LONDON (AP) — Buckingham Palace has forcefully denied a claim by the brother of the late Princess Diana that King Charles III said she would soon be forgotten after her death.
In a new book, Charles Spencer recounts the traumatic days after Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 at the age of 36. He alleges that he argued with the then-Prince Charles, Diana’s estranged husband, over palace plans for Prince William and Prince Harry to walk behind her coffin during the funeral procession.
Spencer says he told the now-king that Diana would not have wanted her sons, then aged 15 and 12, to undergo the ordeal. He claims Charles told him: “rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.” He accuses Charles of having “contempt” for his ex-wife.
Buckingham Palace responded late Wednesday with an extremely strong statement by the measured standards of the royal household.
“While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and color memory in ways others do not recognize, even many years after such a loss,” it said.
Tensions between the palace and Diana’s aristocratic Spencer relatives after her death have been much discussed, and were dramatized in the film “The Queen” and TV series “The Crown.”
Many felt the palace was slow to acknowledge the global outpouring of grief at Diana’s death, which forced the royals to recognize that Diana’s common touch had connected with people in ways that eluded the rest of the royal family. The more emotionally literate approach of Prince William and Prince Harry — and, in recent years, the king — is a legacy of that time.
“Swan Song: Diana, My Sister” is due to be published next week. The Daily Mail published the first in a series of extracts late Wednesday.
Britain's King Charles III gestures at The King's Foundation's Harmony in Food and Farming Summit, at the Foundation's headquarters in Cumnock, Scotland, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026.(Jonathan Brady/PA via AP)
FILE - Diana, Princess of Wales waves to the crowd as she leaves the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney Australia, Friday, Nov. 1, 1996. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)
FILE - From left: Britain's Prince Philip, Prince William, Earl Spencer, Prince Harry and Prince Charles walk outside Westminster Abbey during the funeral procession for Diana, Princess of Wales, Sept. 6, 1997. (AP Photo/Jeff J. Mitchell, Pool, File)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea plans to approve abortion pills for the first time to promote women’s rights to health and safety, deepening debates over abortions in the Asian country.
In a landmark ruling in 2019, South Korea’s Constitutional Court ordered the easing of the decades-old ban on most abortions, one of the strictest in the developed world. Abortion was subsequently decriminalized, but parliament has yet to revise related legislation, as opposition remains strong among many religious and conservative groups.
Some women have turned to unauthorized online channels to get abortion drugs whose safety is not verified. The legislative gap has also undermined women's rights to choose surgical or medication abortions and caused some confusion in the medical field.
The government announced Wednesday that it aims to allow medication abortions for women who are up to nine weeks pregnant by the first quarter of 2027. Officials said that for the first two years, abortion pills would be directly prescribed and dispensed by doctors.
“This introduction of medication abortion is significant because it's a step to make sure that ending pregnancy is done more safely and within the national healthcare system, and to improve the situation caused by a lack of an effective government oversight system,” Gender Equality and Family Minister Won Min-kyong told a news conference.
The step is designed to approve a local company's application for an import of a two-drug combination pack consisting of mifepristone and misoprostol. Misoprostol, which is used to treat stomach ulcers, can cause abortions on its own but is less effective than when it's not taken with mifepristone. A combination of mifepristone and misoprostol is the most common regimen for pills in the United States.
In July, President Lee Jae Myung, a liberal, instructed officials to explore ways to allow women to use the two-drug combination pack. As of 2024, about 100 countries have permitted the use of abortion pills, according to the gender ministry.
The Korea Women’s Associations United, a major women's rights organization in Seoul, called the announcement “a first step toward supporting a safe ending of pregnancy.” It urged the government to take additional measures to help women get abortion pills more swiftly and ensure their expenses are covered by the national health insurance system.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea expressed “deep concerns” about the government plan, saying it “will further entrench a disregard for human lives in our society.”
The Korean Association of Obstetricians & Gynecologists said the government step isn't enough to resolve many potential issues over abortion pills and called for legislations to address them. It cited institutional safeguards that can deal with complications caused by use of abortion pills like incomplete miscarriage and heavy bleeding, and legal grounds to protect doctors from possible criminal prosecutions for prescribing abortion pills for social and economic reasons.
“We will never accept any introduction of abortion pills that does not guarantee safety of patients and legal protections of medical professionals,” the doctors' association said in a statement.
South Korean Gender Equality and Family Minister Won Min-kyong, center, speaks during a press briefing on the introduction of abortion pills at the Government Complex in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (Ahn Jeong-won/Yonhap via AP)
