User:Juliaapatino/Abortion in Austria

History
For more than a century, the Austrian abortion policy was largely governed by the 1852 legislation that criminalized abortion. Both the ladies willingly attempting to end their pregnancy and the individual conducting the abortion faced up to five years in jail. However, there were a few legal exceptions. If the pregnant woman's life were in urgent danger or her bodily and mental health would be significantly harmed by prolonging the pregnancy, there was no penalty if the pregnancy was the result of rape and use of force. Only the medical practitioner was permitted to conduct the abortion in these rare situations.

The Austrian Social Democratic Party, a party with a long history of women's movement activity, led the charge to relax nineteenth-century abortion laws. Female social democratic MPs proposed legalizing abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy in 1920. Party officials brought forth a fresh proposal in 1924 to allow abortion for medical, social, or eugenic grounds and recommendations for more excellent sex education and the construction of information centers. The abortion issue received a whole paragraph in the 1926 party platform.