I happened to catch a bit of Vicki McKenna's "Up Front" radio show on Thursday. Her guest was Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist. You can hear her interview with him by following the link on the WIBA Web site.

Be warned, though. Dr. Levatino's remarks aren't for the squeamish. But if you've never heard a "dilation and evacuation" abortion described in cold, clinical terms before, it's pretty alarming stuff.

I imagine even the most vociferous abortion-rights backer might blanch at his description of a late-term abortion, of which he performed more than 100. Strip away the heated political debate and ideological alliances and consider the procedure itself.

Those who aren't at least discomfited hearing a description of what actually happens in a D & E need no more evidence of the coarsening of our culture and the cavalier way we value not just life, but innocent, vulnerable lives.

If some liquored up teenager did this to a pregnant dog, ripping apart the unborn puppies and sucking them out of their mother's womb, we would be justifiably outraged. But when it applies to human beings, the sacred right of a woman to choose to end her pregnancy trumps, for many of us, any troubling moral objection we might have to the actual act of aborting a fetus.

So it isn't surprising, then, to read stories of what happens when abortions don't "take," when things don't go as planned and, as recently happened in a Miami abortion clinic, a live, breathing baby girl was thrown out with the trash.

The baby was named Shanice by her 18-year-old mother after she unexpectedly delivered the 23-week-old . . . what? fetus? No. She delivered a very premature baby whose odds for survival were long. But long odds are not impossible odds. Shanice never got a chance, though. She was snatched up, tossed in a biohazard bag and thrown out with yesterday's trash.

Some pro-choice advocates condemned the clinic's actions, calling it disturbing. Really? Why? If the abortionist scheduled to terminate the young woman's unwanted pregnancy had been on time that day, she would never have delivered prematurely. Instead, Shanice would have been cut, literally limb from limb, pulled out of the young mother's uterus and . . . tossed in a biohazard bag and thrown out with the trash. The difference between the two really is one of geography, isn't it — inside or outside the womb?

In reaction to what happened in the Miami clinic, anti-abortion advocates said the clinic's actions constituted murder. But abortion, in much of our society's view, is a legal, medical procedure performed on a non-viable tissue mass. So calling a botched abortion murder is ridiculous. As with any medical procedure, mistakes happen, and we don't charge murder when, say, an appendectomy goes wrong and the patient never comes out of anesthesia.

The problem is in deeming abortions a simple medical procedure — particularly those abortions performed simply because ending a pregnancy is more convenient for the mother than carrying the baby to term.

The battle over abortion isn't one to be fought in courts and DAs' offices when one of these hideous D & Es goes wrong. The battle must be waged in the hearts and minds of our friends, neighbors and ourselves. And that doesn't mean accosting some scared, confused and pregnant teenager outside an abortion clinic. They're not the problem.

The real problem is a medical profession that is OK with performing convenience abortions, and a culture that isn't outraged by that fact.

So what to do about it?

Speak up for the innocent — born and unborn. Treat everyone with respect and compassion, including the young girl whose life is in turmoil due to an unplanned pregnancy. Love your children enough to teach them about abstinence and, yes, birth control.

There's another thing you can do. When you have the chance as respected medical facilities in your community — valued institutions that promote life, health and healing — consider opening their own late-term D & E clinics, you can speak up and say, "What the hell are you thinking? Why go down this road? What's going to happen at UW Hospital and Meriter Hospital when there's a "mistake" like tiny Shanice? Why would you want to put your fine institutions in a position where you might have to answer that question?"