WMC News & Features

South Korea legalizes abortion after decades-long ban

Wmc News Human Rights Watch 41819

South Korea’s Constitutional Court struck down a 66-year-old law that criminalized abortion in the nation on April 11. Women’s rights and pro-choice activists who have long campaigned to overturn the ban celebrated the decision. 

“Women deserve to be happy as much as we want to be today,” activist Bae Bok-ju told the Guardian last week. “Today’s decision was made because countless women ceaselessly fought for their rights for so many years. We deserve the world’s attention, and we deserve its recognition.”

South Korea first criminalized abortion in 1953. Under Articles 269 and 270 of the country’s criminal code, the court could incarcerate individuals convicted of intentionally terminating a pregnancy for up to a year and sentence doctors who performed abortions or otherwise assisted pregnant women for up to two years in prison. In 1973, exceptions were added to the law that allowed abortion in exceptional circumstances, including rape, incest, and medical necessity. 

About one in five women in South Korea has still terminated a pregnancy, although not all of these procedures were conducted safely, according to a survey conducted in 2018 by the Korean Women’s Development Institute. Women were likely willing to undergo this illegal procedure because so few people who did have faced criminal sanction. Since 2015 only about 15 people have been prosecuted for abortion-related offenses each year, according to the news agency Yonhap

Over the past decade, attitudes towards abortion in South Korea have changed significantly both within the courts and amongst the general public. As of 2017, about 52 percent of South Koreans supported legalizing abortion, according to a Gallup Korea poll, compared to 34 percent in 2010. A legal challenge was already brought to the Court in 2012 after a midwife challenged her previous conviction for performing an illegal abortion. At the time, the country’s highest court decided to uphold the conviction in a four to four vote. 

In Thursday’s ruling, the Constitutional Court found that Articles 267 and 270 of the criminal code "excessively limits [a] pregnant woman's right to self-determination" and "violates the principle of balance by awarding unilateral and absolute superiority to protection of [a] fetus's life.” The Court ordered the National Assembly, South Korea’s legislative body, to amend the criminal code by 2020 to legalize abortion in the early stages of pregnancy. Seven of nine justices signed the majority opinion. 

“Today’s ruling is a major step forward for the human rights of women and girls in South Korea,” East Asia Research Director at Amnesty International Roseann Rife in a statement. “The country’s draconian laws have resulted in discrimination and stigmatisation for generations of women and girls by forcing them to undergo clandestine and unsafe abortions. The constitutional court has sent a clear message this must change, and in future (sic) the human rights of women and girls must be fully protected and respected.”



More articles by Category: International, Politics
More articles by Tag: Abortion, Reproductive rights, Asia, Law
SHARE

[SHARE]

Article.DirectLink

Contributor
Categories
Sign up for our Newsletter

Learn more about topics like these by signing up for Women’s Media Center’s newsletter.