Abortion narratives in contemporary Denmark: the problems of normalisation.

Abstract

The Danish welfare state provides safe, easily accessible abortions that are free of charge, and the majority of Danes support abortion rights. For these reasons, elective abortions are generally considered a non-issue. Despite this normalisation, the Danish public discourse on abortion is embedded in a culture of silence. This article analyses five Danish books, published between 2023 and 2025, which address this silence through autobiographical and autofictional accounts of abortion experiences. The article asks: Which problems are articulated in the abortion narratives? By which formal and stylistic means do the texts articulate them? And how do these narratives complicate the normalisation of abortion in Denmark? The narrative analysis shows that four themes are repeatedly addressed: problematic healthcare encounters, persisting stereotypes, reductive views of abortion and ignorance about the aftermath of the abortion experience. The article argues that the normalisation of abortion in Denmark is both a privilege and a problem, and that the latter reveals tensions and ambivalences about reproductive rights within the Danish welfare state. By paying particular attention to literary devices and the mediated nature of the narratives, the article demonstrates how these tensions are negotiated through figurative language, narrative perspective and literary genre. Against the backdrop of an increasingly radicalised international discourse around abortion, the recent Danish abortion narratives are important because they develop a nuanced language for varied abortion experiences from within a pro-abortion perspective.