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"The Silent Scream" www.silentscream.org, directed and produced by Dr. Bernard Nathanson, vividly shows, via ultrasound, an abortion in progress. It's shocking. The unborn baby cries in response to the pain the fatal procedure inflicts. Even the website warns, the film "graphically shows an abortion 11 weeks after conception and therefore should not be viewed by children."

That's the reality - a reality that has persuaded millions like Dr. Nathanson, co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, to conclude abortion should be restricted. He repented of his key role in the liberalization of America's abortion laws, converting to Catholicism, once he realized the heavy moral consequences of his actions.

Yet, millions more in our society, remaining almost totally insulated from abortion's reality, blithely rationalize abortion, convincing themselves it is the only way to deal with a pregnancy that will impose too great a burden, economic or otherwise - forcing a woman to forego, or delay, the rise up the ladder of a promising career, or to give up some of life's comforts, or to triage some of life's necessities for a time.

The suffering caused by such life-altering circumstances is not to be dismissed. But it's a question of the relative moral weight.

What's worse? A career that dips and/or may not rise quite as high as one hoped for; or a life, painfully cut short, that does not even have a chance to begin and take a baby step let alone a step up the corporate ladder - and will never enjoy life's simplest pleasures.

No one is arguing that, with the stroke of a pen, hearts and minds will change. As St. Thomas More noted, there are limits to the state's ability to affect this private behavior. Moreover, attaining a "culture of life" is a matter of such change!

At the same time, allowing unlimited access to a procedure so gravely at odds with the basic parameters of justice (brutally taking one life to enable another's life preferences to continue uninterrupted) and morality ("Thou shalt not kill") is a travesty that begs for a better arrangement than the one currently on the books, i.e., the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision overturning state abortion laws. Just ask Norma McCorvey - the Roe v. Wade plaintiff - who also repented of the role she played in the liberalization of abortion laws; converted to Catholicism; and wrote a book, "Won By Love - Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe Of Roe V. Wade, Speaks Out For The Unborn As She Shares Her New Conviction

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