Abortion in South Korea

With a culture that promotes abortion, South Korea has one of the world's lowest birth rates. Born out of the 1960s over-population scare and fortified by neighboring China's one-child policy, the abortion culture eliminates potential citizens at a demographically-unwise rate.

Official data from the Ministry of Health indicates that doctors perform 350,000 abortions per year, while they deliver on average just 450,000 babies, meaning 43.7 percent of pregnancies end in abortion.

However, the actual number of abortions may be at least five times the official estimate. According to the Korea Times, Rep. Chang Yoon-seok of the ruling Grand National Party said that a National Assembly inspection in October found that the number of illegal abortions in Korea exceeds 1.5 million a year or roughly 4,000 babies aborted per day.

If the National Assembly's estimate is correct, the nation of 48 million commits approximately the same number of abortions as the United States, which has 300 million residents. Presuming the numbers of births recorded by the Health Ministry remains the same, that would mean approximately three out of four pregnancies in South Korea end in abortion.

According to the Korean Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (KAOG), the prevalence of abortion in Korea can be illustrated by the fact that fully one-third of all obstetrics clinics are incapable of handling childbirth.

The government has come to the realization that South Korea will soon become a nation of retirees with few young people populating the employment rolls. Consequently, a pro-birth effort has been announced with "proposals to expand benefits for single mothers and provide greater benefits to families with more than two children." Other incentives were also outlined.

Additionally, although abortion has always been illegal, the law has not been enforced. In fact, most people didn't know that abortion is illegal. Intentions are to begin strictly enforcing the law to help bring about more babies.