South Korea this week announced that it plans to approve abortion medication, with restrictions, for the first time in a nation that used to have one of the strictest policies against abortion among developed countries. Government officials are looking to authorize such medication seven years after the country’s Constitutional Court ruled a longstanding ban on most abortions unconstitutional. While abortion was decriminalized, the South Korean parliament has yet to enact new regulations.
President Lee Jae-myung recognized this legal vacuum on social media and said the government’s decision to introduce abortion drugs in phases can improve protections for women who need access to medically safe procedures. I believe that doing what we can now, rather than waiting for a perfect solution, is a slightly better decision.” Won Min-kyong, Minister of Gender Equality and Family, said Wednesday that under the proposal, women up to nine weeks pregnant could acquire the drug with a prescription and only through hospitals or clinics. The first rollout, starting in the first quarter of 2027, will span at least two years, and Won added that they will use this period to monitor for safety issues or side effects.
Before the 2019 ruling, abortion was strictly banned save for a few exceptions, including for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Estimates from South Korea’s Institute for Health and Social Affairs suggest that the number of abortions in the country had fallen from an estimated 241,411 in 2008 to just 32,063 in 2020, the last year for which statistics are available. In 2011, the health ministry director at the time attributed the downward trend to “a combination of factors including easier accessibility and use of contraceptives, broadening anti-abortion campaigns, and an improved social environment for childbirth and childcare.” Prime Minister Han Seong-sook responded to critics and conservatives who are against the abortion medication plan, saying the government is also taking “concerns regarding the value of life” seriously.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has been reviewing an application for approving the import of a drug combination of mifepristone and misoprostol—the most common regimen for abortion medication in the U.S. Misoprostol and its combination with mifepristone are included on the World Health Organization’s Model List of Essential Medicines and are used for the management of medical abortion. Mifepristone blocks progesterone, the hormone that keeps pregnancies going, while misoprostol, taken 24 to 48 hours later, empties the uterus.
But misoprostol is also used to treat stomach ulcers. The WHO has recommended that women less than 12 weeks pregnant could use the drug combination to induce abortions. But South Korean officials said that the limit was set to 9 weeks since the product seeking approval in the country was tested on women that long into their pregnancies.
France and China became the first countries to approve mifepristone in 1988. According to the WHO’s Global Abortion Policies Database, 84 nations have country-recognized approval of mifepristone or a mix of mifepristone and misoprostol, which means that the drug is either included on the national Essential Medicines List or any other official national list. Of the 84, 32 are in Europe, 23 in Africa, and 18 in Asia.
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