Today KrF leader Olaug Bollestad speaks at the party’s national board meeting in Oslo. It happens after KrFU leader Hadle Rasmus Bjuland has re-opened the abortion debate in the party. And after KrF in its own evaluation of the election shows that “a large proportion” of the grassroots were not satisfied with the party’s answer to abortion in the election campaign. But while some will turn towards accepting the current law, others will go the opposite way. – I have decided that I want to recognize the current abortion law and rather fight against an extension of the current law, where the debate now stands, said Bjuland to Politisk kvarter on news this week. He believes that KrF is unclear when it comes to communicating what the party thinks about abortion and calls for a clearer position. – I also do not think that a reduction of the current abortion law is the most effective way to reduce the number of abortions, says Bjuland. In two weeks, KrFU will decide on a number of different abortion proposals at its national meeting. PRAGMATIC: KrFU leader Hadle Rasmus Bjuland asks the parent party to give up the fight against the current abortion law. Photo: Øystein Otterdal / news But county leader Jorunn Elisabet Gleditsch Lossius in Agder strongly warns against the debate Bjuland has opened “because it touches the very foundation of our party’s ideology and politics”. – Human dignity, the inviolability of life from conception to natural death is too important to be set aside for political pragmatics, she says to news. – Bjuland says he wants clarity. But to say that one will always fight for the unborn life and at the same time accept the current abortion law, is unfortunately nothing more than a contradiction. Today’s abortion law allows for self-determined abortion up to week 12. SELF-CONTRADICTORY: KrF’s county leader in Agder, Jorunn Elisabet Gleditsch Lossius, warns against the abortion debate the KrFU leader has opened. Photo: Jil Yngland / NTB Internal dissatisfaction But the abortion debate is far from new in KrF. Because in the internal election evaluation news has gained access to, it emerges that the party already last autumn had solid documentation that people internally viewed the way KrF handled the issue when it came up in the public debate in spring 2021. In November last year , shortly after the election, KrF did a large survey among its members. The party received around 1,000 responses. The survey is mentioned in the internal evaluation of the election, to which news has gained access. According to the evaluation, there is “so a large proportion who are not satisfied with the answers the party had to give in these debates”. But the KrF were dissatisfied for various reasons, it is suggested: “There is reason to believe that in this group there are both those who wanted to show greater support for the current legislation, and those who wanted to promote to a greater extent a stricter primary policy’. In the survey, 22 per cent answered that KrF should not talk about abortion in the election campaign, while 66 per cent believed the opposite. When asked if KrF gave a good answer about abortion in the election campaign in 2021, 53 per cent answered either “neither” or “don’t know”. More than half of the party members questioned were thus unsure of the party’s answer to abortion. And 28 per cent of those questioned believed that the KrF was not clear enough in its defense of the human dignity of the fetus before week 12. The evaluation of the election is only shared with the party’s most important bodies. KrF’s program formulation on abortion “KrF wants a new law which assumes that the fetus has human dignity, which is better adapted to developments in medical technology and which safeguards consideration of the fetus’s value and right to life, and the necessary safeguarding of the woman’s safety and health on a ethically sound way. This must come as a result of a broad understanding of and support for a new, updated and more ethically sound law, a thorough public investigation and a responsible legal process.” Asks Bollestad to be clear Before today’s speech to KrF’s national board, party leader Olaug Bollestad is clearly told to be clear. PARTY LEADER: Olaug Bollestad, here during the party leader debate in Arendal this autumn, is speaking today to KrF’s national board. Photo: Ole Berg-Rusten / NTB – As party leader, it is naturally important that she is clear about where she herself stands, so that in the light of the debate taking place in the youth party, there is no unnecessary doubt about KrF’s policy on such an important value issue, says Lossius to news. She does not think there is any internal division in KrF. – All surveys show that the majority of KrF’s members stand in a completely different place than the KrFU leader on the abortion issue, and that precisely values related to human dignity are one of the main reasons why most are KrF members. Bjuland de-dramatizes the debate in the youth party and says he is happy that Bollestad and the party leadership “respect that this is a debate we must have in KrFU first”. Bollestad says she is keen to work for a breakthrough “where possible”: – Now that means saying a clear no to an extension of the abortion law that many parties are advocating. Caught fire last spring As is well known, the election last autumn ended with the KrF not getting over the blocking threshold. The party’s parliamentary group shrank from eight to three representatives. The abortion debate flared up last spring when several parties advocated a more liberal abortion law. “During the same period, the party did poorly in the opinion polls,” says KrF’s election evaluation. There was an internal debate in KrF, both about what the party should think about abortion, and about how it should handle the debate itself. In the evaluation, it is pointed out that the KrF went to the polls “without clear wording about exactly how the KrF wanted a possible new law to look, but pointed out that a possible future legislative process would have to clarify that.” KrF’s outgoing general secretary Geir Morten Nilsen answered this about the abortion issue when news asked him about it this spring: – A number of parties went to the polls on a significant extension of the abortion law and made this a theme in the election campaign. KrF is against such an extension, and we argued for our view when we were asked about it, he said. Hello! Do you have any input or thoughts about the case you have read? Do not hesitate to send me an email.
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Internal report revealed KrF’s internal abortion dispute – news Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country
