By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

From next year, doctors will be allowed to reveal the sex of a fetus after 28 weeks gestation, the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs said Tuesday.

Under current law doctors and nurses can lose their licenses if they reveal the sex at anytime during pregnancy, but the revised law will only impose this on those doing so within the 28 weeks.

The revision comes after the Constitutional Court ruled last year that banning doctors from notifying parents of the sex of their unborn baby was outdated and ``violated a pregnant woman's right to know.'' The court also said the ban would restrict the right of pregnant women to pursue happiness and infringe on doctors' professional rights.

The original law was intended to discourage mothers from having abortions based on sex ― boys are preferred in Korea's Confucian society.

Medical insiders welcomed the decision. ``It is actually one of the basic rights of future parents to know all they can about their fetus and it is an obligation for doctors to provide it,'' the Korean Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology said.

``No doctor would dare to perform an abortion 28 weeks into a pregnancy,'' a group spokesman said.

bjs@koreatimes.co.kr