Of course, by the time these women had made their decision for an abortion, the conflict had been decided in favor of terminating human life.

The stories will truly break your heart. Alexia, a 23-year-old student at Delta State University in Mississippi, came to the Little Rock clinic in order to have her third abortion. "My religion is against it," she acknowledged. "In a way I feel I'm doing wrong, but you can be forgiven, I blame myself. I feel I shouldn't have sex at all." In other words, Alexia seems to believe that having an abortion is a sin, but she has settled in her own mind that this sin can be forgiven, even as it is the focus of her premeditated act.

Venetia Grundler, age 21, decided to go through with the abortion even after she had viewed an ultrasound image of the fetus developing in her womb. According to Leland, Grundler was twelve weeks pregnant when she came to the clinic, and she blamed her pregnancy on the failure of birth control pills.

Her statements to the reporter are nothing less than shocking. "I feel pretty messed up," she said after viewing the image of her developing baby. "It's different, just knowing. My husband told me not to look. This changes my feelings, but I'm sticking by it. Damn it, $650, I'm sticking by it."

What are we to make of this? This young woman admits that her heart was moved by the visual image of the baby developing within her, but she has decided to proceed with the abortion because she has already paid her $650 fee. When she said, "I'm sticking by it," she obviously meant that she had decided to stand by her decision, rather than by her baby.

Leland presents the women and their stories in the context of moral conflict. Some of the women explained their abortion decision primarily in terms of economics, while others claimed that they just could not handle the experience of motherhood.

Leah, 26, expressed some level of inner conflict. "I always said I would never, ever have an abortion. I probably will regret it. I'm pro-choice for cases or incest or rape, but if it's your own fault, you should accept responsibility. And it's my own fault." So, Leah argued against the very decision that had brought her to the clinic.

Intentionally or not, Leland points to the status of the fetus as an important issue in the decision making of at least some of the women at the clinic. Leah offered that she did not believe she would be able to have an abortion if she had seen an actual baby on the ultrasound image. Since she came for her abortion at only the fifth week of pregnancy, the ultrasound image did not show a recognizable infant. "If I saw an actual fetal baby on the ultrasound, I wouldn't have been able to go through with it," she explained.

On the other hand, some women gave virtually no evidence of moral conflict at all. Karen, 29, came to the clinic for an abortion in the twentieth week of her pregnancy. "Like nearly half of all women who have abortions, she has had one before, when she was eighteen," Leland explains.