Keroack's opposition to birth control is problematic, given that his job involves administering funds to groups that provide birth control, primarily to low-income women. Otherwise, his ideas about pregnancy counseling are sensible. I've long argued that education is the best tool in reducing abortion. Show girls and women their child in utero and abortion will eliminate itself.

Now we have another tool. That is, if we're really serious about reducing abortion. Take ``In the Womb'' to every classroom in America and let students do their own free-associating. When the tears are dry -- audiences reportedly weep at this film -- abortion will seem inconceivable. Who could destroy an unborn puppy?

We Americans are suckers for animals, often displaying greater empathy for them than for people. Be honest. In movie battle scenes, whose deaths bother you more -- men's or the horses'? Thought so.

Walt Disney figured this out a long time ago. He anthropomorphized a cartoon creature named Bambi and deer hunters have been despised ever since. Show children and teenagers Dumbo, Flipper and Old Yeller in the womb, and they'll extrapolate all by themselves. No fire and brimstone necessary.

Adults, ever effective in obfuscating the obvious, apparently have a tougher time. Recently, a federal appeals court heard arguments aimed at the essential life question: When does a human being become a human being?

The case was related to a South Dakota ``informed consent'' law that would have required doctors to tell women contemplating abortion that the operation would ``terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.''

The court ruled 2-1 against enforcement of the law.

We may not be able to define when a human being becomes a human being, but even children know this much: An elephant doesn't become an elephant without first being a single cell.