HuffPost Her Stories: South Korea Could Finally Decriminalize Abortion

Dear reader,

Abortion rights are threatened globally, but long-term trends are moving in an encouraging direction. More than 25 countries have expanded abortion access since 2000, according to a 2018 report  from the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights group.

The group’s analysis of abortion around the world also confirms what you might already imagine would be true: The less restrictive a country’s laws are, the less prevalent unsafe abortions are.

Shortly after the report came out, Ireland joined the list  of countries to expand abortion access. South Korea could be next .

South Korea is one of the few developed countries in the world that bans and penalizes abortion under most circumstances. Both doctors who illegally perform the procedure and women who undergo it can face fines and jail time.

But attitudes — and the makeup of the country’s top court — are shifting, raising the possibility that abortion could be decriminalized as early as next month.

President Moon Jae-in nominated two progressive judges to the Constitutional Court this month, which could tip the balance of the institution. If confirmed, the judges could be on the bench in time to rule on a challenge to the ban in April, HuffPost Korea reports . But timing is important Korean media reports that the court could rule on the case by April 11, a week before the departing justices are set to retire.

A doctor initiated the challenge in 2017 after he was charged with performing 69 illegal abortions from November 2013 to June 2015. The Constitutional Court upheld the ban as recently as 2012, but public opinion has since shifted.

A widely cited 2018 poll  of 10,000 South Korean women, for example, found than 75 percent of respondents between the ages of 15 and 44 believe abortion should be decriminalized. The National Human Rights Commission, an independent government body, also weighed in  on the sensitive issue. In a statement to the Constitutional Court the group said the criminalization of abortion infringes on women’s rights “to self-determination, right to health, right to life and reproductive rights.”

Until next time,

Emily

Michelle Obama ’s memoir, Becoming, has sold more than 10 million copies in the five months since its release, more than half a million of which were sold in the U.K. HuffPost reporters there spoke with women and girls  inspired by the former first lady’s story. The interviews show the breadth of her appeal — or the “Michelle Effect,” as it’s often called. Among her fans are a hijab-wearing teenager from south London who is inspired by Obama’s unapologetic resilience in the face of adversity and a white suburban mother trying to balance work and child care. “It’s hard to imagine that a book by the first black first lady growing up in Chicago in the ’60s and ‘70s could be that relatable to a white suburban mother who grew up in England in the ’80s and ’90s — but she pulls it off,” Catherine Barton says.

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