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A South Korean vlogger has courted controversy after claiming that she terminated her pregnancy at nine months. According to CNN, the woman, whose identity hasn’t been revealed, is being investigated for murder in a case that has prompted horror in South Korea. The case has raised urgent questions about the abortion laws in South Korea as there are no laws governing when, where, or how abortions can take place.
According to CNN, the Seoul National Police began investigating the woman in July at the request of the South Korean government after she posted a video to YouTube purportedly documenting her experience of getting an abortion, cops said.
Notably, abortions past 24 weeks are banned in many jurisdictions, or reserved for very exceptional cases. However, in South Korea, there are no laws governing when, where or how abortions can take place. But this was not always the case. For the last four years, there has been a policy vacuum. Before this, strict laws governing the medical procedure made abortion a crime punishable by up to two years in prison. It only limited exceptions for rape, incest, and a threat to the life, health of the mother or the baby.
It was in 2019 that South Korea’s Constitutional Court overturned the ban, giving the National Assembly until the end of 2020 to enact new abortion laws, which the court recommended should include a term limit of 22 weeks. When the legislature failed to meet that deadline, the criminal provisions around abortion expired, effectively legalising abortion at any stage of pregnancy.
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In June, in a statement posted to its website, South Korea’s Ministry of Justice said that “the direction, details, and timing of the revision” of the country’s abortion laws is yet to be decided, and that it needs to consult with the Health and Welfare Ministry – which oversees the Maternal and Child Health Act.
“The Ministry of Justice will do its best to discuss the issue so that the right to life of the fetus, and the right to health and the right to self-determination of the pregnant woman can be harmonised,” it added.
This policy vacuum experts say not only opens the door to potential malpractice but also hinders access to safe abortions. By not passing abortion laws, the National Assembly is “not doing its job,” said Cho Hee-kyoung, a law professor at Hongik University in Seoul. “If there is no law criminalizing a conduct, then there is no crime for carrying out that conduct,” Cho said.
Experts also say that in the absence of clear regulations, women and abortion providers currently operate in a grey area with little guidance as to what is permitted and what might break other laws. Credible information about where to get an abortion is hard to come by, and the procedure is not covered under the country’s public health system, the outlet reported.
