Acting on a plan drafted by Norway's ministry of health and social affairs this past April, the 13-member Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board voted to discontinue the forced-sterilization rule for transgender men and women seeking to change their gender legally and open the doors for them to receive reproduction assistance including in vitro fertilization.

While the board voted unanimously to drop forced sterilization, a minority went against extending reproductive assistance on grounds that being pregnant is associated with motherhood and a person cannot insist on being a woman and getting pregnant and be a man at the same time.

The bill also drops psychiatric and medical evaluations for children between seven and 16 years of ago who - after consulting with their parents - decide to legally change their gender. Health and social affairs minister Bent Hoie said the proposal "is historic in that it will no longer be the health service but the individual who decides if he or she has changed sex." Read more via Courthouse News Service