Image: Ahn Chang-ho
After removing his name from last year’s statement, Ahn Chang-ho appears to have done a 180-degree turn on the issue only a month out from a special review by GANHRI.
Marking International Safe Abortion Day on Sunday this year, Ahn Chang-ho, the head of South Korea’s human rights watchdog, issued a statement saying that Korea can “no longer neglect the legislative vacuum regarding guarantees for the right to a safe abortion.”
The statement called for guarantees for abortion rights and for the country to make abortion pills available. But only a year earlier, Ahn had called for his name to be removed from a press release making similar demands.
The published article cited below goes into great length about what took place the previous year and the context in which Ahn changed his mind for understandable reasons, not a flip-flop at all, and supported the legal change this year. It is an open access article and worth reading to understand the detail.
A recent survey in Korea of 300 women and 102 men aged 15-49 found that 44.6 percent of the female respondents and 44.1 percent of the male respondents said, “a woman should be able to get an abortion, based on her judgement and choice.”
SOURCES: Head of Korean human rights watchdog flip-flops on abortion rights ahead of GANHRI special review, by Koh Kyoung-tae. English.Hani.co.kr. 29 September 2025 ; Korea Herald, by Yoon Min-sik, 19 October 2025.