No Parental Consent Necessary for Minors' Abortion

Country: Sweden

Date of incident: May 21, 2013


There is no parental consent with regard to abortion. Much attention was drawn to a case where an eleven-year-old girl had undergone two abortions in a very short period of time without parental consent. The Parliamentary Ombudsman held that it had gone too far and concluded that “it is obvious that a child of this age (11 years) does not have the maturity to consider the consequences of an abortion by herself.”

In spite of this and several other cases, parental consent or information to the parents are only given in exceptional cases, as it has been stated in the preparatory work of the relevant government bill of (1988/89: 67 p 36) that “the specified view has been considered to mean that information regarding a minor girl that has sought or undergone a legal abortion can not normally, without her consent, be disclosed to the guardian.” Source and further information: The Observatory's Report 2012 on Legal Restrictions Effecting Christians in Europe