VIENNA (LifeSiteNews) — Leaked documents show that left-wing Austrian political parties wanted to legalize abortion and establish “buffer zones” around abortion mills in the country.
The leaked minutes, seen by LifeSiteNews, of the failed coalition negotiations between the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), the Social Democrats (SPÖ), and the Liberal Party (NEOS) revealed that SPÖ and NEOS had the goal to “Guarantee self-determined life and bodily integrity for all women in Austria,” an apparent euphemism for expanding abortion.
The left-wing SPÖ demanded free and legal abortion and contraception and complete legalization of the killing of unborn children. No restrictions in terms of gestational weeks were given, leaving open the possibility of legalizing abortion until birth.
Abortion is currently still a crime in Austria, but women and doctors have impunity if the child is aborted within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
The SPÖ furthermore demanded the establishment of “buffer zones” around abortion facilities, similar to those in the United Kingdom.
READ: British army veteran found guilty of breaching abortion ‘buffer zone’ by praying silently
NEOS wanted to allow general medical practitioners to prescribe abortion pills and use telemedicine with women during and after taking the pills. NEOS and SPÖ also sought to establish a working group on artificial insemination, “social egg freezing,” and egg and sperm donation registers.
The demands about abortion were marked in red, signifying that the parties were not in agreement, meaning that ÖVP likely rejected these proposals. However, it is unclear whether the ÖVP would have been prepared to make compromises had the negotiations to form a government not failed in early January.
Currently, the conservative, anti-Globalist Freedom Party (FPÖ), which got the most votes in the election held last September, is negotiating to form a government with the ÖVP. However, since the parties have had an adversarial relationship in the past years, a snap election is a realistic possibility should the negotiations to form a government fail in the coming months. The FPÖ is currently leading by a wide margin in the polls. While none of the two parties have a clean record on life issues, they have expressed pro-life sentiment, and the chance of laws moving in a more pro-life direction would be real under a potential FPÖ-ÖVP government.