KMID : 1011120220150020047
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Bioethics Policy Studies 2022 Volume.15 No. 2 p.47 ~ p.76
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Does Canada Provide a Realistic Model for Korea to Follow in Regulating Abortion?
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John McGuire
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Abstract
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In 2019, the Constitutional Court of Korea ordered the legislature to revise the provisions of the Criminal Act that prohibited abortion before the end of 2020, at which point they would become ¡°null and void.¡± However, as of this writing the National Assembly has neither revised those provisions nor enacted new abortion legislation. As a result of the Court¡¯s actions and the Assembly¡¯s omissions, abortion in Korea is now in legal limbo: it has been fully decriminalized but not clearly legalized. Yet there are a number of practical questions concerning the regulation of abortion that need to be answered and which are difficult to answer in the absence of a clear legal framework for abortion. How, in this legal context, will abortion be regulated in Korea? In this article, I address this question by looking at the Canadian approach to regulating abortion and considering whether Korea might follow a similar path. The question is relevant since Canada has been without federal abortion laws ever since abortion was fully decriminalized 34 years ago. Instead of approaching abortion as a criminal or legislative matter, Canada has adopted a medical model, regulating abortion as a standard part of healthcare. After reviewing the main judicial decisions that have shaped the Canadian approach to regulating abortion and comparing them to the Constitutional Court of Korea¡¯s recent rulings on Korea¡¯s abortion legislation, I conclude that the Canadian approach to regulating abortion is an unrealistic model for Korea.
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KEYWORD
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abortion regulation, decriminalization, medical model, fetal rights, Korea, Canada
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