Top Korean court decriminalizes abortion

By Andrew Salmon, Seoul

„In a move that signals the increasing empowerment of women in South Korea, the Constitutional Court ruled today that a 66-year-old law that criminalized abortion is inconsistent with the constitution, and called for it to be amended.
The court’s decision punts the issue to the National Assembly, where a change must be made by the end of 2020. However, decriminalization is effective immediately, and will also be applied retroactively, to an earlier split decision on the issue made by the Constitutional Court in 2012.
The news was greeted with joy by activists outside the court, but the largest group of protesters on the scene were conservatives, many Christians, supporting the law. Some had turned up with children; many held placards saying “A fetus is a life.” “