KOREA (R OF)-ABORTION-TBs-CCPR

Concluding Observations on Report 5 (2023) (Link)

Voluntary termination of pregnancy and sexual and reproductive rights

19. The Committee is concerned at the delay in taking appropriate legislative and other measures further to the Constitutional Court decision, handed down in April 2019, which decriminalized abortion, in order to ensure effective access to safe voluntary termination of pregnancy. In this regard, the Committee regrets the delay in reviewing the safety and efficacy of abortion pills (arts. 6–8).

 20. Bearing in mind paragraph 8 of the Committee’s general comment No. 36 (2018) on the right to life, the State party should take, without delay, all steps necessary to ensure effective access to safe and voluntary termination of pregnancy, including through the enactment of appropriate legislation that protects access to safe and legal abortion. It should introduce access to medical abortion pills in the country, and ensure health insurance coverage of abortion, access to contraception, abortion care and other reproductive health services.

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Concluding Observations on Report 4 (2015) (Link)

[no mention]

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Concluding Observations on Report 3 (2006) (Link)

[no mention]

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Concluding Observations on Report 2 (1999) (Link)

10. The Committee is deeply concerned about the laws and practices that encourage and reinforce discriminatory attitudes towards women. In particular, the family headship system both reflects and reinforces a patriarchal society in which women have a subordinate role. The practice of identifying the sex of foetuses, the disproportionate percentage of boys among second and third-born children and the high rate of maternal mortality that apparently arises from the number of unsafe abortions are deeply disturbing. The Committee stresses that prevailing social attitudes cannot justify failure by the State party to comply with its obligations, under articles 3 and 26 of the Covenant, to ensure equal protection of the law and the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all the rights set forth in the Covenant.

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Concluding Observations on Report 1 (1992) (Link)

479. … Information was requested on…the legal provisions concerning abortion.

494. … Although abortion was penalized under the Criminal Code, the Maternal and Child Health Act permitted exceptions in cases of rape, incest and threat to the health of the mother. The reference in the report to abortions for eugenic reasons covered cases where the foetus was severely deformed.

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