It will be interesting to see if the abortion issue in Korea will become a hot button issue like it is in the US with the enforcement of these restrictions:

Having a third child wasn’t in Mrs. Kim’s plans. She and her husband are already struggling to get by.

But getting an abortion, once so routine here that South Korea was known as “Abortion Republic,” is no longer easy. In recent weeks, the government has begun enforcing a long-ignored ban on the procedure for the first time.

It took Mrs. Kim 10 tries to find a doctor willing to perform an abortion, and he’s demanding nearly $1,000 in cash. To scrape together the money, the six-weeks pregnant woman took a second job cleaning an office building overnight for a few weeks.

“I can barely afford to have an abortion. How can I afford to raise and put a kid through college?” the 31-year-old secretary said, dunking a rag into a bucket of water.

South Korea outlawed abortion in 1953 with exceptions for rape, incest or severe genetic disorders. Yet authorities turned a blind eye for decades, as the nation sought to tame population growth. For $300, women could get an abortion at almost any OB-GYN clinic.

That changed earlier this year, a shift that pro-choice activists say was motivated by the country’s plunging birthrate. The Ministry of Health and Welfare even announced it would set up a hot line for citizens to report on law-breaking doctors or pregnant women.  [The New Haven Register]

You can read the rest at the link.