Abortion in Korea
2012-05-13 12:53 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
unreal.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
omonatheydidThese are older articles but might be interested to read
Resisting the Criminalization of Abortion in South Korea
Like Lindsay Lohan says, some stories do indeed keep on growing. And the more I’ve learned about abortion in recent weeks, the more certain I am that if it doesn’t become a hot political issue for Lee Myung-bak in the remaining years of his presidency, then it certainly will be if not addressed by his successor.
Not so much because Koreans feel strongly about the issue itself however. Rather, because this is the same president that despite campaign promises not to, immediately tried to abolish the (then) Ministry of Gender Equality for instance. And also, because a year later, he encouraged targeting women for mass layoffs as a solution to the financial crisis.
Criminalizing abortion simply in order to increase the birthrate rate then, is really part and parcel of a wider mentality that is fundamentally failing to get to grips with women’s entrenched inequality here. And perhaps could come be the symbol and/or catalyst for later volatile protests about any number of related issues, much like those in 2008 were never really simply about imported beef.
Until then, following on from this earlier post about a video that alerted me to the fact that doctors were getting (suspended) sentences for performing abortions, I’ve translated the following article to give you more information about those. And in the process, I’ve confirmed commenter Matt of Gusts of Popular Feeling’s point about it that no doctor mentioned actually had to spend any time in jail.
However, as you’ll see, the article does not appear to say that the manager of the gynecology clinic in Suwon also got a suspended sentence, which would presumably mean that in fact he or she at least did go to jail. Which seems just a little unfair and confusing, so if anyone with better Korean skills can please clarify, then that would be much
“Continued Sentences for ‘Abortion Crimes’ are Unjust”
Recently, criticism has been growing of the numbers of doctors receiving sentences for performing abortions. There is a great deal of worry and anxiety that singling out abortion laws for enforcement will reduce the number of abortions and be dangerous for women’s safety and health.
Doctors are continually being sentenced for performing abortions
On the 3rd of September, in the first session of a case at Ulsan District Court, a doctor who performed an abortion was given a 6-month jail sentence suspended for 1 year (i.e. no jail), and was stripped of their doctor’s license for 1 year. And in August at Suwon District Court, a gynecologist who was suspected of performing an abortion and the gynecology clinic manager were given a 1 year sentence suspended for 2 years and a 2 year, 6 month jail sentence respectively.
Even though the number of cases of doctors that have received sentences for performing abortions is small, and most have received suspended sentences, compared with those the above cases are quite exceptional.
In February, a pro-life doctor’s association filed suits against 3 clinics where abortions were being performed, but in all but one the managers simply to had to pay fines of 2 million won each in out of court settlements.
In May, at Busan District Court, a doctor who was suspected of performing an abortion on a woman who was 7 weeks pregnant received a suspended sentence. In that case, the judge said in his or her judgment that “the government’s will for punishing abortion-related crimes is relatively weak”, and that the reason for the suspended sentence in that case was that “the [prescribed] punishment ran counter to notions of social equity”.
In complete contrast, Kim Jeong-min, the judge who gave the jail sentence to the manager in Ulsan, said the reason was that “a fetus’s life is exactly the same a person’s life, and deserves the full benefit and protection of the law”, and hence “the defendant’s crime could not be punished lightly”.
“With Sentences, the Number of Abortions Will Go Down”
In particular, the September case in Ulsan has generated a lot of controversy because the doctor’s sentence was for an abortion performed on a teenage girl who was 10 weeks pregnant. After all, not only is abortion in the first trimester completely safe and legal in many countries, but the general consensus is that such young girls have special difficulties in raising a child.
On the 29th of September, the NPBDR denounced that judgment as “fundamentally denying women’s rights” and that the group would actively appeal it. The NPBDR is an organization that was established to fight against the criminalization of abortion in conjunction with women’s groups, worker’s groups, progressive groups and the New Progressive and Democratic Labor Party. In addition, the NPBDR expressed serious worry about the “continuing cases of sentencing for abortions, which like those cases in February and March set precedents, and were accompanied by decreases in the numbers of abortions and a sudden rise in their expenses, which became a serious concern for women seeking abortions.”
After a pro-life doctor’s group filed suit against gynecologists in February, the reality was that they started avoiding providing abortion services, leading to a torrent of pleads for help from women to women’s groups’ hotlines. Because of the sudden increase in their expenses, and the fear of being punished, many women are now considering getting abortions overseas.
Such Judgments Work Against Abortion Law Reform
The NPBDR, deeply saddened by the above cases, says “women’s movements and women in general are raising their voices high in their demands for legalizing abortion, and have the support of National Assemblyman Hong Il-pyeo of the ruling Grand National Party, gynecologists’ groups, and the Special Committee for the Reform of Criminal Law under the Ministry of Justice, and so on, that, although they only have limited political power, are also insisting on the legalization of abortion.”
Also, “compared to countries where abortion is legal, in fact abortion rates are higher in countries that have criminalized it,” and this means that “criminalizing abortions can never bring abortion rates down,” a fact that at this point in time not just international society, but Koreans also agree on, and so find the above judgments an anachronism. Presently, on the basis of the Convention on the U.N. Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), international society is recommending each country to abolish laws defining abortion as a crime and not punishing women who have abortions
Finally, the NPBDR wants to remind everyone that “giving birth is the single most influential thing in a woman’s whole life,” and is accompanied by a great deal of anxiety about how and if she will be able to cope with her new role as a mother. The group firmly insisted that “accordingly women who have agonized over this and come to the final decision to have an abortion should not be treated like criminals,” and added that they were making strenuous efforts to prepare to fight for their appeal against the Suwon judgment (end).
And on that note, apologies for not finding any information about the woman fined for simply planning an abortion, as mentioned in the earlier post, and I’ll keep looking. But in the meantime, I was very happy to read about the palpable resistance to Lee Myung-bak’s anti-abortion drive that is already emerging!
Source: thegrandnarrative
Korean Doctor Sent to Jail for Performing Abortion, Korean Woman Fined for Planning to Have One
Yes, those really did happen in the last couple of months. they are from a drama aired on SBS
Perhaps it was naive of me to be so shocked and surprised however? After all, according to the Korea Herald, “about 30 [doctors] have been brought to the court over the past 5 years, mostly resulting in probation or fines”, so presumably this latest case technically isn’t the first time a Korean doctor has been incarcerated for performing an abortion (for 1 year, with probation for 2 years). And then the Lee Myung-bak Administration did signal it would begin enforcing Korea’s long-ignored abortion laws over a year ago too, in a vain and wholly misguided effort to increase the record-low birthrate, so prosecutions had to emerge sooner or later.
Still, I’d be surprised if this wasn’t the first time a pregnant woman has been fined for just planning an abortion, and according to the law she could even face having her baby in jail herself if she tries again. And the fact that she was charged as a result of her husband informing the police? It sounds positively Dickensian.
Seriously, is he physically confining her to their home as I type this? Is she still allowed to divorce him, or has she been stripped of that right too?
My second surprise was that, yet again, I didn’t actually learn of this important news via any English-language media, but rather via the following humble-looking video passed on to me by a Facebook friend, who in turn found it via her friend Heejung Paik of Gwangju Womenlink (광주여성민우회). Simply a very brief overview of Korean’s draconian abortion laws in the global context rather than a discussion of the cases themselves though, I’ve just translated those parts relevant to Korea below:
From 0:21-0:39:
In March of 2010, in Mexico 165 women were incarcerated for having abortions.
One of those women, in the state of Guanajuato, got the maximum sentence of 35 years.
In September of 2010, a Korean doctor was sentenced to 1 year in jail for performing an abortion.
Next, two visuals from 1:04-1:20 (apologies for the poor quality):
On the left:
Estimated number of abortions performed annually (in brackets, the number of 15-44 year-old women out of 1000 that had abortions)
Married: 198,000 (28.6/1000)
Unmarried: 144,000 (31.6/1000)
Source: Ministry of Welfare and Family Affairs (2005; now defunct)
On the right:
Out of 342,433 abortions, 4.4% (or 14,939) were legal, and 95.6% (or 327,494) were illegal.
Estimation based on 2005 survey of 201 abortion clinics, and 2004 health insurance records of legal abortions.
Source: Ministry of Social Welfare
From 1:50-1:58:
Even in the Confucian Joseon Dynasty there is no record of any punishment for abortion
From 2:17-2:35:
There are 17 countries that allow abortion only in the case of rape, incest and if the health of mother is threatened (Mexico, Brazil, Sudan, South Korea, and so on)
Altogether, only 27% of countries provide less abortion rights than Korea, including Iran, Afghanistan, and Libya.
At present, out of the 20 countries in the OECD, there are only 2 in which it is more difficult to obtain an abortion than Korea.
Finally, from 3:09-3:16:
In October 2010, a Korean woman was fined after her husband informed the police of her intention to have an abortion.
Source: thegrandnarrative & sisilye12
South Korea Confronts Open Secret of Abortion
Displaying images of fetuses on her computer screen, Dr. Choi Anna described what happens to them during an abortion. For years, she said, she washed her hands in contrition after each one she performed.
Her colleague Dr. Shim Sang-duk said that until it halted the practice in September, their Ion Women’s Clinic in Seoul did 30 abortions a month, twice the number of babies delivered there. Nearly all were illegal.
“We sold our soul for money,” Dr. Choi said. “Abortion was an easy way to make money.”
In a country where abortion is both widespread and, with few exceptions, against the law, Dr. Choi and Dr. Shim are hoping to force South Korea’s first serious public discussion of the ethics of the procedure. In November, they and dozens of other obstetricians held a news conference to ask for “forgiveness” for having performed illegal abortions.
The group they formed, Gynob, has called on other doctors to declare whether they have performed illegal abortions. In December, they set up another organization, Pro-Life Doctors, which tries to discourage women from having abortions and runs a hot line to report clinics that perform them illegally. This month, they plan to begin reporting practitioners of such abortions to the police.
Gynob’s morality-based campaign is unusual for South Korea, where abortion carries little of the emotional or religious significance that it does in many Western countries. But it is gaining attention here in no small part because it is coinciding with a very public reassessment of abortion by the government, which is looking for ways to reverse a decline in South Korea’s birthrate.
Until now, abortion had never really become a hot issue here, said Hahm In-hee, a professor of family sociology at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. “The society considers it a family issue, and there is a strong taboo against discussing a family matter in public,” she said.
For its part, Gynob is focusing on highlighting the hypocrisy of having a law that is almost never enforced. The group’s goal is not to resolve this by liberalizing the law but by ending abortions altogether.
Gynob has support from Christian activists, but the group says that its motivations are not religious and that it has non-Christian members. And while some feminists have advocated for a woman’s right to have an abortion and Roman Catholics have stated their opposition to the procedure, those efforts have attracted little public attention. Abortion has yet to emerge as a political campaign issue here.
The country’s Mother and Child Health Law permits abortions only when the mother’s health is in serious danger, or in cases of rape, incest or severe hereditary disorders. It is never legal after the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Based on insurance data and a government-sponsored study, academic researchers have concluded that those exceptions applied to only about 4 percent of an estimated 340,000 abortions performed in 2005. But that year, only one case of illegal abortion — which, on paper, is punishable by up to a year in prison for the woman and two for the doctor — went to court, according to data that prosecutors submitted to Parliament in October.
For decades, the South Korean government tended to look the other way, seeing a high birthrate as an impediment to economic growth. In the 1970s and 1980s, families with more than two children were denounced as unpatriotic, with official posters in South Korean villages driving the point home. Until the early 1990s, men could be exempted from mandatory army reserve duty if they had vasectomies.
Now, the government has concluded that this policy was too successful.
South Korea’s fertility rate, which stood at 4.5 children per woman in the 1970s, had fallen to 1.19 children by 2008, one of the lowest rates in the world. The government fears that the recent financial downturn may have depressed it further, and that the country’s rapidly aging population will undercut the economy’s viability.
In November, President Lee Myung-bak called for “bold” steps to increase the nation’s birthrate.
“Even if we don’t intend to hold anyone accountable for all those illegal abortions in the past, we must crack down on them from now on,” the minister for health, welfare and family affairs, Jeon Jae-hee, said.
But Ms. Jeon added that any crackdown should be coupled with an increase in medical fees for all doctors. The government cap on payments for medical services is thought to have encouraged doctors to perform off-the-books, and potentially far more lucrative, services like illegal abortions.
With fewer women having babies and the government holding down medical fees, many obstetrics clinics are struggling. Some obstetricians have switched to more lucrative skin care and obesity clinics. To those who remain, abortion — which usually costs about $340 and is paid for in cash up front because it is not covered by insurance — has become “a source of income we find really difficult to give up,” said Dr. Kang Byong-hee, an obstetrician in Paju, north of Seoul.
In addition to government policy and the economics of health care, social factors have contributed to the abortion rate. A bias for boys and against the disabled led to the widespread practice of aborting female fetuses or those with physiological defects, said Choi Sung-jae, a professor of social welfare at Seoul National University. A stigma against unmarried mothers, women’s increasing participation in the work force and the high cost of education are also seen as contributing to the trend.
Dr. Choi, of the Ion Women’s Clinic, said: “We see a tendency to have one perfect child and abort the rest. We had women demanding an abortion simply because they had taken cold medicine or drunk too much while pregnant.”
Gynob’s anti-abortion campaign is meeting resistance, notably from other doctors.
“We credit them for bringing a widespread but hushed-up social anomaly to the surface, but we can’t go along with their radical tactics,” said Baik Eun-jeong, an obstetrician who runs a clinic in Seoul’s upscale Kangnam district and speaks for the Korean Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The association, which claims 4,000 members, says that a sudden crackdown that does not address the causes of abortion will only cause greater problems.
“More women will now go abroad for abortion,” Dr. Baik said. “Illegal abortions will go deeper underground, causing more medical accidents. There will be more abandoned infants.”
Meanwhile, the government has begun putting out a new message in public service announcements and posters in subways: having more babies is more patriotic. “With abortion, you are aborting the future,” says one such notice.
The latest government budget calls for increased cash bonuses for families with more than two children as well as greater financial aid for single mothers in need and vouchers for couples seeking help at fertility clinics.
All these voices are fueling a broader public discussion of abortion as Parliament deliberates about revising the Mother and Child Health Law. In November, President Lee said, “This is the time to start the debate.”
Source: nytimes
Resisting the Criminalization of Abortion in South Korea
Like Lindsay Lohan says, some stories do indeed keep on growing. And the more I’ve learned about abortion in recent weeks, the more certain I am that if it doesn’t become a hot political issue for Lee Myung-bak in the remaining years of his presidency, then it certainly will be if not addressed by his successor.
Not so much because Koreans feel strongly about the issue itself however. Rather, because this is the same president that despite campaign promises not to, immediately tried to abolish the (then) Ministry of Gender Equality for instance. And also, because a year later, he encouraged targeting women for mass layoffs as a solution to the financial crisis.
Criminalizing abortion simply in order to increase the birthrate rate then, is really part and parcel of a wider mentality that is fundamentally failing to get to grips with women’s entrenched inequality here. And perhaps could come be the symbol and/or catalyst for later volatile protests about any number of related issues, much like those in 2008 were never really simply about imported beef.
Until then, following on from this earlier post about a video that alerted me to the fact that doctors were getting (suspended) sentences for performing abortions, I’ve translated the following article to give you more information about those. And in the process, I’ve confirmed commenter Matt of Gusts of Popular Feeling’s point about it that no doctor mentioned actually had to spend any time in jail.
However, as you’ll see, the article does not appear to say that the manager of the gynecology clinic in Suwon also got a suspended sentence, which would presumably mean that in fact he or she at least did go to jail. Which seems just a little unfair and confusing, so if anyone with better Korean skills can please clarify, then that would be much
“Continued Sentences for ‘Abortion Crimes’ are Unjust”
Recently, criticism has been growing of the numbers of doctors receiving sentences for performing abortions. There is a great deal of worry and anxiety that singling out abortion laws for enforcement will reduce the number of abortions and be dangerous for women’s safety and health.
Doctors are continually being sentenced for performing abortions
On the 3rd of September, in the first session of a case at Ulsan District Court, a doctor who performed an abortion was given a 6-month jail sentence suspended for 1 year (i.e. no jail), and was stripped of their doctor’s license for 1 year. And in August at Suwon District Court, a gynecologist who was suspected of performing an abortion and the gynecology clinic manager were given a 1 year sentence suspended for 2 years and a 2 year, 6 month jail sentence respectively.
Even though the number of cases of doctors that have received sentences for performing abortions is small, and most have received suspended sentences, compared with those the above cases are quite exceptional.
In February, a pro-life doctor’s association filed suits against 3 clinics where abortions were being performed, but in all but one the managers simply to had to pay fines of 2 million won each in out of court settlements.
In May, at Busan District Court, a doctor who was suspected of performing an abortion on a woman who was 7 weeks pregnant received a suspended sentence. In that case, the judge said in his or her judgment that “the government’s will for punishing abortion-related crimes is relatively weak”, and that the reason for the suspended sentence in that case was that “the [prescribed] punishment ran counter to notions of social equity”.
In complete contrast, Kim Jeong-min, the judge who gave the jail sentence to the manager in Ulsan, said the reason was that “a fetus’s life is exactly the same a person’s life, and deserves the full benefit and protection of the law”, and hence “the defendant’s crime could not be punished lightly”.
“With Sentences, the Number of Abortions Will Go Down”
In particular, the September case in Ulsan has generated a lot of controversy because the doctor’s sentence was for an abortion performed on a teenage girl who was 10 weeks pregnant. After all, not only is abortion in the first trimester completely safe and legal in many countries, but the general consensus is that such young girls have special difficulties in raising a child.
On the 29th of September, the NPBDR denounced that judgment as “fundamentally denying women’s rights” and that the group would actively appeal it. The NPBDR is an organization that was established to fight against the criminalization of abortion in conjunction with women’s groups, worker’s groups, progressive groups and the New Progressive and Democratic Labor Party. In addition, the NPBDR expressed serious worry about the “continuing cases of sentencing for abortions, which like those cases in February and March set precedents, and were accompanied by decreases in the numbers of abortions and a sudden rise in their expenses, which became a serious concern for women seeking abortions.”
After a pro-life doctor’s group filed suit against gynecologists in February, the reality was that they started avoiding providing abortion services, leading to a torrent of pleads for help from women to women’s groups’ hotlines. Because of the sudden increase in their expenses, and the fear of being punished, many women are now considering getting abortions overseas.
Such Judgments Work Against Abortion Law Reform
The NPBDR, deeply saddened by the above cases, says “women’s movements and women in general are raising their voices high in their demands for legalizing abortion, and have the support of National Assemblyman Hong Il-pyeo of the ruling Grand National Party, gynecologists’ groups, and the Special Committee for the Reform of Criminal Law under the Ministry of Justice, and so on, that, although they only have limited political power, are also insisting on the legalization of abortion.”
Also, “compared to countries where abortion is legal, in fact abortion rates are higher in countries that have criminalized it,” and this means that “criminalizing abortions can never bring abortion rates down,” a fact that at this point in time not just international society, but Koreans also agree on, and so find the above judgments an anachronism. Presently, on the basis of the Convention on the U.N. Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), international society is recommending each country to abolish laws defining abortion as a crime and not punishing women who have abortions
Finally, the NPBDR wants to remind everyone that “giving birth is the single most influential thing in a woman’s whole life,” and is accompanied by a great deal of anxiety about how and if she will be able to cope with her new role as a mother. The group firmly insisted that “accordingly women who have agonized over this and come to the final decision to have an abortion should not be treated like criminals,” and added that they were making strenuous efforts to prepare to fight for their appeal against the Suwon judgment (end).
And on that note, apologies for not finding any information about the woman fined for simply planning an abortion, as mentioned in the earlier post, and I’ll keep looking. But in the meantime, I was very happy to read about the palpable resistance to Lee Myung-bak’s anti-abortion drive that is already emerging!
Source: thegrandnarrative
Korean Doctor Sent to Jail for Performing Abortion, Korean Woman Fined for Planning to Have One
Yes, those really did happen in the last couple of months. they are from a drama aired on SBS
Perhaps it was naive of me to be so shocked and surprised however? After all, according to the Korea Herald, “about 30 [doctors] have been brought to the court over the past 5 years, mostly resulting in probation or fines”, so presumably this latest case technically isn’t the first time a Korean doctor has been incarcerated for performing an abortion (for 1 year, with probation for 2 years). And then the Lee Myung-bak Administration did signal it would begin enforcing Korea’s long-ignored abortion laws over a year ago too, in a vain and wholly misguided effort to increase the record-low birthrate, so prosecutions had to emerge sooner or later.
Still, I’d be surprised if this wasn’t the first time a pregnant woman has been fined for just planning an abortion, and according to the law she could even face having her baby in jail herself if she tries again. And the fact that she was charged as a result of her husband informing the police? It sounds positively Dickensian.
Seriously, is he physically confining her to their home as I type this? Is she still allowed to divorce him, or has she been stripped of that right too?
My second surprise was that, yet again, I didn’t actually learn of this important news via any English-language media, but rather via the following humble-looking video passed on to me by a Facebook friend, who in turn found it via her friend Heejung Paik of Gwangju Womenlink (광주여성민우회). Simply a very brief overview of Korean’s draconian abortion laws in the global context rather than a discussion of the cases themselves though, I’ve just translated those parts relevant to Korea below:
From 0:21-0:39:
In March of 2010, in Mexico 165 women were incarcerated for having abortions.
One of those women, in the state of Guanajuato, got the maximum sentence of 35 years.
In September of 2010, a Korean doctor was sentenced to 1 year in jail for performing an abortion.
Next, two visuals from 1:04-1:20 (apologies for the poor quality):
On the left:
Estimated number of abortions performed annually (in brackets, the number of 15-44 year-old women out of 1000 that had abortions)
Married: 198,000 (28.6/1000)
Unmarried: 144,000 (31.6/1000)
Source: Ministry of Welfare and Family Affairs (2005; now defunct)
On the right:
Out of 342,433 abortions, 4.4% (or 14,939) were legal, and 95.6% (or 327,494) were illegal.
Estimation based on 2005 survey of 201 abortion clinics, and 2004 health insurance records of legal abortions.
Source: Ministry of Social Welfare
From 1:50-1:58:
Even in the Confucian Joseon Dynasty there is no record of any punishment for abortion
From 2:17-2:35:
There are 17 countries that allow abortion only in the case of rape, incest and if the health of mother is threatened (Mexico, Brazil, Sudan, South Korea, and so on)
Altogether, only 27% of countries provide less abortion rights than Korea, including Iran, Afghanistan, and Libya.
At present, out of the 20 countries in the OECD, there are only 2 in which it is more difficult to obtain an abortion than Korea.
Finally, from 3:09-3:16:
In October 2010, a Korean woman was fined after her husband informed the police of her intention to have an abortion.
Source: thegrandnarrative & sisilye12
South Korea Confronts Open Secret of Abortion
Displaying images of fetuses on her computer screen, Dr. Choi Anna described what happens to them during an abortion. For years, she said, she washed her hands in contrition after each one she performed.
Her colleague Dr. Shim Sang-duk said that until it halted the practice in September, their Ion Women’s Clinic in Seoul did 30 abortions a month, twice the number of babies delivered there. Nearly all were illegal.
“We sold our soul for money,” Dr. Choi said. “Abortion was an easy way to make money.”
In a country where abortion is both widespread and, with few exceptions, against the law, Dr. Choi and Dr. Shim are hoping to force South Korea’s first serious public discussion of the ethics of the procedure. In November, they and dozens of other obstetricians held a news conference to ask for “forgiveness” for having performed illegal abortions.
The group they formed, Gynob, has called on other doctors to declare whether they have performed illegal abortions. In December, they set up another organization, Pro-Life Doctors, which tries to discourage women from having abortions and runs a hot line to report clinics that perform them illegally. This month, they plan to begin reporting practitioners of such abortions to the police.
Gynob’s morality-based campaign is unusual for South Korea, where abortion carries little of the emotional or religious significance that it does in many Western countries. But it is gaining attention here in no small part because it is coinciding with a very public reassessment of abortion by the government, which is looking for ways to reverse a decline in South Korea’s birthrate.
Until now, abortion had never really become a hot issue here, said Hahm In-hee, a professor of family sociology at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. “The society considers it a family issue, and there is a strong taboo against discussing a family matter in public,” she said.
For its part, Gynob is focusing on highlighting the hypocrisy of having a law that is almost never enforced. The group’s goal is not to resolve this by liberalizing the law but by ending abortions altogether.
Gynob has support from Christian activists, but the group says that its motivations are not religious and that it has non-Christian members. And while some feminists have advocated for a woman’s right to have an abortion and Roman Catholics have stated their opposition to the procedure, those efforts have attracted little public attention. Abortion has yet to emerge as a political campaign issue here.
The country’s Mother and Child Health Law permits abortions only when the mother’s health is in serious danger, or in cases of rape, incest or severe hereditary disorders. It is never legal after the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Based on insurance data and a government-sponsored study, academic researchers have concluded that those exceptions applied to only about 4 percent of an estimated 340,000 abortions performed in 2005. But that year, only one case of illegal abortion — which, on paper, is punishable by up to a year in prison for the woman and two for the doctor — went to court, according to data that prosecutors submitted to Parliament in October.
For decades, the South Korean government tended to look the other way, seeing a high birthrate as an impediment to economic growth. In the 1970s and 1980s, families with more than two children were denounced as unpatriotic, with official posters in South Korean villages driving the point home. Until the early 1990s, men could be exempted from mandatory army reserve duty if they had vasectomies.
Now, the government has concluded that this policy was too successful.
South Korea’s fertility rate, which stood at 4.5 children per woman in the 1970s, had fallen to 1.19 children by 2008, one of the lowest rates in the world. The government fears that the recent financial downturn may have depressed it further, and that the country’s rapidly aging population will undercut the economy’s viability.
In November, President Lee Myung-bak called for “bold” steps to increase the nation’s birthrate.
“Even if we don’t intend to hold anyone accountable for all those illegal abortions in the past, we must crack down on them from now on,” the minister for health, welfare and family affairs, Jeon Jae-hee, said.
But Ms. Jeon added that any crackdown should be coupled with an increase in medical fees for all doctors. The government cap on payments for medical services is thought to have encouraged doctors to perform off-the-books, and potentially far more lucrative, services like illegal abortions.
With fewer women having babies and the government holding down medical fees, many obstetrics clinics are struggling. Some obstetricians have switched to more lucrative skin care and obesity clinics. To those who remain, abortion — which usually costs about $340 and is paid for in cash up front because it is not covered by insurance — has become “a source of income we find really difficult to give up,” said Dr. Kang Byong-hee, an obstetrician in Paju, north of Seoul.
In addition to government policy and the economics of health care, social factors have contributed to the abortion rate. A bias for boys and against the disabled led to the widespread practice of aborting female fetuses or those with physiological defects, said Choi Sung-jae, a professor of social welfare at Seoul National University. A stigma against unmarried mothers, women’s increasing participation in the work force and the high cost of education are also seen as contributing to the trend.
Dr. Choi, of the Ion Women’s Clinic, said: “We see a tendency to have one perfect child and abort the rest. We had women demanding an abortion simply because they had taken cold medicine or drunk too much while pregnant.”
Gynob’s anti-abortion campaign is meeting resistance, notably from other doctors.
“We credit them for bringing a widespread but hushed-up social anomaly to the surface, but we can’t go along with their radical tactics,” said Baik Eun-jeong, an obstetrician who runs a clinic in Seoul’s upscale Kangnam district and speaks for the Korean Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The association, which claims 4,000 members, says that a sudden crackdown that does not address the causes of abortion will only cause greater problems.
“More women will now go abroad for abortion,” Dr. Baik said. “Illegal abortions will go deeper underground, causing more medical accidents. There will be more abandoned infants.”
Meanwhile, the government has begun putting out a new message in public service announcements and posters in subways: having more babies is more patriotic. “With abortion, you are aborting the future,” says one such notice.
The latest government budget calls for increased cash bonuses for families with more than two children as well as greater financial aid for single mothers in need and vouchers for couples seeking help at fertility clinics.
All these voices are fueling a broader public discussion of abortion as Parliament deliberates about revising the Mother and Child Health Law. In November, President Lee said, “This is the time to start the debate.”
Source: nytimes
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Date: 2012-05-13 11:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 11:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 11:24 am (UTC)also lawsuits left and right. is that all the courts deal with all day?
We had women demanding an abortion simply because they had taken cold medicine or drunk too much while pregnant
...
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Date: 2012-05-13 11:37 am (UTC)Honestly I almost stopped here because what kind of "non-gossip" journalist would quote her.
Interesting read though.
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Date: 2012-05-13 12:48 pm (UTC)i scoffed at the use of lindsay lohan, at first. but it was an appropriate quote, so i thought it made sense to quote her.
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Date: 2012-05-13 12:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 12:25 pm (UTC)idk i also consider abortion a family/private matter. but it seems like laws must be in place to protect the rights of women and doctors who choose to perform them. beyond that, those procedures must be regulated for the safety of the woman.
so i guess the debate is necessary.
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Date: 2012-05-13 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 01:01 pm (UTC)“With abortion, you are aborting the future,” says one such notice.
This is horrible and whoever came up with it is horrible. Parenthood should not come from a place of guilt-drive obligation.
“More women will now go abroad for abortion,” Dr. Baik said. “Illegal abortions will go deeper underground, causing more medical accidents. There will be more abandoned infants.”
So, so true. This article is pretty old now, but if you haven't read it yet I would recommend it -- one woman's story of how she tried to get an off-the-books abortion for her teen pregnancy (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/09/way-it-was?page=1). It's pretty graphic and terrifying to read, but stories like these continue to demonstrate the importance of giving women SAFE and LEGAL options.
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Date: 2012-05-13 01:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-14 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-15 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 02:34 pm (UTC)Or lessen the expectations on mothers and help with the cost of having a child, instead of punishing those who are probably at their most vulnerable?
Gah. *raging*
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Date: 2012-05-13 03:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 04:57 pm (UTC)It also strikes me how an unborn child has more rights than homosexuals,people with disabilities and ethnic minorities.
"compared to countries where abortion is legal, in fact abortion rates are higher in countries that have criminalized it,” and this means that “criminalizing abortions can never bring abortion rates down,"
I think it happens but I wonder if there is any proof for that since in countries that legalize abortion,no one would ever said that they had one and they wouldn't find any documents or something.
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Date: 2012-05-14 11:32 am (UTC)"an unborn child has more rights than homosexuals,people with disabilities and ethnic minorities"
In most countries abortion is legal ergo an unborn child doesn't even have a choice. In any case, it goes back to the question of whether you consider an unborn child as a human life and therefore deserving of 'human rights'.
I highly doubt that is comparable to the institution of marriage (considering how lowly it is respected nowadays anyway) and social welfare or say suffrage (for example, in the case of ethnic minorities).
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Date: 2012-05-14 11:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 06:09 pm (UTC)I'll tell you what's unpatriotic: A misogynistic attitude in the Korean culture and how having a child is a huge disadvantage.
Perhaps if Korea was more family-friendly and mother-friendly, there wouldn't be a need to nitpick on women who should not be having children anyway.
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Date: 2012-05-13 08:24 pm (UTC)And I can't believe they're just trying to cover their own asses and make up for the mistake of the last few decades. They discouraged people from having kids, and now that that has backfired they're pushing for more kids. How about they just lay off? They've made this mistake before and they're doing it again. Let people live their own lives and decide how they want to live it. I'd rather be "unpatriotic" than lose my job, be looked down upon by society and pay tons of money for a kid that I didn't even intend to have. If women have to to resort to getting abortions abroad, I hope that speaks loud and clear to their government, and I hope those women get through it okay.