【雅思课外精读】韩国立法支持堕胎，但是还远远不够
【雅思课外精读】韩国立法支持堕胎，但是还远远不够 原文译文 *注：本文摘自11月19日《经济学人》
Pleasing no one无人满意
South Korea’s government is making it easier to get an abortion韩国政府简化流产手续
Feminists do not think its proposal goes far enough. Opponents of abortion are also up in arms女权主义者认为这些政策还远远不够，反对流产人士也对此强烈不满
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1. THE WORST thing about it was the shame. “I worried about how other people would judge me for doing something illegal, what my parents and my friends would say if they found out,” says Kim Min-kyoung, a 24-year-old student from Seoul who decided to terminate a pregnancy last year. The second-worst thing was paying: how to find $1,000 without prompting awkward questions.
对于流产来说，最可怕的是随之而来的耻辱。Kim Min-kyoung来自首尔，现年24岁，去年，她决定去做流产手术。她说，“我担心的是人们会如何看我，担心我的父母和朋友会如何看我，因为流产是不合法的。”关于流产，还有一件可怕的事情，那就是费用。如何在不引起任何棘手问题的情况下攒到1000美元手术费这是一个问题。
2. Both these problems should soon be slightly less severe for women in South Korea. If a bill under consideration by the National Assembly becomes law, a woman will be able to obtain an abortion up to 14 weeks into a pregnancy with ease. From 15 to 24 weeks in, she will still be able to do so provided she attends a counselling session and waits 24 hours before making a final decision. Her reason for ending the pregnancy must also fall into one of a series of approved categories. This regime would greatly expand access to abortion and thus put an end to expensive illicit procedures. It has prompted an unsurprising backlash from anti-abortion activists, but feminists are not entirely happy either.
在不久的将来，这两个问题对韩国女性来说都会有所改善。国民议会正在审议一项法案，如果获准通过，那么，女性就能够在怀孕14周内完成堕胎。在怀孕14到24周后，在完成咨询24小时后，也能获准堕胎。女性终止妊娠必须是基于法律中提到的那些原因。这一制度将会大大减轻堕胎限制，从而结束堕胎非法且昂贵的旧时代。这引起了反堕胎活动人士的强烈反对，女权主义者也对此不太满意。
3. A new law became necessary last year after the constitutional court struck down the existing one, which allows abortion only in exceptional circumstances, such as for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Otherwise it stipulates prison terms or hefty fines for women seeking abortions and for doctors providing them. That is out of step with public opinion. Ten years ago more than half of South Koreans wanted to keep the old law. Nowadays nearly 60% of the population and more than three-quarters of women under the age of 45 want to scrap it. The authorities have hardly enforced it for years.
去年，宪法法庭废除了旧的堕胎法案，现在迫切需要一部新的法律。旧法案只允许特定情况下的堕胎，如因强奸或者乱伦而怀孕的情况。除此之外，旧法案还对那些想要堕胎的女性处以巨额罚款甚至是监禁的惩罚，对那些实施堕胎的医生也不例外。这和公众意见相悖了。十年前，超过一半韩国人认同旧法案，如今，百分之六十的韩国人和超过四分之三的45岁以下的女性想要废除旧法案。而当局多年来一直式形旧法。
4. The court set a deadline of the end of this year for new legislation. But the bill is under attack from two sides. Feminists think it does not go far enough in its affirmation of women’s rights. Opponents of abortion, meanwhile, claim it “promotes” the termination of pregnancies.
最高法院要求今年年底前完成修法。但是，该法案遭到了来自两方面的攻击。女权主义者认为该法案在维护女性权利方面做得还不够，而反堕胎人士则认为该法案“宣传”堕胎。
5. Kwon In-sook, a prominent feminist and lawmaker for the ruling Minjoo party, thinks the law falls short because it would continue to treat abortion as a criminal matter, retaining too much of the spirit of its predecessor. “The old law was centred around the idea that abortion is a shameful, sinful thing,” she says. “The point of the new law is to put women’s reproductive rights at the centre and treat abortion as the medical procedure that it is.” She worries that the “socio-economic reasons” for which abortions are permitted after 14 weeks are too vaguely defined, and that the counselling requirement, the 24 hours of “thinking time” and doctors’ right to refuse to perform the procedure if they have personal qualms will provide scope for opponents of abortion to restrict access.
著名女权主义者、执政党共同民主党议员权仁淑(Kwon In-sook，音译)认为，该法案存在不足之处，因为它仍将堕胎视为违法，保留了太多旧法里面的内容。她说:“旧法认为，堕胎是可耻的，是有罪的。新法的要点是把妇女的生育权利视为要点，将堕胎视为一种医疗手术，而不是犯罪。”她担心由于“社会经济原因”,允许怀孕后14周堕胎的定义太模糊，而要求完成咨询，思考24小时，允许医生在个人顾虑的情况下拒绝实施堕胎手术等规定将为反堕胎人士提供理由。
6. That is precisely what they are trying to do. “The point is to balance the woman’s right to choose with the fetus’s right to live and to create an environment where women will feel safe in their choice to have the baby rather than an abortion,” says Jeong Eun-yi, a 27-year-old activist who says she took up the cause after seeing a plastic model of a ten-week-old fetus. She would prefer to retain the old law, but says the bill has some potentially helpful features. “The mandatory counselling session shouldn’t be neutral, but push women to have the baby,” she says, for instance by making women listen to the fetus’s heartbeat or making them watch videos of abortions.
这正是反堕胎人士正在做的。Jeong Eun-yi 现年27岁，在看到一个10周大的塑料胚胎模型之后，她决定不再堕胎。她说，“问题的关键是如何平衡妇女选择生育的权利以及如何让女性觉得她们选择生下孩子是有保障的，而不是让她们选择堕胎。”她更倾向于保留旧法案，但是她也认为新法案有其有益之处。她说，“强制咨询不该保持中立，而应该说服女性生下孩子。”比如，让她们听听孩子的心跳或者让她们观看堕胎的视频。
7. To feminists, the fact that such measures may be possible suggests that the government is pandering to conservatives. “They have to focus more on the right to choose,” says Kim Ye-eun, a 25-year-old student and activist. “Keeping all these ancient provisions is a bad sign that they’re not taking women’s rights seriously.”
在女权主义者看来，政府就是在迎合保守派。25岁的Kim Ye-eun 是一名学生，同时也是一名活动人士，她说，“政府必须得关注女性选择的权利，但是政府选择保留这些古老的规定是一个不好的信号，这意味着政府并没有认真对待女性的权力问题。”
8. Ms Kwon, for her part, is concerned by the conservative backlash the bill has prompted. She worries that it may revive the authorities’ appetite to enforce whatever restrictions remain in law. But she is glad that the debate has at least made women less ashamed to discuss their experience with abortion.
权仁淑担心该法案会引起保守派反弹。她担心这可能会导致当局执行法律中的所有规定。但让她高兴的是，至少，这场讨论使得女性在谈及堕胎的时候没有那么羞愧了。
