Korea's abortion law in limbo for over 5 years

Activists rally in Seoul seeking abortion rights in this April 10, 2022 photo. Termination of pregnancy has been left in a legal gray area for more than five years since a 2019 verdict by the Constitutional Court, which ruled Korea's abortion ban as unconstitutional. Newsis

The legal question of whether an abortion can be performed on a nine-month-old fetus is currently under intense scrutiny in Korea, as the country examines and potentially reforms its abortion legislation.

An official at the Ministry of Health and Welfare said Monday it asked police three days ago to investigate a woman and her doctor over a YouTube video in which she claims to have received an abortion at 36 weeks.

There is some speculation that it may have all been made up in order to gain attention and make money out of the clicks. However, there is also a possibility that it could be real. If it is, the two in question may face a murder charge, according to the official.

In a similar case in 2021, the official said, the Supreme Court upheld a murder conviction for a doctor who performed an abortion procedure in 2019 to terminate a 34-week-old fetus who was obviously alive and crying.

Cho Ji-ho, the commissioner of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, also promised to conduct a thorough investigation into the case at a press briefing the same day.

All of this shows that abortion remains in a legal gray area in Korea, following a 2019 Constitutional Court ruling that declared the nation’s abortion ban unconstitutional. At that time, the court determined that prohibiting abortion during the early stages of pregnancy infringed upon the right to self-determination.

In line with the ruling, political parties and ministries proposed a slew of bills regarding many issues, such as how late in pregnancy a termination should be allowed. But none have passed the National Assembly so far and the bills proposed during the previous 21st Assembly were automatically scrapped.

Meanwhile, pregnant women have been left to handle the issue themselves.

Now, following the court ruling, receiving an abortion is not illegal. But which clinics provide the procedure? How much is the cost? Is purchasing and using an abortion pill legal? Many are trying to find answers to these questions online or from their friends as there is no sign of progress in legislation.

A patient prepares to take the first of two combination pills, mifepristone, for a medical abortion during a visit to a clinic in Kansas City, Missouri, in this Oct. 12, 2022 photo. An official at Korea's Ministry of Food and Safety said Mifegymiso is now under review for approval. If approved, the pill would be the first abortion drug to be legally available in Korea. AP-Yonhap

Speaking to The Korea Times, an official at the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said no abortion pills have been officially approved in Korea. But she said Mifegymiso, a combination product containing two drugs (mifepristone and misoprostol), is now under review for approval.

If approved, Mifegymiso, developed by U.K. pharmaceutical company Linepharma, would be the first abortion drug to be legally available in Korea.

But it won’t happen any time soon, said a government official who declined to be named. In addition to administrative complexity regarding the approval process, politics will likely slow it further, given the sensitivity of the issue, the official added.

When the issue came to light following the court ruling, many religious groups vehemently protested the decision and increased political pressure on the authorities, a major factor behind the Assembly’s inaction on the issue.

“That’s why government officials are treading very carefully,” the official said.

Having failed to get its abortion bill passed at the Assembly, the Ministry of Justice recently began drafting a new bill to find a “balance between a fetus’s right to life and women’s right to self-determination as well as health.”

However, when questioned about specific details of the bill, such as whether it would include provisions related to abortion pills, a representative declined to provide any answers.

The central issue in the abortion debate has been, and will likely continue to be, defining a clear legal boundary: At what point in a pregnancy is it too late to seek an abortion?

In its previous bill, the ministry sought to revise relevant laws to allow the procedure up to 14 weeks for any reason and up to 24 weeks in cases of rape or serious health risks posed to the mother, among others.

That bill sparked intense and polarized reactions from both pro-life and pro-choice sides. Rep. Kwon In-suk of the liberal Democratic Party of Korea and other left-leaning politicians called for “the complete decriminalization of abortion,” a stance in stark contrast to that of many religious leaders such as Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung of the Catholic Church.