Social Democratic Party Policy, 1970-1972 (austria and Abortion)

In the 1950s, newspapers reported on abortion cases which had been brought to court, and these reports were the only means of keeping the abortion issue before the public. During the 1960s, as part of a general investigation of criminal law codes, an official government commission took up the question. Experts proposed to extend the conditions under which abortion could be performed to include social and economic factors. The commission’s proposals did not achieve the status of a bill because the coalition government that established it ended in 1966. From 1966 to 1970 the Austrian People’s Party held a majority of seats in Parliament and fashioned a single-party cabinet. During this administration, the government proposed a draft that framed abortion as a moral issue and would restrict it even further. In opposition, the Social Democrats presented themselves as a political party or Lager interested in the reform and modernization of society. The Social Democratic women’s and youth organizations started campaigning once again for liberalizing the abortion law, and by 1969 the party programme included this demand.



The Austrian Social Democratic party won the 1970 national elections and formed a single-party government. The new government brought forward a proposal on abortion law reform prompting another policy debate. The government’s draft provided for abortion without prosecution and punishment not only on certain medical and eugenic grounds but on social grounds as well. The law would empower physicians to decide whether a woman qualified on a case-by-case basis. The Austrian People’s Party and the Austrian Freedom Party, which were in opposition, brought forward their own proposals for expanding the grounds for legal abortion. With surveys illustrating that Austrian society would support a moderate abortion law, the Austrian People’s Party, recognizing that abortion law reform would bring votes, changed its official party line. Although all parties by then agreed that there should be some liberalization of the law, they disagreed over whether the legal grounds should be medical only or medical and social, and over who should decide whether a woman was entitled to have a legal abortion. For the Social Democratic Party’s elite only the medical doctor could weigh the possibilities and decide on the termination of a pregnancy. For the opposition parties, abortion needed to be under the control of authorities representing society, such as committees or courts.