The South Korean Constitutional Court yesterday said that a law criminalizing abortion was unconstitutional, a landmark ruling that is to overturn a ban on abortion that had been in place since 1953.
The court said in a statement that the outright ban on abortion and a law that made doctors who conduct abortions with the woman’s consent liable to criminal charges were unconstitutional.
However, the court said that the law would remain in effect until the end of next year, after which it would be scrapped.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The court in 2012 had upheld the abortion law in a close decision, dividing the eight justices evenly.
“The law criminalizing a woman who undergoes abortion of her own will goes beyond the minimum needed to achieve the legislative purpose and limits the right of self-determination of the woman who has become pregnant,” the court said in its ruling.
South Korea’s ban on abortion dates from 1953, when the country’s criminal law was first enacted after the 1950 to 1953 Korean War, and had not changed materially since.
The law stipulates that a woman who undergoes an abortion would serve a prison sentence of up to one year, or pay a fine of up to 2 million won (US$1,755).
The law also states that medical professionals, including doctors, who engage in abortion at the request of the woman would serve a prison sentence of up to two years and have their license suspended for seven years.
There are exemptions, with the law allowing abortions within 24 weeks of becoming pregnant for medical purposes such as a hereditary disease or the pregnancy causing grave danger to the health of the mother, or in the case of pregnancy through rape.
“If the case does not fall under an exemption, the law forces the pregnant woman to maintain the pregnancy completely and uniformly without exception, even in cases where there are circumstances causing conflicts about abortion due to diverse, widespread societal and economic reasons,” the court said.
The court’s ruling reflects a trend toward decriminalizing abortion, as the number of actual cases where abortion was criminally punished had been falling.
Only eight new cases of illegal abortion were prosecuted in 2017, down from 24 in 2016, South Korean judicial data showed.
Out of the 14 abortion cases that were decided in lower courts in 2017, 10 postponed a ruling on the condition that no crime be committed for a certain period.
The number of abortions in South Korea has been dropping as well, with the estimated number of abortions among women aged 15 to 44 at 49,764 in 2017, down from 342,433 in 2005 and 168,738 in 2010, due to increased use of birth control and a drop in the total number of women aged 15 to 44, the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs said.
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