Doctors Oppose South Korea Plan to Promote Abortion Pills
A coalition of medical professionals, pro-life advocates, and the director of the Catholic Institute of Bioethics held a press conference in Seoul, Korea on Wednesday to “slam the South Korean government’s move to review the possible legalization of abortion pills, emphasizing protection of pregnant women and children,” according to UCA News.
“The conference, organized by lawmaker Yoon Yong-geun and the National Alliance for Fetal and Women’s Protection, condemned President Lee Jae-myung’s July 14 directive ordering a review of legalizing abortion pills,” the news outlet reported. “Lee had called this a realistic and pragmatic approach, saying women were already buying unauthorized drugs directly.”
Father Park Eun-ho, director of the Catholic Institute of Bioethics, said instead of legalizing abortion pills, the government should crack down on illegal distribution.
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Professor Jang Ji-young of Ewha Women’s University Seoul Hospital warned that rushing to introduce the pills without clear legal and safety standards could shift state responsibility onto doctors.
A doctor’s expertise is exercised within a legal framework, licensing requirements, and medical treatment guidelines, he said.
Leaving it to doctors’ discretion without legal standards and guidelines is not honoring expertise, but shifting the policy and legal responsibility that should be borne by the state to medical professionals, he added.
Lawmaker Yoon condemned what he called hasty efforts to legalize abortion medication.
According to the Korea Biomedical Review, the Korean Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is also against the proposal. It issued a statement on Tuesday, condemning President Lee’s proposal as “extralegal and procedurally improper” and demanding its immediate withdrawal.
“The physicians’ group argued that, in the absence of clear legal standards, the government had failed to present any measures to protect doctors from potential medical disputes or lawsuits arising from decisions on gestational age and prescriptions.”
It characterized President Lee’s remarks during Monday’s Cabinet meeting as “an irresponsible proposal that puts both patients and medical professionals at risk by leaving abortion decisions entirely to physicians’ discretion without even minimal legal and institutional safeguards.”
It concluded by warning “that if the government proceeds with the policy while ignoring concerns raised by frontline physicians, it would launch strong opposition, including a nationwide refusal campaign,” the Korea Biomedical Review reported.
South Korea has been without a law on abortion since April 2019 when the nation’s Constitutional Court, on a vote of 7-2, ruled that the country’s decades-old protective abortion law was unconstitutional. They gave the National Assembly until the end of 2020 to pass a replacement law. In the meanwhile, abortion was still technically illegal but largely unenforced.
But the National Assembly was unable to come up with a new law on the old law lapsed on Jan. 1, 2021.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. He frequently writes Today’s News and Views — an online opinion column on pro-life issues.
