Ruth Institute Blog

Way to go, Dr. Sang-duk Shim and the doctors who have joined you to fight abortion in Korea. Way to be courageous despite opposition on many fronts.

From Mercatornet.com

A Korean gynaecologist explains why he abandoned a lucrative procedure and is campaigning to reduce abortions.

South Korea has one of the highest rates of abortion in the world, even though abortion is technically illegal there except in a few rare circumstances. According to official government figures, there are 340,000 abortions each year, although one parliamentarian has estimated that there may be as many as 1.5 million. At the same time, Korea’s birth rate is the second-lowest in the world – 1.19 births per woman — and some Koreans fear that their very survival as a nation is in doubt.

That is the background for a courageous decision by a 50-year-old Seoul obstetrician and gynaecologist, Dr Sang-duk Shim, to stop doing abortions and to lobby the government for a dramatic reduction. He has even received death threats for his stand. MercatorNet conducted this email interview with him:

Could you explain the goal of your activist group of doctors? What is its name? How many members do you have?

Dr Shim: This movement is the Korean Gynecological Physicians’ Association, or “Gynob”, and is an organization consisting of obstetricians and gynaecologists. Currently we have about 680 listed members. Of course, Gynob is not an organization designed only to resolve the problem of abortion, but is intended to improve the distorted medical enviroment in which OB/GYNs work. It does not mean that all of the members of Gynob actively participate in Gynob activities. Our movement is led by a group of about 30 activists.

The goal of our movement is a Korea without abortions. To be more specific, our immediate goal is to reduce the number of abortions to 100,000 cases within ten years — one-third of what it is today — and to eliminate all forms of abortion except when necessary to save the life of an expectant mother.

How long did you do abortions? How many did you do?

Dr Shim: It has been about 20 years since I obtained my qualification as an obstetrician. I have been involved in abortion for almost 20 years until I discontinued it in October, as part of my commitment to the anti-abortion movement. I do not have any written record of the abortions I did. However, I had about 20 cases a month, which means a total of 4,000 cases over the period of 20 years.

Why did you stop? Has it been a big sacrifice for you?

Dr Shim: Practicing abortion violates fundamental ethical values for medical doctors and I have suffered pangs of conscience for a long while. Over time, I have noticed that society as a whole and the medical services sector in particular did not try hard to reduce the number of abortions. Rather abortion was encouraged and the basic issues have been left untreated. Simply because of financial pressures on obstetricians, it became clear that abortion has been encouraged and generally accepted.

We feel that this problem cannot be left as is, and it must be rectified by the self-purification of medical doctors. Based on these convictions, we decided to launch this movement. However, the doctors who join the movement suffer from financial pressures and, at the same time, experience serious mental pains because they are treated as traitors by the medical doctors who do not support this movement.

In addition, anti-abortion doctors also suffer abuse from feminist activists who criticize us. They allege that we ignore their right to self-determination and their right to pursue happiness.

Continue: http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/terminating_koreas_abortion_culture/