As abortion pills that are taken orally have been recently developed, the controversy surrounding abortion is resurfacing. This controversy is ongoing not just domestically but worldwide; while religious and ethical organizations argue that abortion should never be permitted on the basis of “rights of the fetus” and religious and ethical reasons, others voice the opinion that abortion should be permitted on the basis of the right to pursue happiness and the dignity of mankind.
Since the fetus was seen as part of the maternal body in the laws of Ancient Greece, abortion was not seen as a crime. The rights of fetus began to be protected under laws against abortion from the laws of Middle Age church laws and German common laws. The ideological background involved Christian beliefs and the ‘ensoulment theory’ that soul lives within the body. The believers of this theory reasoned that after conception, the soul enters the fetus within 10 weeks and so killing the baby after that time is equal to murdering a human being. Caroina criminal law distinguished the fetus with life from the fetus without, and deemed it murder only when the former was aborted. Although the rights of the fetus is protected in principle by criminal law chapter 27, act 268, but abortion is allowed when necessary according to the adaption rules of Mother and Child Health Care Law. In actuality, it is extremely difficult to determine to what extent the fetus can be seen as an entity with human rights. In the case of Korea, abortion was prohibited as criminal law was established in 1953, but the legal case of aborting a baby within 28 weeks of pregnancy was established with the enactment of the mother and Child Health Care Law. But the increase of leniency on limits on abortion in the 1970s can’t be directly attributed to social demand. It can be seen as a solution on the national level to solve the social problem of sudden population boost and to decrease the discrepancy between the laws and the reality, taking in the international trend of weakening limits against abortion. It can also be seen as an accepting the idea of controlling the population in politics.
The making of abortion a criminal offence is not to control women’s rights to have a sexual relationship but to value and protect the rights of the fetus. The High Court of Korea punished a doctor who negligently killed a fetus and legally treated the fetus as a human being. The reason why other developed nations like the United States of America-where sexual activities are more openly discussed has lower abortion rate is because they adopted more systemic sex education programs. It is practical to educate people about the use of contraception to avoid having an unwanted child. Abortion rate cannot be decreased by forcing people have ethical sex. Hence, a detailed sex education programs should be adopted to educate teenagers. For example, by inviting an expert to educate middle and high school students about pregnancy and contraception or even showing students DVDs about abortion to make them realize the seriousness of the effects of having unsafe sex, the abortion rate could be reduced.