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Pro-choice advocates call for insurance coverage of abortion, while doctors oppose it
By Lee Hyo-jin
Despite a 2019 landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court decriminalizing abortion, legal abortion in Korea remains a controversial issue with no simple answers.
Without detailed laws, women seeking the termination of pregnancy are walking a fine line between legal and illegal. According to government data, only about 3,000 "legal" surgical abortions are performed every year, but the total number of abortions is not known and presumed to be much higher.
Technically, abortion was legalized following the aforementioned Constitutional Court ruling made in April 2019, which concluded that banning abortion in the early stages of pregnancy was a violation of the right to self-determination. The court viewed that abortion before the 22nd week of pregnancy should be decriminalized, saying that women's right to self-determination outweighs a fetus' right to life.
After the country's 67-year-old anti-abortion law was declared unconstitutional, lawmakers were left to decide how to legally define the "early stages of pregnancy" and amend related laws by Dec. 31, 2020.
In October 2020, the Ministry of Justice sought to revise the Criminal Law and the Mother and Child Health Law to decriminalize abortions performed within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. It also sought to include exceptions to allow the procedure during the first 24 weeks in certain situations, including when the pregnancy is the result of rape. But the revision bills failed to pass the National Assembly.
After the legislative body failed to meet the deadline, the anti-abortion law was nullified at the start of 2021, making abortion no longer a crime in Korea.
But the current situation has left women seeking abortion ― as well as doctors performing the procedures ― in legal limbo, according to attorney Lee Eun-eui.
"In the current situation where the anti-abortion law has been nullified and no laws were enacted to replace it, there are technically no restrictions on abortion. But this doesn't mean that abortion has become completely legal," she explained. "It has become a gray area, so to speak."
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| Members of the Joint Action for Reproductive Justice, a coalition of pro-choice activists, hold a rally calling for the complete decriminalization of abortion in central Seoul, Aug. 17. Newsis |
For one thing, Lee said, it is unclear up to how many weeks abortion can legally be carried out. Also, without a specific law stating that abortion is legal, doctors can still be penalized in accordance with other Criminal Laws or criminally charged for murder by conducting certain surgical abortions.
Although abortion is no longer illegal, surgeries are still performed covertly due to the government's lack of willingness to address the issue, says Na Young, head of the Joint Action for Reproductive Justice, a coalition of pro-choice activists.
"When women call hospitals asking whether they offer surgical abortion, the hospitals in most cases don't give a straightforward answer because they are not sure whether it's legal or not," she told The Korea Times.
"Due to the absence of a platform providing information about which clinics offer the surgery and with no health insurance coverage, women rely on internet communities to get information and have to pay from their own pockets for the costly surgeries."
She called for the government's swift action in better guaranteeing women's rights by creating a platform where women can find health practitioners willing to offer the service. "For instance, the health ministry in New Zealand operates a website where women can easily browse what options they have concerning medical and surgical abortions," she said.
The activist also stressed that abortion should be included in the state insurance system to make the service more affordable and widely accessible. Currently, there are no state guidelines on the cost of the medical service, which leaves costs varying substantially by hospitals.
Some frontlines doctors, however, are reluctant about including it in the government's medical service. Kim Jae-yeon, head of Korean Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, viewed that the government should be prudent about including abortion in state insurance coverage.
"What the pro-choice activists want seems to be quite far from the reality. The government should consider whether the health insurance coverage would really make the surgery more accessible to the patients," he said. "Frankly speaking, there aren't a lot of women among those seeking termination of unwanted pregnancies who want that to be written down in official medical records."
He also said that doctors should have a bigger say in the process of making legislation on abortion.
"As medical practitioners, our role and responsibility is to guarantee the safety of our patients. But at the same time, we also have the right to refuse offering services that do not comply with one's personal beliefs. Their choice should be respected too," he said, insisting that any laws seeking to punish doctors for refusing to perform abortions should not be enforced.
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| Pro-life demonstrators hold a banner reading "Abortion is murder," during a rally held in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, March 8. Korea Times photo by Hong In-ki |
He was quite skeptical whether the controversial issue would be actively discussed by policymakers and lawmakers any time soon.
While pro-choice activists and liberal civic groups are demanding swift amendments protecting women's rights and health, pro-life supporters including conservative religious organizations urge that laws should be introduced to increase protections for the fetus.
"It would be difficult for lawmakers to take sides considering the millions of votes they would lose. They wouldn't want to upset either the conservative religious groups or the progressive women's groups." he said. "The government, for its part, seems to be negligent because the amendment of new laws means more regulations, more monitoring and more work for them."
