By Dave Andrusko

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. We will talk about the latest developments on the Nelson-Hatch Amendment tomorrow.

Never let it be said that one man can't make a difference, even in the face of seemingly impossible odds.

In the mail today I received a newspaper clip from the November 29 Los Angeles Times. The headline read, "In South Korea, an antiabortion movement grows."

What little I know about South Korea would've precluded the development of significant opposition to abortion.

Dr. Shim Sang-duk is an obstetrician who changed his mind about performing abortions.

After all, the official tally from the Health Ministry says there are nearly as many abortions (350,000) annually as live births (450,000). Some estimates are far worse: "One politician," we're told "says the number of abortions is actually four times higher--nearly 1.5 million."

What chance can there be in a nation whose birthrate is among the lowest in the world (1.19 live births per woman) and where the 1973 mother-child protection law is both loophole ridden and rarely enforced?

Enter the face of the "antiabortion movement"-- of all people, a former abortionist! Read this opening quote:

"For nearly two decades, obstetrician Shim Sang-duk aborted as many babies as he delivered -- on average, one a day, month after month. 'Over time, I became emotionless,' the physician said. 'I came to see the results of my work as just a chunk of blood. During the operation, I felt the same as though I was treating scars or curing diseases.'"

The key sentence is the story, written by John M. Glionna, comes next. "Shim, 42, eventually came to despise himself, despite the money he earned from the procedures." He went on to found "an activist group of physicians who refuse to perform abortions."

Glionna's account is of a society where there is virtually no public debate over abortion. Abortion took hold, according to the story, as a result of a "perhaps too successful" public policy: fuel economic growth by having fewer babies.

A decade ago, with birthrates plummeting, officials reversed themselves. But the trend proved exceeding difficult to reverse. Even though abortion is technically illegal, in fact there are so many abortions South Korea has been tagged as "the Abortion Republic."

Enter Shim.

His personal pilgrimage takes up the final third of the story, which introduces his story with a note that there are now calls to enforce the 1973 law, to prosecute abortionists, and to close down underground clinics.

Having bought into the government's argument that "it was OK to do this, Shim rarely even used the word abortion.

"Rather, he said, he sought to 'erase' or 'prevent' the fetus."

But he was baffled that most women cried about their abortions. Shim "tried harder to dissuade patients from choosing the option," Glionna writes, and started a website where other physicians who opposed abortions could contact him.

His decision has cost him a lot of money, and he has been the object of death threats. But he won't reconsider. "I feel like a young doctor again," he says.

The story's concluding five sentences talk about the final abortion he performed. They are very powerful.

"He had already sworn off the procedure when a longtime patient called him, distraught," Glionna writes. "He met with the mother of two for hours and begged her to go home and reconsider.

'The following morning, she still wanted the abortion. So Shim relented. After the procedure, he said, she cried."

Part Two