Pink? Blue? Instantly Revealing Child's Gender... Medical Law Amendment Passed by National Assembly

Regulation Prohibiting Disclosure of Fetal Gender Before 32 Weeks Removed

The amendment to the Medical Service Act, which legalizes informing women before 32 weeks of pregnancy of the fetus's sex by medical professionals, has passed the National Assembly plenary session.

On the 2nd, the ruling and opposition parties held a plenary session and passed the partial amendment to the Medical Service Act with 280 votes in favor and 6 abstentions out of 286 members present. The amendment mainly deletes the provision that prohibited medical professionals from informing the fetus's sex before 32 weeks of pregnancy.

The Constitutional Court ruled in February that the provision in the Medical Service Act banning medical professionals from revealing the fetus's sex before 32 weeks of pregnancy was unconstitutional. As a result of the court's decision, the prohibition clause immediately became null and void.

Additionally, the amendment adds a requirement for designation as a specialized hospital that there must be no record of disciplinary actions such as suspension of medical practice for three months or more in the past three years, and stipulates that if a specialized hospital receives disciplinary actions such as suspension of medical practice for three months or more, its designation as a specialized hospital can be revoked. The current law does not have specific provisions regarding whether the designation remains effective if a specialized hospital is found to have conducted unauthorized procedures such as proxy surgeries and receives suspension orders after designation.