The Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that the current law stipulating stern punishment for midwives and others administering an abortion is constitutional.
The court dismissed in a 4-4 vote a petition filed by a midwife against a clause of the Criminal Code that stipulates up to two years in prison for doctors, midwives, oriental doctors, or pharmacists who perform an abortion.
"The midwife, who should protect the life of a fetus, is highly likely to be blamed for performing a procedure that deprives life," the court said in the ruling.
Giving lighter punishment would only make abortion more rampant in society, the court added.
The nursing school graduate who works as a midwife challenged the law's constitutionality after going on trial for helping a woman six weeks pregnant terminate her pregnancy in 2010.
In South Korea, abortions are illegal unless there are extenuating circumstances such as if the pregnancy poses serious health risks for the mother or the pregnant woman has a hereditary physical or mental disease. Pregnancies resulting from statutory rape or incest are also subject to exceptions. (Yonhap)