SEOUL: A South Korean court jailed two doctors on Wednesday for murdering a baby they delivered at 36 weeks of pregnancy and left to die in a freezer.
South Korea has decriminalised abortion but political deadlock has prevented successive governments from passing new laws to regulate the practice.
The infant´s mother, surnamed Kwon, 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 in the surgery.
A spokesman for the Seoul Central District Court told AFP on Wednesday that two doctors had been found guilty of murdering the infant.
The head of the hospital where the surgery took place was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to pay 1.15 billion won ($780,000) in restitution, while the doctor who performed the surgery received four years, the spokesman said.
Kwon, who is in her late 20s, 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 Yonhap news agency reported.
