Military Dictator Park Chung-hee and South Korea's Culture of Death

Robert Neff notes that the strongman "alarmed at the way in which the rapidly increasing population was undermining economic growth, began a nationwide family planning program" — Was the unkind cut in the 1980s to blame for Korea’s population decline?

"People were encourage to wait longer before getting married and having children, and in 1973 abortions were legalized," Mr. Neff reports. "In the 1980s, families were encouraged to undergo sterilization." General Park's legacy can be found in this statistic — South Korea's Birthrate World's Lowest.