Deciding when a soul enters the body is beside the point, says Dr. Joseph Stanford, who is LDS and head of the Health Research Center at the University of Utah's Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. At the moment of conception, "biologically it is indisputable that there is a human entity that, given the proper environment, has the potential for further growth and development. This is a human life, a unique, living, human entity."

If you don't mention ensoulment, though, then you haven't read Exodus 21:22, Rabbi Rosen says. That verse says the punishment for pushing a pregnant woman and causing a miscarriage shall be decided by the woman's husband. Which means, says the rabbi, that the loss of a fetus is a civil matter. On the other hand, the death of a mother would be murder and would demand "a life for a life."

Before the fetus has a soul, Jewish theology says, it is a limb on the mother's body. Rabbi Rosen says, "From that perspective, an abortion is about as morally charged as having a nose job or any other elective surgery." The fact that abortion is much more morally charged than a nose job tells her that the debate, in this country, is about a soul after all.

An issue this profound seems to demand discussion, but what happens most often is diatribe. "What I think would be healthy," says Stanford, who labels himself pro-life, "is for society to have a better debate on what reasonable restrictions (on abortion) would be. What happens now is that you have the pro-choice camp taking a totally extremist position — that it has to be legal in all situations, even partial birth — and people on the pro-life side saying it has to be illegal under any circumstance. We need some discussion in the middle."

"The question we don't talk about is what it would mean to criminalize abortion," says the director of Planned Parenthood of Utah, Karrie Galloway. The question has raised struggles in countries as diverse as Kenya and Portugal, where women routinely die from unsafe abortions. If a woman goes to an emergency room after an illegal abortion, she risks a multiyear prison term.

When asked to name a country that has successfully compromised on abortion, Galloway says, "If we look at many European countries, where sex education is open and family planning is available, abortion is often illegal beyond the first trimester. But it is legal and not stigmatized within the first trimester." She doesn't foresee the stigma ending soon in the United States.