One day toward the end of last semester, I opened my mailbox to find a shrink-wrapped video. At first I figured it was another small law school looking to sell me on their beautiful campus in the middle of Pennsylvania. But when I picked it out of my bag a few minutes later to take a closer look, I got suspicious. The video was addressed to me by hand, and the return address was the cryptically-named Tell the Truth Project with only a P.O. box in Milwaukee.

Half-afraid that the thing would blow up in my hands, I carefully unwrapped the box as I walked to class, just to see if there might be more information inside. I figured it would probably be an anti-abortion video or, perhaps, something claiming the Holocaust hadn't happened or that Jews were plotting the destruction of the nation.

On the video the label read: "Silent Scream."

How the folks at Tell the Truth found me I don't know, but I must say they picked a relatively good target for anti-abortion propaganda: I am resolutely pro-choice, but not without reservations; late-term abortions should be banned, I think, so long as appropriate exceptions are made, and waiting periods and other devices to discourage the practice seem reasonable.

Nonetheless, at the time I put aside the video and returned to work on my thesis or procrastinate in less interesting ways. But last week, in a moment of utter boredom (they become more frequent toward the end of Senior Spring), I walked over to my bookshelf, grabbed the video and went downstairs to the common room. In part, however, I wasn't just bored. I wanted to watch this video while still here at college, where there are people around to discuss issues like abortion and where it seems especially useful to think about and debate these big questions.

Ironically, even though I wanted to view "Silent Scream" here at Harvard, in a community of young people grappling with ideas, issues and different viewpoints, I felt nervous and guilty while the video was on--as if I had something to be ashamed of watching this controversial film. Every time I heard someone come into the lobby outside the common room I gripped the remote control, ready to switch the TV back over to VH1. Now, perhaps, I know how conservatives on this campus must sometimes feel.

No one did come in during my private viewing, and I got through all 28 minutes of "Silent Scream" uninterrupted. The film didn't change my views on abortion, but it did make me reconsider whether I had given the issue adequate thought before settling on my pro-choice stance.

The centerpiece of the film is an ultrasound video of the abortion of a 12-week fetus. As the abortion proceeds, the narrator, former abortion doctor Bernard Nathanson, describes the way the fetus is destroyed by the various devices inserted into the uterus. At one point Nathanson claims that the fetus opens its mouth to emit a "silent scream" as it shrinks from the abortionist's tools.