By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
Male-dominant Confucianism still prevails in Korea. Affected by this time-honored Chinese philosophy, many pregnant women once opted for abortions when obstetricians informed them their babies were female.
With the number of gender-based abortions rising, the government enacted a law banning doctors from revealing the gender of fetuses in 1987.
But human rights activists and future parents criticized the regulation for denying the public's right to know.
The Constitutional Court Thursday held a public hearing on the sensitive, yet very Korean issue in response to constitutional petitions filed by two petitioners, lawyer Jung Jae-woong and an unidentified obstetrician. Jung filed the petition in 2004 after he was refused knowledge of the sex of his unborn baby. A doctor who runs a hospital in Seoul filed a petition in 2005 after receiving a six-month-long license suspension for giving information about the sex of the unborn to parents.
Under current law, doctors hinting at the sex of an unborn fetus could face up to three years prison term or 10 million won in fines. In addition, the government can cancel the license of the doctor in question. According to the government, only two medical doctors have been convicted of this charge since 2004.
Lawyer Park Sang-hoon, handling the case on behalf of Jung, said ``In 1987 when the law took effect, selective abortion in accordance with knowing the sex of the unborn was prevalent, but not now.''
``Medically, pregnant women in the second trimester, from 12 to 24 weeks, rarely have an abortion, while those in the third trimester do not have abortions since it can threaten the mother's life. Therefore, current law completely banning notification is a violation of the right to know,'' Park said. ``With a gender-equalized society taking root, the law is obsolete.''
Kwon Min-seok, deputy of Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs, opposed the allegation, saying ``Selective abortions still take place.''
``Of over 340,000 unborn babies aborted in 2007, approximately 2,500 were killed because they were not the gender their parents had hoped for. If the law becomes unconstitutional and is nullified, the number of selective abortions would definitively increase,'' Kwon said.
Despite the ban, some doctors have indirectly notified would-be parents of their babies' sex through meaningful sentences like ``You may need a `pink' dress,'' which means daughter and ``A future `general' was born,'' which stands for a son.
In 2005, the Seoul Administrative Court also made a ruling in favor of the ban, saying ``If a mother decides to deliver her baby, the only inconvenience the affected parents experienced was curiosity. Therefore, the law banning the notification of the gender of an unborn baby is constitutional.''
Kim Bok-ki, spokesperson for the Constitutional Court, said ``In this case, the right to know is clashing against the dignity of human life. The court will make a decision after taking into account a variety of issues.''
Currently, Korea, India and China completely prohibit doctors from giving out such information.