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www.groovekorea.com / May 2014 68 Legal or not, women are making choices about abortions and fnding doctors who support them Story by Shelley DeWees Advertisements courtesy of Planned Population federation of Korea Additional reporting by Kyndra Love, Hyejin Park and Jongmin Lee “ No words can adequately illustrate the shock, fear and sorrow I experienced at the moment I discovered I was pregnant.” She was a Canadian expat living in Busan, casually dating another foreigner, just taking a pregnancy test on whim, all before being handed the jolt of her life with that small plastic window and its world-altering outcome. Only those who have experienced it can truly understand it. Positive. Life. Cell growth where there was none. The beginning of something, someone, the end of existence as you knew it before. Whatever hangs in the balance of that little centimeter-square win- dow means something different to everyone, but to Melissa Salvatore*, it meant a choice. “I contacted my boyfriend right away and he tried hard to say the right thing, to be sup- portive,” she said. “But I knew it was up to me. Choosing whether or not to give life is the most powerful moment a person can have, but also the greatest burden in the world. … This was not a clear-cut choice. Not at all.” But in the end, she said she knew what would be best for everyone involved, maternal instinct aside. “This was my life, and my chance to take charge,” she said. “I had to act.” Abortion is illegal in Korea, and is only al- lowed in cases of rape or incest, if the preg- nancy will likely damage the woman’s health, or if the fetus is suspected of having a genetic disorder or communicable disease. It’s a very narrow passageway through the red tape, yet the number of women who successfully obtain an abortion has skyrocketed since the early 2000s — 350,000 abortions are performed each year, compared to the 450,000 live births performed, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare. For every 1,000 wom- en in Korea, nearly 30 have had an abortion. That’s more than in the rest of the developed world (the average hovers somewhere around 27), even though abortion is illegal in Korea. Most of these procedures are not “unsafe” either. In Korea, a great number of women are accessing safe, low-risk abortions in san- itary facilities by trained professionals, despite their illegality. Concrete statistics are difficult to come by, but the abortion estimates are assumed to be on the low end, with some estimates putting the numbers at well over 1 million. Women are getting abortions every day, but for Salvatore and women across Korea, ac- cessing a counselor, finding support or even determining where to go just to discuss op- tions is tricky. No hospital or ob-gyn openly admits to performing the procedure for fear of prosecution, even though arrests are tre- mendously rare. True, the law is largely unen- forced — the JoongAng Daily found only 17 indictments between 2005 and 2009 — yet government intervention is a real risk. Women who are found guilty of undergoing an abor- tion while not qualifying for one of the excep- tions can be jailed for a year and fined 2 million won. For doctors, too, the consequences are very serious: loss of licensure and at least two years in the slammer; more if the woman is injured or dies as a result of the procedure. But Salvatore found someone nonetheless. “The woman in charge of translation at this clinic asked me to come in immediately. She was a godsend,” Salvatore said. “It was really thanks to her that everything happened the way it did for me.” That day, alongside the interpreter, the doctor confirmed her pregnancy and Salvatore imme- diately started planning what she needed to do, steps she needed to take, how she would cope. Her decision was unmade at this point, but she knew with confidence that abortions were commonly performed, and that maybe, if she asked carefully, she could possibly find someone who could offer a solution. At first, the doctor said no. Unequivocally no; abso- lutely not. But then, the interpreter turned to the doctor and said something that changed both his mind and the course of Salvatore’s life. “Suddenly, they were telling me how it could be done,” she said. “The right strings were pulled and the appointment was made for the following Saturday.” She spent the week agonizing over her de- cision. Counseling through the clinic was not available, so she sought out a few resources from home that helped put things in perspec- tive. Informed, prepared and aware of the magnanimity of her choice, she got through the doctor visit just fine and spent the after- noon recovering among sympathetic ears. “The nurses were amazing,” she said, “so comforting and kind. My situation was com- mon, totally non-unique. They held my hand the whole time and communicated their care, even without a common language.” The general consensus among most wom- en — Korean and foreign alike — about their experience at the hospital is positive: safe and secure environment, fast procedure, well- trained medical staff, as good an experience as one could expect considering the circum- stances. But beyond the walls of the clinic, the question of abortion is less clear; it’s pulsing through Korean society, penetrating social customs and long-held ideas about sexuality and racking the brains of government officials. Edited by Jenny Na (jenny@groovekorea.com) INSIGHT The choice ‘choosing whether or not to give life is the most powerful moment a person can have, but also the greatest burden in the world. … This was not a clear-cut choice. not at all.’ Melissa Salvatore