WASHINGTON -- As public relations campaigns go, proudly proclaiming ``We Had Abortions'' probably isn't going to win any Addy awards.

Such is the gist of Ms. Magazine's current campaign to thwart trends toward curtailment of abortion. The Oct. 10 issue of the feminist magazine features a cover story titled ``We Had Abortions,'' as well as a petition signed by thousands of women who, well, have had abortions.

And who are not one bit sorry.

The campaign was organized to put a woman's face on abortion, as Ms. Magazine publisher Eleanor Smeal put it, and as a counterpunch to pro-life testimonials from women who regretted their abortions.

The fact that many women feel shame, guilt and loss -- and are willing to say so -- has created a snag in the fabric of pro-choice arguments that focus only on the technical aspect of abortion.

On Wednesday, Smeal told MSNBC's Tucker Carlson that abortion is ``a medical procedure, that's obvious.''

Actually, it's not obvious. Abortion certainly involves medical personnel and equipment, but the result is something more than merely medical. It is also human -- or more to the point -- inhuman.

To put an accurate face on abortion would require something that strict pro-choicers refuse to acknowledge: That abortion really has three faces -- that of the mother, the father, and that of the ... what do we call it? Fetus is so South Park these days. How about the quirky ``products of conception from your termination''?

That's how hospital administrators a few years ago in Glasgow, Scotland, labeled the post-abortion remains from Nicola McManus, who had induced the miscarriage of her nine-week-old ``baby,'' as I prefer to call it, upon taking the RU486 ``abortion pill.''

McManus was startled to discover the remains in a jar resting on a shelf in her hospital room. Her outrage at the careless hospital staff brought tears and the sort of statement Ms. & Co. prefer not to hear: ``Women need more counseling before abortions, not less,'' said McManus. ``I will never get over what happened to me.''

A nine-week-old fetus, for the record, has a heartbeat, a closed circulatory system, a respiratory system, eyes, ears and brain function. She can't go shopping yet, but she can squint, swallow, move her tongue and make a fist. She is not, in other words, ``just a clump of cells.'' Continued...