Birth control has become an important issue for women’s rights as well as the environment. However, a study of South Korean women aged 19-34 found 45% believe contraception should be a man’s responsibility. Only 4.8% in the survey felt birth control was a woman’s responsibility.

The survey, by the Study Group for Contraception,
shows that most women are doing little or nothing to avoid unwanted
pregnancies. Of the 1000 women who participated in the survey, one in
five said she relied on coitus interruptus or timing pregnancy cycles
as a form of birth control. Both methods have high failure rates of
around 25%.

What’s more, abortion is illegal in South Korea, except under
extenuating circumstances. The result is an almost entirely first-world
country where each year hundreds of thousands of women practice illegal
abortions at "don’t ask don’t tell" clinics.

In 2005, the government admitted that more than 340,000 illegal
abortions had been carried out, while the number of child births for
that year was around 476,000. These numbers suggest that one out of
every 32 fertile women in South Korea is forced into having an illegal
abortion.

However, not surprisingly, women may not be to blame for their lack
of involvement in reproductive rights. The attitude can also be seen as
a carry-over from the country’s male-dominated Confucian culture, which
exerts significant control over female sexuality. While Korean men are
generally expected to gain sexual experience before marriage, women are
simply expected to practice abstinence until marriage. Those who don’t
have little chance to talk openly about sex.

The "don’t ask don’t tell" policy of abortion clinics reflects a
general attitude that shuns sexually active women. At the same time,
this "open secrecy" enables a greater number of illicit sexual
encounters for men. Just as illegal abortion clinics operate in the
open, illegal brothels are also easily recognized by red lights, tinted
windows, and sometimes even buskers.

Women in the Western culture may see this as an unfair double
standard. One foreign woman I talked with told me that when she tried
to gain access to birth control pills, which are available without
prescription at the pharmacy, she was told, "only certain kinds of
women take those pills." Attitudes like these are changing, especially
in metropolitan areas, but in South Korea they are still the norm.

To support or learn more about women’s reproductive rights, visit organizations like Ipas or Family Care International.