Christian Democrat amendments to abortion law lead to solution for Coalition Government in Norway

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg reached a deal with the small Christian Democratic Party on Thursday to form a center-right majority government. The move is set to strengthen Solberg, who has been in power since 2013 and was re-elected in 2017.

“This is a historic day. Norway is getting its first non-socialist majority government since 1985,” said Solberg, who has led Norway’s Conservative Party since 2004.

“We had tough negotiations,” Solberg said, celebrating the deal alongside leaders of the Christian Democrats and her existing governing partners of the Progress Party and the Liberal Party.

But the new majority did not come without a cost, as the deal involved caving to demands by the Christian Democrats to amend Norway’s abortion law. The parties in Solberg’s coalition agreed to end so-called “selective abortions,” a woman’s right to abort a fetus in a multifetal pregnancy, which can be done to limit the number of births.

But Solberg stopped short in the most controversial Christian Democrat proposal, which sought to end the right to late-term abortion, in cases where a fetus is diagnosed with Down’s syndrome or other genetic conditions.