With a parliamentary civic initiative, “Aktion Leben”, the Austrian organization for the protection of life intends to encourage the National Council to create the legal basis which will make “Austria at child’s and parents’ reach”. These were the requests announced in Wien on January 3: to create a State-subsidized fund to support pregnant women in diffucult straits, promote counseling to pregnant women, help the parents of disabled children and increase childcare facilities. The fund, declared Martina Kronthaler, Segretary General of Aktion Leben, “should not be viewed as a surrogate or as being in competition to subsidies for childcare, which were recently reviewed. In this case the purpose is to intervene on the spot by supplying financial aid to pregnant women in urgent need”, to help solve situations where the regular subsidies aren’t sufficient: “to handle everyday difficulties or pay the rent”. According to estimates by Aktion Leben, there are approximately 16 thousand pregnant women who each year need this kind of aid. For this purpose, five million Euro a year would be necessary to intervene in the most appropriate ways. In order to find the most appropriate solutions, active cooperation with social workers has been envisaged. This would avoid getting entangled in too much red tape. A virtuous example are the subsidized funds granted by the archdiocese of Wien and Salsburg. In the year 2006 the archdiocese of Wien alone allocated 240 000 Euro and granted assistance to 815 women. According to Kronthaler, many women get to know about the aid centres just by chance: “this situation should be countered by setting up a tight network of counseling centres, financed by the State” and by “spreading more information”. As relates to the support given to parents of disabled children, Johann Hager, legal advisor of Aktion Leben, asked to insert in the Consitution the prohibition to discriminate disabled people and their relatives, as well as “the State’s obligation to offer support”.
