Austria: 73% say women are put under pressure to abort babies with disability

A survey conducted by polling institute IMAS for the #fairändern campaign (in English, #fairchanging) found that half of the surveyed think women who decide to terminate their pregnancy take this decision under a “strong or very strong pressure”.

This is what a representative survey asking 1,000 people in Austria found.

Up to 75% of respondents said they see an increasing pressure towards abortion when the child is suspected to have a disability.

Austria is one of the few in its context that does not offer annual official figures about abortions, and two thirds of those asked think there should be transparency about the data and the motivations which lead to abortions in the country.

Furthermore, the survey found that 77% said they would agree that a better pregnancy policy is implemented “to make a ‘yes’ to the child possible” when women doubt about whether to continue with their pregnancy.

It is more, 80% of the respondents said they would approve the introduction of a 3-day reflection time for women asking for an abortion.

Other 84% also say medical doctors should offer more information about alternatives to women considering ending their pregnancy.

In opinions collected by Austrian website Glaube.at, the chair of the #fairändern campaign, Petra Plonner, underlined that “the pressure on women is often enormous, and it has gone from having as many children as possible, in the past, to having abortions, now”.

For Daniela Karall, President of the Austrian Society for Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, it is incomprehensible that there are still no valid figures on abortion. “There is a great deal of disinformation surrounding the topic and with an estimated 30,000 abortions per year, we cannot afford to look the other way. There is an urgent need for statistics and research into the motives for abortion in Austria, as exists in most other countries, so that targeted and better help can be provided”, she said.