Five years have passed since the Constitutional Court ruled that the abortion law was unconstitutional, but abortion by medication remains in a legal gray area. Nothing shows this better than the failure to introduce the abortion pill Mifegymiso (mifepristone and misoprostol) into Korea due to so-called legislative gaps.
Since 2021, Hyundai Pharma has submitted three applications to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) for approval of the combined abortion pill. Clinical studies conducted in the United States and Mexico have confirmed the method’s efficacy and safety.
“We need a legal basis to begin the approval process for Mifegymiso tablets. Currently, we cannot proceed with its substantive review due to a lack of such a basis,” an official at the Drug Approval Division of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) told journalists on Wednesday. But it seems it is the Ministry that has failed to take action to fill those gaps.
A week after the above report was published, the legalization of abortion pills emerged as a contentious issue once again. In the years since the Constitutional Court declared the abortion law unconstitutional, a legal vacuum has resulted due to problems with the illegal distribution of abortion pills. As the ruling party moved forward with the legislation of related bills, public opinion from the medical community, civic and religious organizations was sharply divided.
On 6th of August, according to a second article on a website called Biz.Chosun.com, the Health and Welfare Committee of the National Assembly held a debate under the theme ‘Six years after the Constitutional Court’s unconstitutional ruling on the abortion law, should we leave it as it is?’ In the previous month, lawmakers Nam In-soon and Lee Soo-jin from the Democratic Party of Korea each proposed amendments to the Maternal and Child Health Act to legalize abortion pills.
Both amendments removed provisions concerning the limits on permitted artificial abortions. They included provisions to allow artificial abortion through both surgery and medication, and to implement insurance coverage for it. The ruling party said: “We must prevent legal and institutional vacuums and guarantee self-determination rights.”
At the debate, lawmaker Nam In-soon stated: “Despite the 2019 Constitutional Court ruling decriminalizing abortion, access to abortion medication has become clandestine,” revealing the legislative intent. Lawmaker Lee Soo-jin also argued: “Safe abortion must be possible based on women’s judgment and decision.”
Park Ju-min, chair of the Health and Welfare Committee from the same party, stressed: “Due to the lack of law, women are forced into unsafe choices, and medical personnel are placed in a situation of uncertain legal risk.” Lee Dong-geun, Secretary-General of the Health Society for Healthy Society, also noted: “There are numerous research and evidence supporting the effectiveness and safety of abortion methods,” emphasizing the need for legalization.
Currently, prescribing or using abortion pills in Korea is illegal. The Constitutional Court decided on the unconstitutionality of the abortion law in 2019 and called for alternative legislation by the following year, but the legal vacuum has persisted until now. In 2020, the government announced a legislative proposal to allow abortion pills, but it was abolished due to the expiration of the deadline after much debate.
In the meantime, there have been ongoing cases of illegal distribution and transactions of the abortion pill Mifegyne through social media. Mifegyne is legally prescribed in more than 90 countries, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and China.
Mifegyne cannot be used domestically in Korea. Hyundai Pharm holds the domestic rights for Mifegyne and applied for product approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in July 2021, but it withdrew the application due, the article claims, to requests for supplementary safety data.
The article goes on to say that within the medical community, there were both supporting and opposing opinions. However, the more one reads that article, the more errors of fact begin to appear. The article provides quite a lot of false information about Mifegyne attributed to those who were anti-abortion. The last few paragraphs quoted many anti-abortion opinions. The outcome of the debate on the government’s bill on 6 August was not even stated.
SOURCES: Korea Biomedical Review, by Yun-mi, 30 July 2025. Biz.Chosun.com. 6 August 2025. https://biz.chosun.com/en/en-science/2025/08/06/EGV6KECRZFH63L26RT6UVFXYOA/
Editor’s Note: At the end of the Biz.Chosun.com article it states: “This article has been translated by AI.” So much for trusting AI!!