By
Narang
Published
October 15, 2016
Translated
by Kang Yieun
On
October 15, 2016, about 400 citizens gathered in front of Boshingak bell in
Jongno, Seoul. They wore black like the Polish protesters who demonstrated against
the total ban on abortion. (In October 2016, over 20,000 women poured into the streets
in Poland to successfully stop a bill that would have imposed a total ban on
abortion. The protesters wore black to mourn the “death” of reproductive
rights.) Some were holding wire-hangers, which symbolize unsafe self-induced abortions
performed in societies where abortion is illegal.
 |
| Citizens gathered in front of Boshingak bell in Jongno, wearing black and shouting for the decriminalization of abortion. Ocrober 15, 2016. © Ilda |
This
demonstration was organized by feminist individuals and organizations such as ‘Fireworks
Femi-Action,’ ‘Femi-Dangdang*,’ and ‘Gangnam Station Exit 10**.’ Participants marched
in the Jongno area shouting phrases such as “women are people too”, “decriminalize
abortion”, “my uterus, my decision”, and “stop the negotiation.”
*Dangdang means “to be proud”, but dang by itself can also mean “political
party”. Femi-Dangdang is an organization that aims to create a feminist party.
**Gangnam
Station Exit 10 is the area where the murder of a young
woman happened in May 2016.
Always excluded from the abortion discussion—how can that
be?
This
demonstration was triggered by an announcement by the Ministry of Health and
Welfare of a draft amendment called, “Concerning Administrative Disposition Rules
on Medical Relations.” Included in the amendment’s list of unethical acts by
medical personnel to be more harshly penalized was performing abortion, along
with surgery performed by a substitute surgeon, sexual harassment by a physician
during medical treatment, and unauthorized use of needles. The ministry included
an article which would suspend the medical license of those who performed
abortion for up to 12 months.
To show
their opposition towards the draft amendment, the Korean Association of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists threatened to stop performing all induced
abortion procedures starting November 2, which was the scheduled effective date
of the draft amendment, unless abortion was erased from the list of unethical
acts.
Women have
become enraged; the government is trying to control their reproductive rights,
and even the doctors who oppose such control use women’s bodies as hostages. Movements
that started on social media spilled over into action on the streets.
Women’s
voices have always been excluded from the discourse on pregnancy, birth, and
abortion, even though these things all happen in their bodies. In the 1960s and
1970s, the military dictatorship of General Park Chung-hee promoted policies,
intended to reduce population growth in the name of economic growth, that included
coerced sterilization and contraception, as well as turning a blind eye to abortion,
which was always illegal but widespread.
After
several decades, however, the low birth rate became a pressing social issue, and
the government set out to decrease the abortion rate by targeted regulation of ‘illegal’
abortions, which had largely been covered up until that time. Abortion accusation
frenzy followed – in 2010, an organization called “Pro-life Doctors” accused
four medical practices of performing abortions, and a woman was sued by her
boyfriend for having an abortion. Prices for abortion procedures sky-rocketed, leading
some to go abroad to get them.
Pregnancy, birth, and abortion rights all belong to women!
 |
| © Women on Waves |
Demonstration
participants expressed anger at a society that paints women who have an
abortion as murderers, and forces them to give birth without providing the means
for them to raise children. They also asked, “She got pregnant by herself?” as
a way of criticizing the current law which only punishes women and medical
providers without holding men, who are just as heavily involved, responsible.
Some
participants shared their personal experiences with and opinions on abortion.
Artist Hong Seung-hee talked about her abortion in last May. She cut short a
trip to India to attend this demonstration. She said, “It was as if I was
confined in a solitary jail; the isolation was the hardest part.”
She
continued, “I found abortion to be such a taxing experience, but this point is
not part of the social discourse at all. Why is it that matters that happen in
women’s bodies do not become social issues? I have a right to be pregnant if I
want to and a right to terminate pregnancies that I do not want. I never murdered
anyone. I am a human being first, before being a potential bride or mother. My
uterus is not a public resource.”
Yu
Ye-bin from Pusan introduced herself as “the unaborted daughter of a non-married*
mother”. She said, “From an early age, whenever my mother got drunk, she told
me that she should have aborted me, that she didn’t know why she gave birth to me,
and that she regretted it.” She criticized the sexist reality where “children
who are born instead of being aborted get called bastards; mothers who give
birth instead of terminating the pregnancy become unwed mothers. How come there
is no word for men who do not take responsibility for their children? I am a
bastard, and my mother an unwed mother. Where is a word to refer to my
biological father?”
A
woman who introduced herself as a “high school student feminist” said, “In the
12 years of my education, so far there has not been a single proper sex
education or contraceptive education session.
Whose
fault is it when you get pregnant because you didn’t know correct contraception
methods, or because your male partner refused to use a condom? Isn’t the fault
on the government that did not provide education, or on the selfish male?
However, society criticizes teenage girls who get pregnant for having sex and
getting pregnant.”
Ahn
Hyeon-jin, who is the manager of the Facebook page “Gangnam Station Exit 10,” raised
a question by saying, “More than 200,000 women in Korea have an abortion every
year. Once the announced bill passes, it will become even harder for these
women to get safe abortions. When the Ob/Gyn doctors who should urge the improvement
of the law instead threaten the government with the refusal to perform any
abortions, I cannot help but wonder who makes decisions for women’s lives.” She
continued, “Women are not machines that give birth, they have the right to a complete
set of choices over their bodies.”
*Bihonmo (a non-married mother) is a
conscious word choice that tries to describe the mother’s marital status with
neutral language as opposed to the commonly used word, mihonmo (an unwed mother), which implies that the mother should
have married or should soon marry.
 |
| Korean “black protesters” march, demanding the decriminalization of abortion. October 15, 2016. © Ilda |
Women’s organizations and
online communities join movements to decriminalize abortion
As
many women’s organizations and online communities join the movement to thwart
the bill announced by the ministry, a campaign to decriminalize abortion is also
picking up. Sex & Reproduction Forum, which is a consortium of organizations
such as Women with Disabilities Empathy, the Gender Team of the Center for
Health and Social Change, and the Network for Glocal Activism/School of
Feminism, released a statement which claimed that “the discrepancy between reality
and the law will remain as long as abortion is a criminal offense, even if the
article on abortion is erased from the current draft of the amendment”. They wrote,
“The government [not women] has showed
the most disregard for life and livelihood with their population policy, forced
abortions performed on patients with Hansen’s disease, etc. Its blaming women instead,
under the name of morals and law, is the true face of the criminalization of abortion.”
The
statement goes on: “Abortion is not an act to be punished, or to be permitted by
the government conditional on providing acceptable reasons. Pregnancy, birth,
and abortion are all life events that may happen outside one’s control, and the
course of these events should be decided by the person involved, with sufficient
socioeconomic support.”
The
forum will hold its first press conference on October 17, and plans to start a
campaign for the decriminalization of abortion.
Meanwhile,
Korean Womenlink started a campaign to collect 10,000 signatures demanding the decriminalization
of abortion. “Womad,” an online community, also plans to hold demonstrations at
Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul on October 23 and 30.
※Sign
the statement demanding the withdrawal of the draft bill announced by the
Ministry of Health and Welfare and the decriminalization of abortion, which is
scheduled to be released at a press conference on October 17, 2016: http://bit.ly/2e9wy7c
※Sign
the petition for the amendment of Article 27 of the Criminal Law, which violates
women’s reproductive autonomy by defining abortion as a criminal offense: http://bit.ly/2dRKcfZ
*Original article: http://ildaro.com/sub_read.html?uid=7627§ion=sc1
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