ASIA/SOUTH KOREA - A nationwide pro-life movement to "raise a prophetic cry"

Seoul (Agenzia Fides) - Bishop Moon Chang-woo, Bishop of Jeju, in his capacity as President of the Committee for Family and Life within the Korean Bishops' Conference, intends to relaunch the "Pro-Life Movement" on a large scale in all dioceses of the country, in order to "reawaken the sense of the mission and vocation to protect life from its beginning to its natural end" and "raise a prophetic cry," while returning the important issue of the inalienable respect for human life to public debate and become the subject of political action.
Conceived at the national level, the "Pro-Life Movement" aims to include, network, and coordinate the various existing initiatives in the regions, including, among others, the "Project for Unborn Life," created to help mothers in need not have abortions by providing them with Catholic health and care facilities. This also applies to the "Life 31" movement, which promotes the "Culture of Life" through various cultural activities and proclaims respect for life from the moment of conception to death.
Bishop Moon Chang-woo visited the National Assembly's Health Committee, located in the Parliament building, on August 26, along with representatives of various Catholic organizations, including the Bishops' Conference Bioethics Committee, the Pro-Life Committee of the Archdiocese of Seoul, the Catholic Bioethics Research Institute, and the Seongeui School of Life Sciences of the Catholic University of Korea.
The meeting focused on the amendment to the Maternal and Child Health Act, jointly proposed by 11 members of the Democratic Party of Korea. The amendment, whose passage was recently announced, was proposed to close the legal gap that arose following the Constitutional Court's ruling declaring abortion "unconstitutional" in 2019.
This amendment, if adopted, would allow abortions even when the fetus is viable outside the womb, permitting medical abortions and abolishing the previously envisaged cases in which voluntary termination of pregnancy was permitted (such as a serious threat to the woman's health). This, the Korean bishops noted (see Fides, 6/8/2025), completely deprives the fetus of its right to life and effectively allows "unrestricted abortion," regardless of age or exceptional circumstances.
In this sense, the representatives of the Catholic Church emphasized the need to inform and raise awareness among the Korean population, starting with Catholics. Father Leo Oh Seok-jun, Secretary General of the Pro-Life Committee of the Archdiocese of Seoul, recalled that "there have been many discussions on this issue in the past: We are against abortion, regardless of the gestational age. However, when a bill on abortion is proposed, it is important to provide comprehensive information and explain the issue clearly to the public so that believers and all people of good will do not lose touch with the central value of life, namely the dignity of human life."
In addition to the issue of unborn life, there is also the issue of the end of life, which is also a political focus, as Bishop Ku Yoo-bi, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Seoul and president of the Bioethics Committee, emphasized during an event on "End-of-Life Care" on August 28, also at the National Assembly.
At the debate, which was jointly organized by some members of the People Power Party, the Pro-Life Commission of the Archdiocese of Seoul, and the Catholic Bioethics Institute of Seoul, the Bishop stated: "The increasing demand for euthanasia and assisted suicide today is due to the loss of hope for recovery." "When our society emphasizes only efficiency and productivity, caring for patients is viewed as a wasteful and useless activity, which leads to patients being driven to their deaths." Bishop Ku Yoo-bi remarked: "Care is the measure of how humane a society is: A society that fails to provide care to the sick and the weak, a society that forces those in need of care and assistance to die, is a dehumanized society."
The bishop further emphasized: "Assisting a suffering patient in suicide out of supposed 'compassion' is misleading: It is a truly dangerous distortion of compassion." And he warned: "The right to self-determination is ultimately a right of a living person and therefore cannot take precedence over the right to life. Death can never be recognized as a right." (PA) (Agenzia Fides, 28/8/2025)

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