Abstract
The abortion discourse in Sweden is marked by historically liberal ideals about women’s inviolable right to make autonomous reproductive decisions. However, to respond to the increase in cultural and religious pluralism building up over several decades, religious organizations have been given opportunities to provide so-called spiritual care in affiliation with Swedish hospitals since the 1980s. In this study we asked: in what ways do religious counsellors, affiliated with Swedish hospitals, construct their ideas on abortion, and how well do their ideas comply with Sweden’s ‘women-friendly’ abortion policies? Through interviews with Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, and Buddhist religious counsellors, we wanted to empirically test the presumption underlying the decisions to grant space to religious actors in Swedish healthcare, i.e., that religious counselling serves to complement existing services. We found that it cannot be expected that religious advice on abortion will always comply with Swedish abortion law and with the women-friendly abortion policy that the Swedish state seeks to impose. When policy-makers open up possibilities for diverse norms on abortion to manifest in close affiliation with healthcare institutions, they must be aware that some religious counsellors argue that only God—and not the woman herself—can decide whether a woman can terminate a pregnancy. We argue that the findings in this study speaks to what researchers have referred to as the “diversity-equality paradox”, which highlights the tension between the promotion of religious ideas on abortion on the one hand and the promotion of liberal ideas about women’s reproductive freedom on the other.
Highlights
The abortion discourse in Sweden is marked by historically liberal ideals about women’s inviolable right to make autonomous decisions about their own reproduction (Elgán 1994; SOU 2005:90)
This study sought to provide an empirical exploration of the diversity of religious ideas that become manifested in Swedish public healthcare with regard to abortion
That some religious counsellors spoke about abortion in a way that was compatible with the Swedish abortion law and public health ambitions on abortion
Summary
The abortion discourse in Sweden is marked by historically liberal ideals about women’s inviolable right to make autonomous decisions about their own reproduction (Elgán 1994; SOU 2005:90). Swedish policies reveal a relatively extensive desire that public welfare institutions should help to promote and protect society’s cultural and religious diversity (Borevi 2014; Government Bill 1997/98:16; Government Bill 1975:26). This ambition should be viewed in light that, over the past few decades, many people have migrated to Sweden from non-European countries, which has made society increasingly diverse. In order to realize this ambition, Swedish policy-makers have for many years encouraged a close cooperation between public welfare institutions and various faith communities. As one example, which has relevance for Swedish reproductive healthcare, the Swedish Agency for Support for Faith Communities (SST) regularly allocates state funding to religious organizations to allow them to provide religious counselling services (in Swedish: Andlig vård) to patients in Swedish hospitals (SOU 2018:18)
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