September 4, 2025
SEOUL – South Korea’s Constitutional Court declared the criminalization of pregnancy termination unconstitutional six years ago, but abortion procedures remain mired in legal limbo, leaving women to face uncertainty, stigma and unsafe alternatives.
Without follow-up legislation to regulate procedures and guarantee safe access, women seeking abortions are left in a blind spot. Hospitals often refuse to perform procedures because of the lack of legal approval: The Maternal and Child Health Act still resticts permission for abortion to specific cases, such as rape and incest.
Women are then left to scour online forums or underground markets to buy smuggled drugs at exorbitant prices, raising risks of counterfeit pills and severe health complications.
For many, especially minors, low-income individuals and those living outside cities, the barriers are even higher.
“I remember getting so scared searching online and talking to Chinese brokers to terminate a pregnancy when I just entered college. Because I had no one to seek help from, I had to get the pills delivered secretly and take a few days off to endure the process on my own, secretly in my bed for days,” a 24-year-old who wished to be anonymous told The Korea Herald.
Now the debate has reignited, as the Lee Jae Myung administration recently included the legalization of abortion medication in its five-year national policy agenda.
The drug at the center of the debate is mifepristone, a medication primarily used to terminate early pregnancies. Taken in combination with misoprostol, it enables early pregnancy termination without surgery. Widely used for decades in more than 90 countries, the World Health Organization has included mifepristone on its list of essential medicines since 2005, describing it as a proven, low-risk method of care.
In 2024, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea also recommended its formal introduction and classification as an essential medicine.
But despite international recognition of its safety, the pill is banned in South Korea. Health authorities have argued that regulatory and legal frameworks must come first.
This summer, both ruling and opposition lawmakers put forward bills that explicitly recognize abortion by medication as a legal medical procedure.
Rep. Nam In-soon of the Democratic Party of Korea and 10 co-sponsors introduced the first such bill of the 22nd National Assembly in July, amending the Maternal and Child Health Act to define abortion as “termination of pregnancy by surgical or pharmaceutical methods.” The bill calls for coverage under the national health insurance system, while removing many of the restrictions on provision.
International voices are also amplifying the urgency.
At a roundtable at the National Assembly in Seoul on Tuesday, Suzanne Veldhuis, a physician affiliated with Women on Web, urged that pregnancy termination should be treated as “a fundamental right.” Women on Web is an international non-profit organization that provides access to abortion pills for women living in countries where safe services remain restricted.
“Of the 73 million abortions performed annually worldwide, 25 million are carried out through unsafe methods,“ she said. “Abortion pills are the first step to ensuring women do not have to rely on clandestine and dangerous procedures.”
According to data shared at the discussion, the risk of serious side effects such as heavy bleeding from abortion medication is less than 0.5 percent.
Veldhuis cautioned that inequality tends to deepen in societies where abortion is illegal.
“Those who need abortion services are often among the most vulnerable,” she said, giving examples of survivors of domestic and sexual violence, adolescents and unemployed women.
“Without a proper system, people who lack access to information, education or financial resources are pushed toward unsafe abortions,” she warned.
Echoing her concerns, Yoon Jung-won, an obstetrician at the National Medical Center, said abortion services have effectively become a “luxury,” especially for women excluded from mainstream systems, such as migrant women and women with disabilities.
She also voiced concerns about a growing gap between demand and medical capacity, especially after a wave of trainee doctor resignations reduced gynecological services earlier this year.
According to a 2025 paper by the Korean Women’s Development Institute, the cost of abortion surgery has continued to climb, with 40 percent of patients reporting they paid over 1 million won ($718).
Health Minister Chung Eun-kyung has also said that the government will review the introduction of abortion drugs.
The Constitutional Court’s ruling in 2019 declared that criminalizing abortion violated women’s bodily autonomy and ordered lawmakers to craft a replacement law by the end of 2020.
The Assembly, however, failed to act, leaving the procedure in a legal gray area for six years.
In 2023, more than 1,800 pharmacists, doctors and citizens petitioned the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to allow abortion drugs and and classify them as essential medications, but regulators refused, citing a lack of social consensus.
As the government frames safe abortion access as part of its broader women’s health and rights agenda, expectations are rising that it could finally get legal recognition.
But until lawmakers translate policy pledges into enforceable law, experts say women continue to bear the risks of a system that recognizes their right to choose in theory, but withholds the tools to exercise it safely.