaimed in 1996 a Declaration of the Rights of the Unborn. The Declaration is unequivocal: "The life of an individual human being begins with conception... The right to life is the most basic of all rights, and belongs also to the embryo in a mothers womb," it states. "Societies have to provide legislation concerning events that invade this right." It concludes that "the physician shall in all possible ways try to promote the rights of the unborn". In 1997 the Association proposed this declaration for adoption by the World Medical Association, but it proposal was not acted on. What makes this declaration all the more remarkable is that the Nordic countries were some of the first in the world to legalize abortion (with Sweden leading in the 1930's).

Historically, the Nordic countries have been at the forefront of many developments that tend to support the value of all human life, such as ensuring workers' rights, abolishing the death penalty, providing universal health care, and guaranteeing a decent minimum standard of living - developments which in many cases later spread to other countries. Their governments are also prominent voices on the international scene for the obligations of rich countries to aid the development of poor ones, and among all countries they provide the highest amount of aid as a fraction of GDP. However, they have occasionally taken monstrous detours from this heritage: at the same time that abortion was legalized in Sweden, government eugenic policies were put in place in all the Nordic countries. As revealed by Sweden's largest newspaper, they included many thousands of forced sterilizations of "social undesirables", which included "mixed race individuals, single mothers with many children, deviants, Gypsies, and other 'vagabonds'". The policies remained until the 1970's. Although not secret, what happened during this shameful era had not been widely known and remained a taboo subject; people "preferred not to discuss it." It was, in fact, initially exposed by the research of a non-Swede, Maciej Zaremba. Only with this exposure and the public complaints of those who had been sterilized did public discussion begin a few years ago, and this discussion spread to other countries that had had eugenic programs. The exposure of Sweden's eugenic episode provoked national shame and compensation has been paid to those affected.

There is little sign yet of a similar change in public attitudes towards the unborn. The logic of simultaneously regarding abortion as a right and espousing an ethic of respect for the value of every individual life remains something people prefer not to discuss, just as eugenics was for decades. Though the Finnish doctors' Declaration received hardly any attention from the world when it was adopted, it provides a glimmer of hope that the Nordic countries may reclaim their heritage. It shows that there is a large, unseen reserve of thoughtful people that see the conflict between the public ideal of valuing all human life and the reality of abortion, and it means that the unwillingness to discuss this conflict may end. The historic role of the Nordic countries in both life-affirming policies and the spread of abortion calls them to lead a change in international attitudes towards the unborn, towards recognizing the value of all human life.