NATIONAL

The Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that the current abortion law is inconsistent with the Constitution and called for its amendment, in a landmark decision that signals a major change in various aspects of society.



It ruled that an outright ban on abortion is against the Constitution and called for a legislative change to partially allow the termination in the early stage of pregnancy.







(Yonhap)

(Yonhap)

(Yonhap)

The adjudication comes 66 years after Korea first enacted the law in 1953 banning the termination of an unborn fetus in nearly all cases.It is also a fresh ruling after seven years as the highest court narrowly upheld the long-debated law in a 4-4 vote when it last reviewed its legality in August 2012.The court also ruled that it's against the Constitution to punish physicians for carrying out the procedure, ordering the legislature to revise the related law by the end of next year.The court agreed with the claimant's argument that the current law infringes upon a woman's right to make a free choice. (Yonhap)</s>South Korea’s Constitutional Court said on Thursday a law criminalising abortion was unconstitutional, a landmark ruling that will overturn a ban on abortion that had been in place since 1953.

The court said in a statement the ban on abortion, as well as a law that made doctors who conduct abortions with a woman’s consent liable to criminal charges, were both unconstitutional.

However, the court said the current law would remain in effect until the end of next year. The court had previously upheld the abortion law in 2012.</s>South Korea's ban on abortion has been ruled unconstitutional in an historic court decision.

The country's constitutional court ordered that the law must be revised by the end of 2020.

Under the 1953 ban, women who had abortions could be fined and imprisoned, except in cases of rape, incest or risk to their health.</s>SEOUL, South Korea — In a major reversal, South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Thursday ordered the easing of the country’s decades-old ban on most abortions, one of the strictest in the developed world.

Abortions have been largely illegal in South Korea since 1953, though convictions for violating the restrictions are rare. Still, the illegality of abortions forces women to seek out unauthorized and often expensive procedures to end their pregnancies, creating a social stigma that makes them feel like criminals.

The court’s nine-justice panel said that the parliament must revise legislation to ease the current regulations by the end of 2020. It said the current abortion law was incompatible with the constitution and would be repealed if parliament fails to come up with new legislation by then.

The ruling is final and cannot be appealed, court officials said, but current regulations will remain in effect until they are replaced or repealed.

An easing of the law could open up the door to more abortions for social and economic reasons. Current exceptions to the law only allow abortions when a woman is pregnant through rape or incest, when a pregnancy seriously jeopardizes her health, or when she or her male partner has certain diseases.

A woman in South Korea can be punished with up to one year in prison for having an illegal abortion and a doctor can get up to two years in prison for performing an unauthorized abortion.

Thursday’s verdict was a response to an appeal filed in February 2017 by an obstetrician charged with carrying out about 70 unauthorized abortions from 2013-2017 at the request or approval of pregnant women.

Most other countries in the 36-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the so-called most developed countries, allow abortions for broad social and economic reasons. South Korea is one of only five OECD member states that don’t allow such abortions, according to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

The South Korean public has been sharply split over the abortion law. There have been heated panel discussions on TV and internet programs; activists, both for and against, have for months stood with placards near the court. Dozens gathered on Thursday.

After the ruling, women’s rights activists cheered. Some shook their placards and shouted: “Abolish the anti-abortion law!”

Roseann Rife, Amnesty International’s East Asia research director, called the ruling “a major step forward for the human rights of women and girls in South Korea.”

Also outside the court were anti-abortion advocates, some of whom cried. Some held placards carrying images of fetuses and messages such as “Who can speak for me?” and “Don’t kill me, please.”

Housewife Mok Youn-hee was in tears and said she was “heartbroken” by the court decision.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea expressed “deep regret” over the verdict.

It’s not clear exactly how many abortions take place in South Korea. In a recent survey of 10,000 women aged between 15 and 44, about 7.6 percent, or 756 respondents, said they had undergone an abortion. They mostly cited worries about difficulty in continuing their studies and jobs, economic problems and a desire to wait, according to the survey conducted by the state-run Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.

Though abortions are illegal, only a handful of women and doctors are prosecuted each year in South Korea. According to government records, there were only 15 indictments on abortion-related cases in 2013.

Activists say most abortions in South Korea, whether lawful or unlawful, take place at registered hospitals. But it’s not easy to find hospitals offering illegal abortions and they usually charge high prices because the procedures are not covered by medical insurance programs.

Ham Sooyeon, leader of the nonprofit Korea Pro-Life group, said before the ruling that rather than easing the abortion restrictions, South Korea should find ways to improve support systems for poor, single mothers and their children and change public views on single mothers.</s>The law, which was established in 1953, banned abortion except in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormalities, and serious risks to the mother’s health.

SEOUL - South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled an abortion ban in the country to be unconstitutional, receiving mixed responses from Korean citizens.

Seven of the nine justices on the court voted to repeal the law, ordering it to be revised by 2020. Two of the justices dissented.

The law, which was established in 1953, banned abortion except in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormalities, and serious risks to the mother’s health.

Under the law, a woman who sought an abortion could face up to a year in prison or a $1,750 fine. A doctor who performed an abortion could face up to two years in prison.

The case was taken up by South Korea’s Constitutional Court after an obstetrician was persecuted for performing 69 illegal abortions during 2013 and 2015.

Kim Su-jung, the obstetrician’s lawyer, applauded the court’s decision, saying, “I believe this ruling frees women from shackles,” according to Reuters.

The repeal drew criticism from pro-life advocates. According to KBS Radio, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea decried the court’s decision, reiterating the Church’s stance against abortion.

A statement signed by Archbishop Kim Hee-joong of Gwangju, president of the bishops’ conference, said the court decision denies vulnerable human beings of their basic right to life. It also stated that the ruling unjustly excludes men from their responsibility in unplanned pregnancies.

The Archbishop of Seoul, Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soojung, has been an outspoken critic of legalizing abortion in South Korea’s national debates.

“We should instead strengthen institutions that can help women healthily give birth to babies and raise them by recognizing a newborn’s life as responsibility shared by both women and men, as well as society,” said the cardinal, according to the China Daily.

“Human dignity cannot be decided by majority vote or judged by socioeconomic standards,” Cardinal Yeom said at a Mass for Catholic congressmen last month.

Reuters reported that, due to contraceptive use, abortions in the country have decreased in recent years, with about 50,000 abortions in 2017. The majority of these abortions are illegal, but the government has been lax on the law’s enforcement. During the same year, only eight claims of illegal abortion were newly prosecuted.

Before the court’s decision, Cha Hee-jae, head of March for Life Korea, expressed concern that abortions would become more prevalent without the law.

“The government has done nothing to limit abortions,” he said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “What will happen if the law gets abolished? Abortions will only increase.”</s>SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - South Korea's Constitutional Court said Thursday a law criminalizing abortion was unconstitutional, a landmark ruling that will overturn a ban on abortion that had been in place since 1953.

The court said in a statement the outright ban on abortion, as well as a law that made doctors who conduct abortions with the woman's consent liable to criminal charges, were both unconstitutional.

However, the court said the current law would remain in effect until the end of next year, after which it will be scrapped.

The court had previously upheld the abortion law in 2012 in a closely divided 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 1950-1953 Korean War, and had not changed materially since.

The law states that a woman who undergoes abortion will serve a prison sentence of one year or less, or pay a fine of 2 million won ($1,756.08) or less.

The law also states that medical professionals including doctors who engage in abortion at the request of the woman will serve a prison sentence of two years or less, and have their license suspended for seven years.

There are exemptions, with current 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 the 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, according to South Korean judicial data. Out of the 14 abortion cases that were decided in lower courts in 2017, 10 postponed a ruling on 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, because of the increased use of birth control and a drop in the total number of women aged 15-44, according to Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs.</s>A euphoric smile spread across the face of an activist, who goes by the name Jisoo, as she announced in a trembling voice, "It's ruled unconstitutional!"

South Korea's Constitutional Court on Thursday struck down the country's laws prohibiting abortion, a landmark decision challenging the 66-year-old ban that had become increasingly unpopular in recent years.

After the announcement of the ruling, an uproarious cheer and cries of relief broke out from a couple hundred protesters outside the courthouse. A coalition of women's rights activists, legal and medical experts and feminist scholars declared victory, after years of campaigning for the laws' repeal.

Hundreds of others protesters, many from Christian evangelical groups, opposed ending the ban.

South Korea, where Catholics and Protestants outnumber Buddhists, is one of several countries in Asia that either ban abortion outright or limit it — including the heavily Catholic Philippines, predominantly Buddhist Laos and Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

Under Articles 269 and 270 of South Korea's Criminal Act, women who intentionally end pregnancy are punishable with up to a year in prison, and doctors who perform abortion can face up to two years in jail. Only a few exceptions are allowed, such as pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, serious threat to a mother's health, or the expectation that a child will be born with severe deformity.

The Constitutional Court's ruling on Thursday said those laws infringe on the basic rights of pregnant women by essentially forcing pregnancy and childbirth. The decision requires South Korea's legislature to change the law by the end of next year.

Enacted in 1953, the abortion ban went largely unenforced. Abortion was widespread and condoned for decades under government-led "family planning" schemes. As recently as 2017, according to the estimate of the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, nearly 50,000 abortions were performed, but only 62 incidents among them led to indictment, and 13 to punishment, according to the prosecutor's office.

Nonetheless, South Korea has been reluctant to reverse or scale back the ban. When a midwife charged with performing an illegal abortion filed an appeal in 2012, the Constitutional Court's 4:4 decision allowed it to stand. Two thirds of the judges are needed to effect a change.

In Thursday's ruling of the nine-judge panel, just two justices endorsed the constitutionality of the law. While recognizing the government's responsibility to protect the right to life of a fetus, the majority said the anti-abortion law "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 opinion of the South Korea public on abortion has also changed shifted substantially as the country has gained economic clout. A recent Gallup Korea poll showed that 45 percent of respondents consider abortion murder, compared to 78 percent in 1994. Another poll by Realmeter, a public opinions research company, found in 2017 that 51.9 percent of South Koreans support abolishing the law, up from just 33.6 percent in 2010.

Many activists on both sides outside the Constitutional Court on Thursday acknowledged that the court's ruling opens another chapter of the long fight, as the National Assembly works out the details of legislative and systematic changes.

But even if the assembly doesn't make changes to the current law, it will be automatically nullified in 2021, the court's ruling dictates.</s>South Korea's constitutional court is to rule Thursday on the legality of a decades-old abortion ban that campaigners say endangers women, in what could be a historic decision.

The South is one of the few industrialised nations where the procedure is illegal except for instances of rape, incest and when the mother's health is at risk.

Women who undergo the procedure can be jailed for a year and fined, while doctors who carry out terminations can be given two years in prison.

The 1953 law is widely flouted and rarely results in prosecutions, but activists say it leaves women facing being unable to pay for terminations, unsafe procedures and social isolation.

Calls to repeal the law have gained traction in recent years, but support for it is also staunch in a country that remains conservative towards female sexuality and highly influenced by evangelical Christianity.

An opinion poll in 2017 showed a narrow public majority -- 51.9 percent -- in favour of abolishing the ban.

The Constitutional Court last upheld the law in 2012, saying that abortion would "end up running rampant" if not punished.

But activists who want it changed sense a rare opportunity, with six of the nine current judges appointed by liberal-leaning President Moon Jae-in, and several of its members -- including the chief justice -- having publicly shown a willingness to reconsider the rules.

The current case was filed by a woman doctor who was prosecuted for performing almost 70 abortions.

Campaigners say the procedure is in fact commonplace in South Korea, and that the ban has been unfairly applied to target mostly young, unwed women -- who are most vulnerable to abortion-related stigma in the country.

A survey last year found one in five women who have been pregnant have had an abortion -- and only one percent of them said they had a legal reason to terminate the pregnancy.

Statistics also show that as recently as 2011, most South Korean women who had abortions were married, but rights groups say the majority of those charged for undergoing the procedure have been unmarried, including teenagers.

In 2017, a high school student told a rally in Seoul she had been forced to end her education after having an abortion.

"My teacher told me if I don't leave school, he'd report me to the legal authorities," she said. "He said I'd committed a sin because I fell pregnant as a student."

Many women whose relationships are breaking up fear their husbands or partners could report their past terminations to authorities, according to activists.

South Korea comes near the bottom of many OECD gender equality tables.

Ryu Min-hee, one of the counsels on the constitutional court case, said that as long as women cannot make their own choices about pregnancy and parenthood, the country "won't be able to establish an equal society in its true sense."

But religious belief is widespread in South Korea, and some of its evangelical mega-churches are among those defending the ban.

"Decriminalising abortion is simply making embryos take responsibility for things they shouldn't," said Ku In-hoe, a professor at the Catholic University of Korea, last year.

Even so, Lim, a 50-year-old woman who has had three illegal abortions and asked for her forename not to be used to protect her anonymity, said her experience demonstrated selective views about which lives matter.

She was shamed when she went through her first procedure as an unwed woman, but had support from both medical staff and her family when she had her second and third as a married women who already had two children.

"If the goal of this abortion law is really to protect all lives, then I should have been shamed for undergoing my second and third abortions, as well as my first," Lim told AFP.</s>The Constitutional Court of South Korea in a historic judgment on Thursday ruled in favor of amending an abortion ban law which has been in force since 1953, after considering it to be against the country's constitution.

The court said that the law is unconstitutional and must be amended by the National Assembly, the country's parliament, before the end of the year 2020 so that the law could allow abortion in certain cases during the early stages of pregnancy.</s>South Korean court rules nation's abortion ban is incompatible with the constitution, setting up an easing of the ban

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean court rules nation's abortion ban is incompatible with the constitution, setting up an easing of the ban.
The Constitutional Court of Korea rules that the 1953 abortion ban is unconstitutional.