Attitudes among Danes toward termination of pregnancy for social reasons and fetal abnormality

Abstract

Internationally compared Danes are less supportive of selective terminations. Their attitudes continue to be dominated by a gradualistic view on terminations.

How Danes evaluate moral claims related to abortion: a questionnaire survey

“…Such mechanism could explain why respondents who had a strong pro-abortion moral still were opposed to abortion for social reasons in gestational week 24. The influence of normative behaviour also coheres with a finding from another part of the questionnaire, that public support for abortion of Down’s syndrome prior to week 18 gestations has increased in Denmark following the introduction of a prenatal testing programme which has made such abortions much more common 4. Other theoretical works suggest, in line with our findings, that the qualitative difference in attitude depends on whether the attitude object is seen as a preference, convention or moral imperative 14…”

“…The questionnaire contained questions on maternal requests for abortion, the current abortion regulation and the Danish prenatal testing programme 4 5. Sociodemographic variables were ascertained at the end of the questionnaire (table 1).…”

“…In comparison, little research has attempted to uncover lay people's attitude towards such moral issues. Recently, a questionnaire survey addressing attitudes among Danish citizens towards various scenarios of maternal requests for abortion was reported 4 5. The aim of the present study was to examine a part of the questionnaire that asked questions about moral claims pertinently related to abortion.…”

Reasons for non-participation in malformation scans in Denmark: a cohort study

“…Several studies investigating the uptake rate of the cFTS suggest that organization and funding of the healthcare system together with how the prenatal screening policy is presented to the public are important factors for the participation rate [ 3 , 5 , 6 , 10 ]. A Dutch study comparing participation rate of the cFTS in the Netherlands, England, and Denmark identified two characteristics in the Dutch screening program that are noticeably different from the screening program in Denmark and may have a considerable influence on the uptake rate.…”

“…Nearly all (99%) of these scans are performed in public hospitals [ 2 ]. Danish studies on attitudes to prenatal testing and abortion have shown that most people in Denmark have a positive attitude to prenatal screening and a gradualistic attitude to termination meaning that people in Denmark have a more liberal attitude to abortion before the fetus becomes viable but are less supportive of terminations late in pregnancy for minor conditions [ 3 , 4 ]. This could indicate that prenatal screening is quickly accepted in the general population, which is supported by a Dutch study on the populations attitude to prenatal screening [ 5 ].…”