SKorean women caught in abortion limbo
source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g9dBWZiIC1HAqKNMN72697cCdKTQD9EGG0F00
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- Trauzer
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"SEOUL, South Korea — Having a third child wasn't in Mrs. Kim's plans. She and her husband are already struggling to get by.
But getting an abortion, once so routine here that South Korea was known as "Abortion Republic," is no longer easy. In recent weeks, the government has begun enforcing a long-ignored ban on the procedure for the first time.
It took Mrs. Kim 10 tries to find a doctor willing to perform an abortion, and he's demanding nearly $1,000 in cash. To scrape together the money, the six-weeks pregnant woman took a second job cleaning an office building overnight for a few weeks.
"I can barely afford to have an abortion. How can I afford to raise and put a kid through college?" the 31-year-old secretary said, dunking a rag into a bucket of water. She asked to be identified only by her surname due to the sensitivity of the matter.
South Korea outlawed abortion in 1953 with exceptions for rape, incest or severe genetic disorders. Yet authorities turned a blind eye for decades, as the nation sought to tame population growth. For $300, women could get an abortion at almost any OB-GYN clinic.
That changed earlier this year, a shift that pro-choice activists say was motivated by the country's plunging birthrate. The Ministry of Health and Welfare even announced it would set up a hot line for citizens to report on law-breaking doctors or pregnant women.
Suddenly, the long-hidden topic of abortion has become the focus of a heated public debate while doctors who carry them out have gone underground.
Hospitals have stopped openly advertising abortions. One gynecologist in eastern Seoul says she turns away patients who call, but quietly accepts them if they show up in person. Another in the city's fashionable Apgujeong district asks for up to $2,000 "to help cover the legal risks," and requires patients to sign a waiver freeing the doctor from liability.
Last month, a woman gave birth and suffocated her newborn to death in a motel room, Seoul police said.
"In the current social mood against abortions, I knew that I could get arrested trying to get one, but also that I couldn't afford one anyway because prices have risen so much," the woman said, according to a police statement.
The procedure was seen for years as a way to help curb high fertility rates, sociologist Cho Byong-hee said.
"The government aggressively propagated the notion that having fewer kids would lead to prosperity, without any public debates or discussions over the ethics of abortion," said Cho, a professor at Seoul National University.
Birth control is still a taboo in South Korea, a society shaped by a Confucian heritage that prizes chastity. Lack of education on birth control means too many unplanned pregnancies, said women's rights activist Kim Doo-na."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g9dBWZiIC1HAqKNMN72697cCdKTQD9...
But getting an abortion, once so routine here that South Korea was known as "Abortion Republic," is no longer easy. In recent weeks, the government has begun enforcing a long-ignored ban on the procedure for the first time.
It took Mrs. Kim 10 tries to find a doctor willing to perform an abortion, and he's demanding nearly $1,000 in cash. To scrape together the money, the six-weeks pregnant woman took a second job cleaning an office building overnight for a few weeks.
"I can barely afford to have an abortion. How can I afford to raise and put a kid through college?" the 31-year-old secretary said, dunking a rag into a bucket of water. She asked to be identified only by her surname due to the sensitivity of the matter.
South Korea outlawed abortion in 1953 with exceptions for rape, incest or severe genetic disorders. Yet authorities turned a blind eye for decades, as the nation sought to tame population growth. For $300, women could get an abortion at almost any OB-GYN clinic.
That changed earlier this year, a shift that pro-choice activists say was motivated by the country's plunging birthrate. The Ministry of Health and Welfare even announced it would set up a hot line for citizens to report on law-breaking doctors or pregnant women.
Suddenly, the long-hidden topic of abortion has become the focus of a heated public debate while doctors who carry them out have gone underground.
Hospitals have stopped openly advertising abortions. One gynecologist in eastern Seoul says she turns away patients who call, but quietly accepts them if they show up in person. Another in the city's fashionable Apgujeong district asks for up to $2,000 "to help cover the legal risks," and requires patients to sign a waiver freeing the doctor from liability.
Last month, a woman gave birth and suffocated her newborn to death in a motel room, Seoul police said.
"In the current social mood against abortions, I knew that I could get arrested trying to get one, but also that I couldn't afford one anyway because prices have risen so much," the woman said, according to a police statement.
The procedure was seen for years as a way to help curb high fertility rates, sociologist Cho Byong-hee said.
"The government aggressively propagated the notion that having fewer kids would lead to prosperity, without any public debates or discussions over the ethics of abortion," said Cho, a professor at Seoul National University.
Birth control is still a taboo in South Korea, a society shaped by a Confucian heritage that prizes chastity. Lack of education on birth control means too many unplanned pregnancies, said women's rights activist Kim Doo-na."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g9dBWZiIC1HAqKNMN72697cCdKTQD9...
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- tags:
- Women, Abortion, Women's Rights, South Korea, 3 more
