IF YOU ASK a number of people to define abortion the chances are good that there will be a different answer each time. To some, abortion is murder. These people believe that life begins at the moment of conception and therefore abortion is wrong in any circumstance. Others believe that abortion is a question of personal privacy. They think that a woman has the right to decide for herself whether to have a child and that her right to control her own destiny supersedes any rights as a person that the embryo or fetus might have. A few of these people believe that there should be no restrictions at all on a woman's right to choose a safe, legal abortion.

Surveys have shown, however, that most people find themselves somewhere in the middle of the debate. While most people believe that a...