Korean Journal of Medical Ethics
The Korean Society for Medical Ethics
Article

Should Abortion Be Decriminalized in Korea?

John MCGUIRE1,*https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5133-7883
1한양대학교 국제학부
1Division of International Studies, Hanyang University
*교신저자: John McGuire. 한양대학교 국제학부. Tel: 02-2220-2282. Fax: 02-2220-0289. e-mail: mcguire@hanyang.ac.kr

ⓒ Copyright 2018 The Korean Society for Medical Ethics. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: May 28, 2018; Revised: May 30, 2018; Accepted: Jun 13, 2018

Published Online: Jun 30, 2018

ABSTRACT

The Constitutional Court of Korea is currently tasked with making a decision on the country’s laws concerning abortion, which is one of the most divisive issues in medical ethics. However, as I argue in this article, the key ethical issue at the heart of this case—whether abortion should be decriminalized—need not be divisive at all. To move beyond the polarization this issue generates, the rights-based thinking that plagues so much of the abortion debate should be replaced with a pragmatic approach that attempts to assess the costs and benefits of maintaining the current abortion ban versus those of decriminalizing abortion. Progress can come when the groups that are divided on the abortion issue recognize that they have something in common, which I claim is the goal of reducing the number of abortions. The key question that is prioritized on the approach that I defend is whether the existing ban on abortion is the best or most effective way to reduce the abortion rate in this country. In this article I present evidence to suggest that it is not.

Keywords: abortion; moral rights; Criminal Code; Mother and Child Health Act; deep pragmatism