As said, abortion in Korea is illegal like prostitution is illegal. Consider these staggering statistics from the Korea Times, which notes that a woman will technically be sent to prison for one year if caught having had an abortion, and her doctor for two:

“However, Rep. Chang Yoon-seok of the ruling Grand National Party said during a National Assembly inspection in October, that the number of illegal abortions exceeds 1.5 million a year but fewer than five doctors have been indicted for performing them.

Chang’s figure is far higher than the 340,000 illegal abortions estimated by the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs. ‘The figure could be the highest in the world,’ Chang said.”

Consider: the Korean birth rate is in the bottom 11 in the world at 8.93 births per 1000 people. It has a population of a little over 48 million.The United States has a population of 300 million and has a reported number of about 820, 000 abortions as of 2005 (though these numbers aren’t necessarily completely accurate either, they are probably more so than the Korean numbers).

You’re looking at a country with a population six-times smaller than the US that may (depending on the reliability of Rep. Yoon-seok) have conducted almost two-times more abortions.

Let me hammer it home: Koreans had about 446,500 babies last year, and, on the low end estimate, 340,000 abortions. That’s more than 3/4 of the actual babies delivered. On the high-end estimate (1.5 million a year) that would be 3.3 times more abortions than babies delivered in a year.