[낙태죄 헌법불합치] "아직은"...사회경제적 이유 허용 안하는 한국, OECD서 가장 엄격 VIDEO: South Korea to legalize abortion after 66-year ban
South Korea to legalize abortion after 66-year ban
plaza in Seoul on July 7, 2018.
Seoul (CNN)South Korea's 66-year abortion ban must be lifted by end of 2020 the country's Constitutional Court ruled Thursday, in a major win for pro-choice advocates.
Protesters hold placards reading "Abolish punishment for abortion" as they protest South Korean abortion laws in Gwanghwamun
' [낙태죄 헌법불합치] "아직은"...사회경제적 이유 허용 안하는 한국, OECD서 가장 엄격 헌법재판소 04] 유남석 헌재소장 등 헌법재판관이 11일 오후 서울 재동 헌법재판소 대심판정에 앉아있다. 홍인기 기자 이번에 헌재가 낙태죄 규정을 헌법불합치로 본 것은 다른 나라들이 인공임신중절(낙태)의 허용 범위를 점점 늘려가는 국제적 흐름과도 맞물려 있다. 성매매ㆍ대마초ㆍ안락사가 합법인 네덜란드는 유럽국가 가운데 가장 낙태에 관대한 국가로 분류된다. 낙태 허용 기간에 대한 법적 제한 없이 임부가 원하면 낙태할 수 있다. 다만 임신 13주 이후에는 정부가 정한 기준을 충족한 병원이나 의원에서만 시행할 수 있다. 영국은 유럽 최초로 낙태를 합법화한 나라로, 24주 이내에 낙태를 허용하고 있다. 사회ㆍ경제적 이유를 폭넓게 인정해 사실상 임부가 원하면 낙태를 받을 수 있다. 미국은 20~24주까지는 태아가 독자적 생존능력이 없는 시기라고 판단해 임부가 원할 때는 낙태를 허용한다. 프랑스는 임신 12주까지 임부 요청에 의해 낙태를 결정할 수 있도록 하고 있다. ‘임신부가 곤궁한 상황’에 처한 경우 낙태를 할 수 있도록 하면서, 이에 대한 판단을 전적으로 임부가 결정하도록 한 것이다. 또 임신부의 권리를 보호하기 위해 낙태 정보 사이트가 운영되고, 결정 이후에는 매우 신속하게 과정이 진행된다. 독일도 임신 12주까지는 임부의 의사에 따라 낙태를 할 수 있다. 1993년 독일연방헌법재판소가 12주라는 기간에 대해 위헌을 결정한 바 있는데, 이후 형법개정 논의에서 의사와의 상담 등 절차에 따를 경우 최종적으로 임부의 결정에 따라 낙태할 수 있도록 했다. 일본은 현재까지 낙태죄를 규정하고는 있지만, ‘신체적 또는 경제적 사유’에 의해 모체의 건강을 명백히 해칠 우려가 있는 경우에는 인공임신중절을 허용하고 있어, 사실상 비범죄화됐다는 평가를 받는다. 다만 본인과 배우자 모두의 동의를 얻어야 하며, 통상 22주 전이어야 시술이 가능하다. 산아제한 정책을 펴고 있는 중국은 낙태가 폭넓게 허용되는 나라다. 단 성별에 따른 낙태는 금지된다. 최동순 기자 dosool@hankookilbo.com |
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Seven out of nine judges ruled that outlawing abortion was unconstitutional -- votes from six judges were needed to overturn the ban.
Lawmakers now have until December 31, 2020 to revise the law. Termination of pregnancy after 20-weeks will remain illegal.
Previously, women who had abortions in South Korea could face up to a year in prison and can be fined up to two million won ($1,780), while doctors or healthcare workers who helped terminate a pregnancy could be jailed for up to two years.
While prosecutions were rare, they were not unheard of.
Three-quarters of women aged 15 to 44 regarded the law as unfair, according to results of a survey released this year by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs. Around 20% of respondents said they had had an abortion despite it being illegal.
Recent pressure to decriminalize the practice, however, had seen pushback from conservative and religious groups, some of which have links to US anti-abortion campaigns.
Crime and stigma
When she was 40 years old, Kim Kyung-hee realized she was pregnant. The after-school teacher and her husband already had two daughters and so decided to have an abortion.
In many countries, this would be a simple medical procedure, undertaken with the support of the healthcare system. But in South Korea, Kim was left only with the option of an illegal operation.
While Kim's abortion took place 12 years ago, she said she is still haunted by the knowledge that she committed a crime.
"I felt guilty for getting rid of a life to begin with, but the fact that it was a crime made it emotionally much more difficult," Kim said.
Protests oppose the criminalization of abortion in South Korea.
Kim said finding a clinic to perform the operation wasn't particularly difficult. She simply went to a large obstetrician-gynecologist hospital. "After I had confirmation that I was pregnant ... I told the doctor I wanted an abortion so we scheduled the date and time," she said.
"I wasn't very healthy, so I should have stayed longer to fully recover but I felt that I had to get out," Kim said. She didn't tell her mother or siblings about it at the time.
Kim is not alone. According to the Health Ministry, 50,000 women had an abortion in South Korea last year.
That's down from 168,000 in 2011, according to the official data -- but many doctors disputed these figures saying the criminalization of the practice had distorted reporting of it.
They estimated the actual figure could be 10 times higher than that recorded by the government.
Kim believed the law had put an unjust burden on women.
"Pregnancy doesn't come about by women alone -- but to hold only women responsible makes the law very unfair," she said.
Changing attitudes
In 1953, South Korea criminalized abortion in most circumstances, with exceptions granted to cases involving rape, incest and genetic disability.
But in the following years, the law appeared to contradict other government policies, social norms and technological advances.
In the early 1960s, for example, the government launched a campaign to reduce the number of children per household, in a bid to get the population size under control.
Traditionally, South Korean couples had preferred sons over daughters, as they could carry on the family name, and so would keep having children until they had a boy. The new policy combined with the abortion ban left them with fewer legal options.
Even recently, women who had a child outside of marriage were often ostracized and cutoff from family support. Many chose to stay at shelters run by the government, religious groups and adoption centers.
Times changing
The Constitutional Court almost legalized abortion in 2012, said Cho Hee-kyoung, a law professor at Seoul's Hongik University. "The court was actually split. It was four to four and there was no deciding vote because, at the time, one seat was vacant."
Pressure to reform the law has been growing since then, both domestically and internationally. Pro-choice were emboldened by Ireland's landslide vote to legalize abortion, in a country where the stringently anti-choice Catholic Church has far more influence.
Current South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who is a Catholic, appointed five of the current nine Judges on the Constitutional Court. Though Moon has not spoken publicly about this issue, he has been supportive of gender equality and in favor of protecting rights for minorities.
In 2017, more than 235,000 people signed a petition to legalize abortion. In response, the government promised better sex education, more support for single mothers, and to research the issue.
Even some of the churches that oppose the legalization in principle disagree on imposing punishment solely on women.
Protests
The case before the Constitutional Court this week began after a doctor filed a petition against the law after he was indicted for carrying out an abortion of a three-month-old fetus in 2014.
The doctor claimed that the abortion ban violated his right to pursue happiness, to equality and freedom of occupation.
As ruling for the case approached, both anti- and pro-choice groups took to the streets of Seoul to make their case.
On April 6, about 1,000 anti-abortion protesters gathered in Seoul for a "March for Life," modeled on the US campaign of the same name. They bore placards with slogans such as "abortion is murder" and "both women and fetuses must be protected." Last week, Archibishop of Seoul, Andrew Yeom Soo-jung, said in a statement that "the pain for women derives from the situation that pushes them towards an abortion not from the criminal laws."
Abortion advocacy sweeping through Catholic nations 04:24
Yeom urged society "to focus on saving both women and fetuses rather than only focusing on the legalization of abortion."
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Meanwhile, activist Hong Yeon-ji, who attended a pro-choice rally along with hundreds of women a week before, said the current law was "abused by male partners as it penalizes the women who have the operation and the doctors who perform the operation."
She said that many doctors who performed illegal abortions were not properly trained and the surgery methods they used had not been updated in years because the act itself was illegal.
At the Korea Womenlink center, one of the largest women's activist groups in South Korea, where she works, Hong said she had encountered cases of men threatening their partners with being reported to the police for having an abortion, either to hurt them when a relationship broke down or to blackmail them for money.
Last month, South Korea's own human rights watchdog, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK), said that the current law was unconstitutional.
"In a democratic nation, people are not coerced to get pregnant and therefore the rights to terminate pregnancy should be safeguarded too," the NHRCK said in a statement.
"All couples and individuals should be able to freely decide on the number of children they have and when to have them."
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/11/health/south-korea-abortion-ban-ruling-intl/index.html
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