Two doctors in South Korea have been sentenced to prison for murdering a newborn delivered at 36 weeks and leaving the infant to die in a freezer.
SEOUL: A South Korean court has sentenced two doctors to prison for murdering a baby they delivered at 36 weeks of pregnancy and left to die in a freezer.
The head of the hospital where the surgery took place received a six-year prison term and was ordered to pay 1.15 billion won in restitution, while the doctor who performed the surgery was sentenced to four years.
The infant’s mother, surnamed Kwon, was found guilty of being an accomplice to murder and given a three-year suspended jail term.
The court explained her comparatively light sentence by saying it had taken into account the social and economic difficulties women often experience during pregnancy.
“The victim died in a cold storage room without ever seeing the light of day or taking a single breath outside,” the court said in its verdict.
“It is difficult to fathom the pain and fear the victim must have faced,” the verdict added.
Kwon, who is in her late 20s, sparked public outrage in 2024 when she posted a YouTube video claiming she had undergone an abortion at 36 weeks, a stage when the majority of babies can survive outside the womb.
The clip was soon deleted but screenshots continued to circulate online, prompting a police investigation into Kwon and the doctors involved.
The court heard how the two doctors had arranged to deliver Kwon’s baby by Caesarean section before placing it in a freezer to end its life.
South Korea decriminalised abortion in 2019 after the Constitutional Court ordered the decades-old ban lifted, ruling that the 1953 statute “goes against the constitution”.
It recommended that abortions be allowed up to 22 weeks of pregnancy and ordered the law to be revised by the end of 2020.
Political deadlock has prevented successive governments from passing new laws to regulate the practice, however, leaving a legal vacuum in place.
Neither of the doctors have been publicly named, while Kwon has said she only discovered she was pregnant very late in the process.
The Sun Malaysia
