South Korea is set to normalize abortion pills for the first time, more than seven years after its Constitutional Court abolished a draconian ban. The government said this week that pills would be permitted for pregnancies of up to nine weeks, with a target of making them accessible by the first quarter of 2027.
The decision is a culmination of legislative inaction over the years that created a dangerous loophole. While the Supreme Court declared the criminalization of abortion unconstitutional in 2019, legislation wasn’t amended to remove the provisions entirely. Many women were left with a confused situation, few options, and in some cases the danger of using a risky procedure, until now. Officials say the introduction of pills is a pragmatic way to safeguard health and safety in the country’s hospital system rather than allow people to broker their way through a dysfunctional system.
The plan also limits the use of the drug to the earlier part of pregnancies, more exactly within 63 days or 9 weeks. During the first 2 years, prescriptions and dispensing will only take place in hospitals and clinics, controlled by doctors. This will enable the authorities to have a closer look at their safety, side-effects and real-life use before rolling it out on the market through pharmacies. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) has already begun screening applications already, including one for combined pill (containing mifepristone and misoprostol, based on the label in certain markets, Mifegyne or Mifegymiso).
Prime Minister Han Seong-sook has been unequivocal about the situation’s urgency: “the ever-widening institutional vacuum is forcing some women to go to unsafe places…. We can’t continue with this attitude of ignoring the issue. It is an issue of public health.” Gender Equality and Family Minister Won Min-kyong pointed out that “deciding whether to have a baby or not affects a woman’s whole life, ” and the dearth of safe, regulated options has deprived people of access to the medical system. President Lee Jae Myung’s orders in July to explore options, including permitting the pills ahead of the legislation, have hastened the process.
The announcement has been met with a mixed response that captures the multifaceted nature of the controversy. Women’s organizations generally greeted it positively as a significant milestone in ensuring safer care and have requested for wider accesspossibly extending the window and relaxing restrictions when safety data warrants this. But medical organizations have been cautious, demanding legal guarantees and stringent controls to prevent abuse. Religious groups have also voiced opposition, among other things, to the broader social implications. Such a range of perspective is not surprising in a country that has long grappled with changing social attitudes to abortion fashioned by spiritual religious racial/ethnic and demographic forces including fears over its increasingly aging population.
What is striking about the government’s method is its emphasis on step-by-step introduction and medical supervision. The process being carried out in hospitals in the first place was aiming to generate more dependable information on the drug’s efficacy during/after administration and prevent diversion.
