Korean scholars, including legal experts, theologians, and medical professionals, have issued a stark warning at the Sungsan Bioethics Research Institute’s 28th anniversary seminar in Seoul on December 13, 2025, against the legalization of assisted suicide and the expansion of medication abortion, decrying these progressive measures as a grave threat to South Korea’s ethical foundations and the sanctity of human life.
They argue that ambiguous laws like the proposed “Assisted Dignified Death Act” and amendments to the Mother and Child Health Act blur critical distinctions, risking irreversible moral decay akin to international precedents where safeguards crumbled. This push reflects leftist ideologies prioritizing individual convenience over divine order, family integrity, and protections for the vulnerable, undermining society’s Christian roots amid a 2019 Constitutional Court ruling that struck down the abortion ban.
On assisted suicide, experts condemned the bill’s conflation of withdrawing life-sustaining treatment with euthanasia and assisted dying, warning of legal ambiguities that could expand beyond terminal cases to include mental illness, dementia, and even children, as seen in the Netherlands’ slippery slope since 2002. Adjunct professor Shin Hyo-sung highlighted this as a “clear warning that laws introduced with good intentions can expand in unintended directions,” while former seminary dean Lee Sang-won noted all forms involve ending life with medical assistance, potentially normalizing state-sanctioned killing over palliative care.
Regarding medication abortion, scholars exposed the dangers of drugs like misoprostol, originally for gastric ulcers, which pose severe risks including fetal abnormalities, uterine rupture, heavy bleeding, and high surgical intervention rates, often marketed deceptively as “noninvasive” through telemedicine and pharmacies. Professor Hong Soon-cheol urged building environments that “protect life” instead of expanding abortion convenience, while SUFL chair Jang Ji-young called it “structural violence” that transfers risks to women under euphemisms like “choice” and “reproductive rights.” The seminar framed these debates as profound questions about societal values, calling for ethical centering, enhanced palliative care, and support for pregnant women to counter political urgency and ideological overreach.
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