In Norway it is against the law to get an abortion based on the sex of the unborn child. However, The Local newspaper reports that some pregnant Norwegian women who are not happy with the gender are going to Sweden to have the child aborted.

This poorly kept secret has entered the public spectrum from new details that were uncovered by a medical ethics consultant based in Oslo. “We know that it happens as people have told us,” said director Sissel Rogne at the Biotechnology Advisory Board to the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper.

These cross-border abortions are a well known fact confirmed by gynaecologists in Sweden, such as Lars Hamberger who works in Gothenburg. Some gynaecologists are sympathetic to the plight of the pregnant women, many of whom come from ethnic minority backgrounds.

“If they have three, four girls and are from Turkey the demands on them to produce a boy are strong,” Hamberger stated. Norway has a ban in place that prohibits women from identifying the gender of their unborn child before 12 weeks of pregnancy. Both Norway and Denmark will not allow an abortion after 12 weeks, but in Sweden the limit is 18 weeks so many women simply cross the border if the gender of their unborn child is the wrong one.