The women's movement has been characterized by shifts in organizational practice and political strategies. During the 1980s, the institutionalization of the more moderate part of the women's movement grew rapidly. Also, women's policy agencies were established at the regional and the local levels. It was not the autonomous wing but, rather, feminist women organized within the official parties, especially within the Social Democratic Party, the Liberal Party, and the Green Alternative that got involved in the debate. In the 1990s, agenda setting in terms of women's policies was on the side of women working at an institutional level. Women's movement policies became pragmatic. Feminists worked on women's economic issues, such as pay equity, job discrimination, and training for non-traditional jobs, as a top priority. There were also campaigns for the promotion of women and debates on how to achieve gender parity in political representation. Meanwhile, radical feminists set up alternative non-government institutions such as battered women's houses, rape crisis centres, and feminist health centres. When the abortion debate came on to the public agenda, the autonomous groups lacked leadership and took part in few actions on the issue. In contrast with the early 1970s, abortion was not the main feminist issue preoccupying movement activists, but it still was a high priority to the consolidated women's movement.



The counter-movement had lost some of its strength; the anti-abortionists of the 1990s were not the same as those of the 1970s. There were shifts in strategies and the coalition disintegrated. Radical anti-abortionists built up a new coalition with the extreme right and fundamentalist Catholics. This wing is ideologically and personally linked to the pro-life movement in the United States, which supplied strategies and propaganda material as well as the name of the group Ja zum Leben (I Choose Life). Radical anti-abortionists demonstrate on the pavements in front of abortion clinics, partly praying, partly agitating, and they also use intimidating strategies against doctors, abortion clinic personnel, and women who have decided to terminate their pregnancies. The more fundamentalist bishops within the Catholic Church supported these small but energetic radical groups. There was and still is a split within the Catholic Church. The official Church hierarchy is mostly conservative. However, there is a strong lay movement in Austria that supports more democracy within the Catholic Church, access for women to the priesthood, marriage for priests, and sexual intercourse before marriage. These groups accept abortion as a matter of fact and recommend liberal and feminist counselling for women seeking help.