The South Korean government plans to make abortion pills legally available as early as the first quarter of next year, a step meant to end years in which women have turned to unverified drugs bought online.

The plan offers a way around the legal uncertainty left by the Constitutional Court’s 2019 abortion ruling, while leaving the underlying legislative gaps unresolved. The hardest questions about consent, liability and access remain with a National Assembly that has let the court’s deadline lapse by nearly six years. And for many Korean women, those gaps will matter as much as the pill itself.