2026.07.21
By Kim Chan-Ho
Over the past five years, the government uncovered more than 3,000 cases of online sales of abortion medications (abortifacients), but only seven of them were actually referred for investigation. Because there is no provision that penalizes the act of purchasing abortion pills in the first place, crackdowns have clear limits in their effectiveness. Critics say the government is labeling as ‘illegal’ drugs that it can neither effectively block nor has grounds to punish, which in turn makes it impossible to grasp the realities of purchase·use and leaves the health rights of women in a blind spot.
According to Kyunghyang Shinmun reporting compiled on the 20th, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety detected the following numbers of abortion medication sales cases: 414 in 2021, 643 in 2022, 491 in 2023, 741 in 2024, 682 in 2025, and 218 from January to May this year, for a total of 3,189.
Continued: https://www.khan.co.kr/en/article/202607210634047