A South Korean woman who underwent a c-section procedure at 36 weeks for the purpose of ending her child's life has been acquitted of murder charges; abortionists put the living baby into a freezer to kill it.

Key Takeaways:

• In 2024, a South Korean YouTuber named Kwon posted a video detailing what she said was a 36-week abortion.

• Two doctors performed a C-section on her, delivering the baby alive, before putting the newborn in a freezer to kill him or her.

• Both doctors, along with Kwon, were charged with murder, and all three were initially sentenced to time in prison.

• A court has since acquitted Kwon of the charges, saying she may not have realized the doctors would kill the baby.

• However, the doctors' jail time was reduced as well, despite the fact that this child was not killed in the womb but was instead killed after birth (infanticide).

The Backstory:

Kwon uploaded a video in 2024, saying she had undergone a 36-week abortion, which is just one week shy of full term. The outlook for babies born after 34 weeks is excellent, and most are able to survive. This led to a police investigation, and Kwon and two doctors were arrested in 2025.

Authorities discovered that the two doctors performed a C-section on Kwon, rather than a typical abortion procedure. In the third trimester, most abortions are committed via an induction procedure, which in most cases takes several days.

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The baby was delivered behind a surgical drape and was born alive. Rather than provide care to the infant, the doctors put the living baby into a freezer, committing infanticide. They then attempted to falsify Kwon's records to make it look like she had experienced a stillbirth.

The investigation unearthed an abortion scheme, in which authorities believe hospital staff members committed over 500 abortions arranged through brokers, earning almost 1.5 billion won ($1.09 million USD).

All three were charged with murder and convicted. The hospital director, identified as Yoon, was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to pay 1.15 billion won ($780,000) in restitution. The surgeon, identified as Shim, was sentenced to four years in prison. Kwon was given a three-year prison sentence suspended for five years, along with 200 hours of community service.

“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.

The Details:

Despite the cruelty of the crime on an infant born alive, Yoon and Sim have had their sentences reduced, and Kwon has been acquitted of murder charges.

Yoon will now serve just four years in prison, while Shim's sentence is now two years and six months, and both have additionally been banned from working at child-related institutions for five years. During the trial, both doctors admitted to killing the baby.

Regarding Kwon, the court said she may have believed the baby had already died in utero and had not been aware that the baby was born alive, a stark contrast to the first ruling, which found:

The fetus had a normal heartbeat and could have survived after birth. The medical staff, as well as the mother who consented to entrusting the disposal of the body to the hospital, must have known the fetus could die.

Conversely, the appeals court found:

Kwon appears to have believed the fetus had died in the womb before the surgery. Her signing the consent form was understood as entrusting the disposal of the fetal body, not agreeing to its murder.... [i]f she had known the fetus was to be killed after extraction, she would not have posted it in a public space.

The Bottom Line:

Abortion was decriminalized in South Korea in 2019, but no regulations have been enacted, effectively allowing abortions to be committed through all nine months of pregnancy. This act, however, was clearly not an abortion; it was the infanticide of an infant born alive.