LASA/EANLAS: Rethinking Trans-Pacific Ties: Asia and Latin America

The Paradox of Political Opportunity Structure: A Comparative Study of Abortion Legalization in Korea and Argentina

• In Event: Comparative Social Policy between Asia and LAC

Abstract

Abortion legalization in Argentina on Dec. 2020 became a global news, which signaled the changes in gender relations in Latin America. Due to the resilient opposition against legalization of abortion in the country and the creative strategies of abortion rights movements to deal with it, Argentinean case offers a powerful social contrast which triggers researches on determinants of such success. Meanwhile, a lesser known change happened in Korea, where abortion is performed practically without little or no legal trouble even though it has been a criminal offense since 1953. On April 4 of 2019, the Supreme Court of Korea decided that the ban on abortion was unconstitutional. Such decision of fully legalizing abortion in Korea did not receive as much media attention as in Argentina. More important, the opposition against legalization of abortion rather has been strengthened by the decision and the attempt to modify the medical bill as well as “Protection of Motherhood Law” in order to regulate abortion as a medical procedure has been successfully blocked at the congress by anti-abortion organizations.
This paper aims at exploring such stark difference in abortion legalization in both countries. It also attempts to analyze the two cases by looking into political opportunity structure surrounding them. By doing so, this paper argues that distinct political opportunity structure led the abortion legalization movements of each country to adopt different framing of the discourses and ultimately resulted in different outcomes.

Author

• Yun-Joo Park, Keimyung University