Abortion in Korea

This stat just go to show that children are learning at a young age in Korea that abortion is just another form of birth control

More than one out of four female high school students who have had sexual relations have also had an abortion, the Korea Federation for HIV/AIDS Prevention said Thursday.

According to the agency’s recent survey of 2,898 middle school and high school students in Seoul, 26.9 percent of female high school students engaging in sex have had an abortion.

About 27 percent of middle school students and 47.9 percent of high school students responded that having sexual relations before marriage was not a problem.

While 1.1 percent of middle school students said they have had a sexual relationship, 7.5 percent of high school students said so. The average age for their first sexual relationship was 13.3 for middle school students and 15.2 for high school students. Among high school students who have experience of sex, 67 percent said that they have had at least two sexual partners.

.  According to South Korean law abortion is supposed to be illegal in most instances:

The Criminal Code criminalizes the act of procuring an abortion and administering an abortion. A woman who procures an abortion may be punished with up to a 2 million won fine and one year in jail.

A doctor, or the like, who performs an abortion may be punished with up to two years in jail if no injury occurs to the mother, up to three years in jail if an injury occurs to the mother, and up to five years in jail if the mother dies. Additionally, a doctor may lose his or her qualification to practice medicine for up to seven years.

In 1973, however, the Maternal and Child Health and the Mother and Fatherless Child Health Acts established exemptions from this prohibition.

According to the law, a physician may perform an abortion if the pregnant woman or her spouse suffers from an eugenic or hereditary mental or physical disease specified by Presidential Decree, if the woman or her spouse suffers from a communicable disease specified by Presidential Decree, if the pregnancy results from rape or incest or if continuation of the pregnancy is likely to jeopardize the mother’s health.

However, the law is enforced as strongly as traffic laws in Korea:

Today, a pregnant woman who wishes to abort her fetus usually visits her local obstetrician/gynecologist and the doctor usually performs the abortion or the doctor refers the patient to a clinic that will perform the abortion.

According to a information obtained in a phone call to a local clinic, abortions cost between 350,000 won and 600,00 won in normal cases. Additionally, most clinics will only perform abortions up to 28 weeks from conception, since at the 28-week mark the abortion may jeopardize the health of the mother.

It is kind of amazing that a country trying to improve a birthrate that is the lowest in the world is doing nothing to stop one of the many reasons for it being so low to begin with.