Blom Medicine and morality – legislation on venereal diseases in Denmark and Norway c . 1900 - 1994

The development of the legislation to combat veneral diseases in Denmark and Norway since the end of the 19th century has been a process with discussions on the balance between medicine and aspects of morality. Medicine aims at the prevention and cure of diseases, and thus wants to eradicate venereal diseases as part of the public health efforts. Morality considerations have partly been on sexual morality, which has strong cultural connotations. However, there also have been considerations as to ‘the morality of citizenship’, which implies that all citizens should have the same duties and rights, in this case e.g. the duty to inform about the source of contagion and the right to treatment for free. At the outset, control of prostitutes was regarded as an important measure in both countries, and the moral aspects came clearly to sight. Soon, venereal diseases were handled as medical, not moral problems both in Denmark and Norway. This was clearly formulated when both countries got new laws on venereal diseases in 1947. The moral argumentation started over again in the 1980’es, when hiv/aids entered the stage as a new disease, especially found in groups of the population who already carried a stigmatisation, such as drug addicts and homosexuals. The discussions went somewhat different in the two countries, but when both Denmark and Norway got new bills on contagious diseases in 1994, the medical considerations clearly had won.