376 fact that political views was sometimes considered punishable as an offence of disorderly conduct, was a serious threat to the freedom of speech. However, this question was not afforded attention by the legislature before it was considered in connection with the criminal lawreformimplemented in 1948. To ensure that the revised penal law provisions against disorderly conduct would only affect acts which were disorderly from the public point of view, the wording of the text of the Act concerning the required element ‘disorder otherwise resulting’ was changed in 1948 to relate to such public behaviour as, ‘was likely to cause disorder’. The Svea Court of Appeal is considered to have established in a judgment that criminal responsibility for disorderly conduct cannot nowadays not be constituted by the public pronouncement of an opinion, even if this is as such intended to arouse public disorder. 4. Offending morality and decency Morally objectionable printed material was criminal according to Section 3, item 13 of the FPA of 1812. This provision was correspondingly reflected in the Criminal Law Act 1864 by the crime of offending morality and decency under Chapter 18, Section 13. According to the latter provision, acts by which morality and decency were offended, whereby public disorder or fear of the enticement of others arose, could be punished by a fine or imprisonment for at most six months. It was a provision for the protection of morality corresponding to the penal provisions against disorderly conduct and it was subsequently linked to the political of freedom expression, in connection with the appearance of socialist agitation hostile to the moral norms of bourgeois society. In the spring of 1910, a “young socialist” leading figure, Hinke Bergegren, held a lecture entitled “Love without children”, in which he argued in favour of the use of contraception. As a direct consequence of the indignation which this lecture caused, a government bill was presented in the spring of 1910 by which it was suggested that Chapter 18, Section 13, CLAshould be extended. The extension was proposed to be effected by a new item to criminalize the provision of instructions for and attempting to promote the use of articles intended to prevent the consequences of sexual intercourse if there was a general risk of the seduction of others. It was also proposed that public exhibition, display, advertising and canvassing for sales of such measures should be punishable. The proposal was criticized by the social democrats and a number of liberals but was approved by both chambers. By an amendment whichwas finally adopted in 1912, the FPAwas extended in the same manner as the CLAhad been extended in 1910. Subsequently, the so-called Birth Control Act remained unamended until 1938. From the late 1920s, the medical profession was by law required to provide advice about adequate measures against the spread of venereal disease. The extent to which
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