Artificial abortion and euthanasia are serious ethical Issues in medical field. However, the ways to solve them would be different according to the culture and customs of a country. In Korea, the rate of artificial abortion is so high that many people tend to consider it as a personal misfortune rather than an ethical mischief. National policy to control the population and souety's traditional preference for sons over daughters have fostered the tendency. For euthanasia, especially "passive euthanasia", most Korean people think it acceptable if under proper condition, and many doctors consent to it. In such circumstances, it is not much of necessity to debate on the ethical righteousness of artificial abortion or woman's right to choose it. More important thing is how we can reduce the number of abortion cases and protect woman's health against the side effects of "unnecessary" abortion. Proper education, public relation, and cooperation with civil or religious groups will be helpful to achieve this goal, and we physicians should try to do it. "Passive euthanasia" is thought to be ethically acceptable in the view of traditional customs, social justice, and welfare of the patient. However, "active euthanasia" harbors great ethical risks in current situation. Therefore, we should prepare and establish a proper process and system that patients, doctors, and the whole society can accept. "Advance directives" or "living will" would be good options if well modified to our culture. For all these, the education and training of professinals in this area is urgent.
Education ; Ethics ; Ethics, Medical ; Euthanasia* ; Humans ; Korea* ; Nuclear Family ; Social Justice ; Women's Health ; Women's Rights

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experiences of nursing students' during Leboyer. METHODS: Eleven senior nursing students were recruited from April to June in 2010. After completing informed consents, data were collected through in-depth interviews. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim before analyzing. Nursing students were asked about their observational experiences during Leboyer births. Data were analyzed by using the Colaizzi style. RESULTS: Interviews revealed 4 categories and 9 themes. The categories were: 'Respecting and blessing new baby', 'Keeping calm and joyful birth atmosphere', 'Reminding the meaning of nursing', 'Comparing Leboyer and convenience birth and making up their mind'. CONCLUSION: This study showed that observation of Leboyer birth is helpful for nursing students in order to have positive impression about childbirth. Furthermore, it is suggested that an exploration of the experiences of women and their husbands during Leboyer births would be helpful. On the basis of this study, it is concluded that the Leboyer birth, which focuses on baby's human right, should be introduced women's health nursing field as an effective birth strategy.
Education, Nursing ; Female ; Human Rights ; Humans ; Parturition ; Qualitative Research ; Spouses ; Students, Nursing ; Women's Health

Han Shin Gwang, born in an early Christian family in Korea in 1902, could get western education different from the ordinary Korean girls in that period. She participated in the 1919 Samil Independence Movement in her teens, and got nursing and midwifery education in a missionary hospital. She got a midwife license and worked as a member in an early mother-and-child health center. She organized 'Korean Nurses' Association' in 1924 and focused on public health movement as the chairwoman. She actively participated in women's movement organizations, and Gwangjoo Student's Movement. She was known to be a representative of leading working women, and wrote articles on woman's right, the needs and works of nurses and midwives. From late Japanese colonial period, she opened her own clinic and devoted herself to midwifery. After the Korean Liberation in 1945, she began political movement and went in for a senate election. During the Korean War, she founded a shelter for mothers and children in help. After the War, she reopened a midwifery clinic and devoted to the works of Korean Midwives' Association. Han Shin Gwang's life and works belong to the first generation of Korean working women in modern times. She actively participated in women's movement, nurses' and midwives professional movement, Korea liberation movement, and mother-and-child health movement for 60 years. Her life is truly exemplary as one of the first generation of working women in modern Korea, distinguished of devotion and calling.
Women's Rights/history ; Nurse Midwives/history ; Midwifery/*history ; Maternal-Child Health Centers/history ; Korea ; Humans ; History, 20th Century ; History of Nursing

BACKGROUND: Currently, the high quality of life associated with women's rights is strongly supported and has become an important social issue. As a result, there is an increasing need for studies concerning female sexual function. The objectives of this study was to develop a questionnaire to evaluate sexual function evaluation in Korean women. METHODS: A total of 100 married women, who visited an outpatient clinic of family medicine department of a university hospital in Seoul, were studied. After filling out the self-administered questionnaire, a face-to- face interview was done on all study subjects. The items of this questionnaire were adopted from questionnaires with proven validity and reliability. Factor analysis was done and Crohnbach's alpha was calculated. RESULTS: The items of this questionnaire were classified into 5 parts: Drive, Excitement, Sexual activity, Satisfaction, and Spouse. The total variance was 51.5%. The total Crohnbach's alpha was 0.82. The internal consistency was high. Study subjects were able to complete this questionnaire within 10 minutes. CONCLUSION: The validity and reliability of this female sexual function questionnaire was found to be acceptable. This questionnaire can be utilized as a diagnostic adjunctive tool and feedback for treatment through further studies.
Ambulatory Care Facilities ; Female* ; Humans ; Outpatients* ; Quality of Life ; Reproducibility of Results ; Seoul ; Sexual Behavior ; Spouses ; Women's Rights ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to provide fundamental information for a system establishment of advanced practice nursing for gynecological cancer patients (APN-GCP). METHOD: Data was collected by focus group and individual interviews and analyzed in the framework of the Grounded theory method mapped by Strauss and Corbin (1990). There were 13 subjects in this study (nurses, doctors, patient and her family). RESULT: We identified 87 concepts, 22 sub-categories, and 10 categories. Categories for role expectation were arrangement of diagnosis and treatment process, giving information of treatment course, support of treatment process, patients' right toward making a decision of treatment, counseling and teaching after discharge from hospital, medical insurance and financial problems, counseling about sexual problems and use of family and community resources. All subjects perceived the necessity of an APN-GCP. An APN-GCP requires over 2~7 years clinical experience and a master's degree. Services would be performed from initial registration to termination of treatment or death, and accomplished on an outpatient clinic basis. CONCLUSION: The nursing delivery system and curriculum should be developed for a women's health nurse practitioner including APN-GCP. As a further step, cost-effectiveness and projected estimation of manpower of APN-GCP should be studied in the future.
Advanced Practice Nursing* ; Ambulatory Care Facilities ; Counseling ; Curriculum ; Diagnosis ; Focus Groups ; Humans ; Insurance ; Nurse Practitioners ; Nursing ; Patient Rights ; Women's Health

Since first introduction of oral contraceptive pills in 1960, with increased women's right of sexual decision, oral contraceptives had been used widely around the globe as a highly effective and safe contraceptive method. The physiological mechanisms of oral contraceptives were a reduced maturation of ovarian follicles and blocked ovulation to fertile women. Also, oral pills induce uterine endometrial decidualization, thickening of cervical mucus, disturbance of intrauterine sperm movement and embryo implantation. However, in addition to providing effective reversible contraception to fertile women, oral contraceptive pills offer various non-contraceptive benefits to numerous conditions. In this review, we summarize the list of currently available oral contraceptive pills in Korea and discuss non-contraceptive indications of oral contraceptives pills.
Cervix Mucus ; Contraception ; Contraceptives, Oral* ; Embryo Implantation ; Female ; Humans ; Korea ; Ovarian Follicle ; Ovulation ; Pregnancy ; Spermatozoa ; Women's Rights

Heo Yongsuk (1897-1975) was the second female medical doctor to study Western medicine in a foreign country, the second female journalist, and the one of the representative 'new modern woman' in Korea. She is unfamiliar, however, to Korean people. Few historians of medicine and few researchers of the history of literature recall her for her own achievements, instead remembering her as a wife who saved her husband, Yi Gwangsu (1892~1950), the great novelist, from his dreadful tuberculosis. Removing her from the shadow of Yi Gwangsu, this paper tries to uncover her life and her contribution to Korean society during the Japanese colonial period. As a pioneer, she went to Japan to study medicine in 1914 for the purpose of breaking down the long-established custom of female patients, who abhorred showing their bodies to male doctors. After acquiring her license, she opened in Korea for women and children, though this clinic had a brief span of only two years owing to her devotion to caring for her husband as his disease worsened. She became a reporter in place of her husband for about two years. However, with her efforts, she gave women a considerable amount of useful medical information. She wrote many enlightening articles to awaken Korean women's 'nationalistic spirit' against Japanese colonial oppression. She is worthy of a favorable evaluation as the second female reporter and the first who specialized in medicine in the history of newspapers in Korea. As a 'new modern woman,' she presented her own thinking about the best role model for married females, by saying, "Be good mother and good wife in the family household, it is the best way to strengthen Korean race." When she became pregnant, she resigned her job as a reporter. She exerted herself by bringing up her children and nursing her sick husband, gaining fame as the representative of the conservative women's movement. Medical knowledge was always behind her various activities. She can be evaluated successfully as a medical doctor; after studying newly developed medical theory and skills for about two years in Japan, she established first the specialized hospital for delivery in 1937 and had great success. As a successful female doctor, she projected a positive image of a new modern woman who was loyal to her family household, unlike many famous modern females who pursued women's liberation during the Japanese colonial period.
Achievement ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Child ; Family Characteristics ; Female ; General Practitioners ; Humans ; Hypogonadism ; Japan ; Korea ; Licensure ; Male ; Mitochondrial Diseases ; Mothers ; Newspapers ; Ophthalmoplegia ; Spouses ; Thinking ; Tuberculosis ; Women's Rights

According to the social development, women's participation of social work is increased, and it is argued that artificial abortion of fetus can be accepted freely and easily as the respect of the women's right of self-decision on reproduction. This is the conflicts of view in prolife and prochoice. In Korea, there is the strong forbidden clause of criminal law about abortion. But in reality, a lot of illegal abortion are performed despite of the permissible clause in the Mother and Child Health Law. So I reviewed and recommended the revision of Article 14 in the Mother and Child Health Law to the active direction. I am basically opposed to abortion for human dignity especially the right to life of fetus and the prevention of the mother's health from the complication of abortion procedure. The permissible period of abortion must be shortened from gestation 28 weeks to gestation 24 weeks. The reason of severe fetal abnormality need not to be inserted to the permissible clause to abortion, but it is desirable that the meaning of that reason should be included. The socioeconomic reason of the permissible clause to abortion could mean the permission of abortion. So I object to adding the socioeconomic reason for artificial abortion to the revised the Mother and Child Health Law. But if needed, it is necessary to prepare for the effective procedure on consultation before abortion. I agree to the revision of the penalty provision against illegal abortion for the purpose of protecting life and preventing the illegal abortion. It is rightful to prevent human life and keep the value, and in addition, we must concern to the prevention of embryos who have the potential to the individual in the future. So I think that it is necessary to prepare the ethical guidelines or the regulations for the protection of embryos.
Abortion, Criminal ; Child ; Child Health ; Criminal Law ; Embryonic Structures ; Fetus ; Humans ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Mothers ; Personhood ; Pregnancy ; Reproduction ; Social Change ; Social Control, Formal ; Social Work ; Value of Life ; Women's Rights

According to the social development, women's participation of social work is increased, and it is argued that artificial abortion of fetus can be accepted freely and easily as the respect of the women's right of self-decision on reproduction. This is the conflicts of view in prolife and prochoice. In Korea, there is the strong forbidden clause of criminal law about abortion. But in reality, a lot of illegal abortion are performed despite of the permissible clause in the Mother and Child Health Law. So I reviewed and recommended the revision of Article 14 in the Mother and Child Health Law to the active direction. I am basically opposed to abortion for human dignity especially the right to life of fetus and the prevention of the mother's health from the complication of abortion procedure. The permissible period of abortion must be shortened from gestation 28 weeks to gestation 24 weeks. The reason of severe fetal abnormality need not to be inserted to the permissible clause to abortion, but it is desirable that the meaning of that reason should be included. The socioeconomic reason of the permissible clause to abortion could mean the permission of abortion. So I object to adding the socioeconomic reason for artificial abortion to the revised the Mother and Child Health Law. But if needed, it is necessary to prepare for the effective procedure on consultation before abortion. I agree to the revision of the penalty provision against illegal abortion for the purpose of protecting life and preventing the illegal abortion. It is rightful to prevent human life and keep the value, and in addition, we must concern to the prevention of embryos who have the potential to the individual in the future. So I think that it is necessary to prepare the ethical guidelines or the regulations for the protection of embryos.
Abortion, Criminal ; Child ; Child Health ; Criminal Law ; Embryonic Structures ; Fetus ; Humans ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Mothers ; Personhood ; Pregnancy ; Reproduction ; Social Change ; Social Control, Formal ; Social Work ; Value of Life ; Women's Rights

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the trends in gender disparity in the self-rated health of people aged 25 to 64 in South Korea, a rapidly changing society, with specific attention to socio-structural inequality. METHODS: Representative sample data were obtained from six successive, nationwide Social Statistics Surveys of the Korean National Statistical Office performed during 1992 to 2010. RESULTS: The results showed a convergent trend in poor self-rated health between genders since 1992, with a sharper decline in gender disparity observed in younger adults (aged 25 to 44) than in older adults (aged 45 to 64). The diminishing gender gap seemed to be attributable to an increase in women's educational attainment levels and to their higher status in the labor market. CONCLUSIONS: The study indicated the importance of equitable social opportunities for both genders for understanding the historical trends in the gender gap in the self-reported health data from South Korea.
Adult ; Age Factors ; Data Collection ; Educational Status ; Employment/classification/economics ; Female ; *Health Status Disparities ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Republic of Korea ; Sex Factors ; *Social Change ; Social Class ; Women's Health/*trends ; Women's Rights/*trends