The Abortion Opponents' List () is a Norwegian

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

led by

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

Ludvig Nessa Ludvig Nessa (born 11 December 1949) is a Norwegian priest who has been noted as an anti-abortion activist since the late 1980s. Nessa was defrocked from the Church of Norway in 1991, which led him to co-found the independent Deanery of Strandeb ...

and Børre Knudsen, that was present in seven counties in the 2005 elections. In the 2009 elections, they only put up a list in one county,

Østfold Østfold () is a county in Eastern Norway, which from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2023 was part of Viken. Østfold borders Akershus and southwestern Sweden (Västra Götaland County and Värmland), while Buskerud and Vestfold are on the other ...

. The party drew criticism when they declared they would not have any women in their list, reportedly to "spare them from mockery and hate in the media", while women could help with "practical

ork Ork or ORK may refer to: * Ork (folklore), a mountain demon of Tyrol folklore * ''Ork'' (video game), a 1991 game for the Amiga and Atari ST systems * Ork (''Warhammer 40,000''), a fictional species in the ''Warhammer 40,000'' universe * '' Ork!' ...

. The party received 1,934 votes, amounting to 0.07% of the votes cast, in the 2005 elections.

Political profile

The party's main declared objective is to make

abortion Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnan ...

illegal. A flyer for the 2009 election, however, also contained the slogans, "Abortion is murder, evolution is superstition,

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexu ...

is an abomination,

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

is a rebellion against

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

is a lie,

Jesus Christ Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

is the way, the truth, and the life!"

Campaigning methods

During their 2005 electoral campaign, the Abortion Opponents used methods that were criticized by the media, such as delivering plastic

fetus A fetus or foetus (; : fetuses, foetuses, rarely feti or foeti) is the unborn offspring of a viviparous animal that develops from an embryo. Following the embryonic development, embryonic stage, the fetal stage of development takes place. Pren ...

es, along with electoral

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

, and distributing

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

s depicting detailed and uncensored abortions to minors. Apparently, Nessa imported these techniques into Norway from American anti-abortion activist Gregg Cunningham.

Elections

Parliamentary election results

References

"Female abortion opponents excluded"
article from

NRK The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (), commonly known by its initialism NRK, is a Norwegian state-run, government-influenced radio and television public broadcasting company. The NRK broadcasts three national TV channels and thirteen nat ...

.
"Tasteless abortion stunt"
article in

Aftenposten (; ; stylized as in the masthead) is Norway's largest printed newspaper by circulation as well as Norway's newspaper of record. It is based in Oslo. It sold 211,769 daily copies in 2015 (172,029 printed copies according to University of Bergen ...

.
Article about the distribution of DVDs
to minors at

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

cathedral school.
"Nessa in USA to learn abortion methods"
(sic), article from VG.
"To the USA to learn more fanaticism"
article from the

Stavanger Aftenblad (; ) or simply ''Aftenbladet'' is a daily newspaper based in Stavanger, Norway, and owned by Schibsted Media Group. Norwegian owners held 42 percent of the shares in Schibsted at the end of 2015. is thus majority foreign-owned. History and ...

External links

Official website
{{Norwegian political parties Political parties in Norway Anti-abortion organisations in Norway Socially conservative parties Political parties with year of establishment missing