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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
IS THIS AN UNTAMPERED FILE?
This ASCII-file version of ShareDebate International
(S.I.) was packaged by Applied Foresight, Inc. (AFI).
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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ISSN 1054-0695
SHAREDEBATE INTERNATIONAL
=========================
Volume 3(2)
Summer 1993
Diskette number 10
(BBS Filename: DBATE010)
Roleigh H. Martin, Editor
Copyright 1993 by Applied Foresight Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
(Material by Individual Authors
May Be Copyrighted Differently)
Published by
Applied Foresight, Inc.
P.O. Box 20607
Bloomington MN 55420, USA
CompuServe ID: 71510,1042
-----------------------------------------------------------
-- A Freeware Diskette-Magazine of Nonfiction & Fiction ---
------- Original & Reprints -- Published Quarterly -------
------ ------
----- "An International Debate Forum for Computer Users ---
-------- Concerned about the Present and the Future" ------
-----------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------
From the Editor's Desk:
Hello again! This issue carries two items.
First is part two of the lengthy excerpt from the
book that won the Prometheus award for science-fiction
author, Victor Koman. Part one reprinted chapters 1-8
and appeared in Issue 8 of ShareDebate International
(DBATE008.* in BBS and Shareware archives). This issue
reprints chapters 9-15. The book is 23 chapters long
and ordering information for the whole book, electronic
or paper, is provided at the end of the two excerpts.
A word about editorial philosophy. Just because an
entry appears in ShareDebate International doesn't mean
that I wholly or partially endorse what that writer is
proposing. The article might be included because I
think the writer uses good writing and/or argumentative
techniques, or the writer addresses points needing
addressing (regardless of the writer's
recommendations), or otherwise.
For instance, because abortion is such a tremendous
controversy, Victor Koman's novel is being presented
not because I think his solution is flawless and
without problems---I doubt if he would assert that--but
it shows how what many consider a two-sided argument
can have additional sides. I'll present my own
viewpoints on Abortion someday--not now. Suffice it to
say, I take the Christian Libertarian stance on
abortion, which is also another independent stance that
differs from the normally-media-presented two-sides of
the abortion debate.
Second is an excellent reprint of a paper by
Sheldon Richman on eqalitarianism, which is a socialist
aspiration for income equality that underlies the class
warfare rhetoric of the Clinton administration.
-----------------------------------------------------------
SOLOMON'S KNIFE
An Excerpt from the Original Novel
(Chapters 1-15 of the original 23 chapters)
(This issue of ShareDebate International presents
chapters 9-15. Chapters 1-8 appeared in the
issue 8 of ShareDebate International.)
by Victor Koman
Copyright (c) 1989 by Victor Koman
All rights reserved.
Logoright (L) 1989 by Victor Koman
Reprinted by permission of Victor Koman
SOLOMON'S KNIFE
a novel
by
Victor Koman
Solomon's Knife is currently available in a diskette
and modem-downloadable format from KoPubCo and is
distributed exclusively by:
SoftServ Publishing Services, Inc.
P.O. Box 94
Long Beach, CA 90801-0094
Copyright 1989 by Victor Koman.
Hardback edition available from Franklin Watts.
First edition published April, 1989.
Library of Congress Catalog Number 88-34900
FORMAT CONVENTION
Italics or underlining are represented by a
\backslash\ flush against the beginning and end of
material being \emphasized\, and slashes should come
before \punctuation\.
\\Boldface\\ is represented by double backslashes.
\\\Boldface-italic\\\ is three backslashes.
SOLOMON'S KNIFE
IX
Dr. Jacob Lawrence sought to avoid controversy the way
most men sought to avoid death. He didn't think about
it much when it wasn't present, but when it seemed
imminent, he marshaled every resource to combat it.
Mentally, he tried to envision a way out of the
mess caused by the woman across from his desk. To his
left sat Dr. Leo Cospe, the staff neurosurgeon. To his
right, leaning against the windowpane, stood Shawn
Deyo, the medical center's legal counsel. It was time
to work on damage control.
He cleared his throat. "Dr. Fletcher, I don't want
to be placed in the position of grand inquisitor, but
your actions leave me no other choice." He gazed across
his desk at Fletcher, who sat stonily in the leather
chair. She stared at him coldly.
"None of this would be happening," she said, "if
the ethics committee had agreed to discuss the merits
of transoption \eight years ago\."
Lawrence sighed. "We'll discuss it now. I've asked
Shawn and Leo to be here as a special ethics
subcommittee."
"I have nothing to say." Dr. Fletcher stared
quietly into the administrator's eyes with a gaze of
arctic steel.
"It would be in your interest," Lawrence said, "to
be forthright about all this so that we can head off
any publicity that may damage this institution."
Fletcher shook her head. "You're going to get
publicity no matter what I say or do. The lid's just
been torn off the biggest controversy of the decade."
She swiveled to look at the lawyer. "What charges have
you concocted for me?"
Deyo--a tall, husky man in a fine grey pinstripe
suit--glanced at a notebook in his hand. His voice was
rich and deep. "Nothing's concocted, Dr. Fletcher. By
\your\ actions you've left us with no other choice but
to notify the district attorney's office. Bayside
cannot be perceived as an institution that condones
illegal, clandestine experiments. Some likely charges
will be performing experimental surgery without
authorization. Failure to secure informed consent for
same. Battery. Kidnapping. Child endangerment. Improper
disposal of fetal tissue samples--"
Fletcher's voice growled low and surly. "Renata
wasn't a tissue sample, damn you. She was a \baby\."
She stared at him with a strange, murderous gaze.
"Well, if you want to go that route, they can get
you on the other charges I mentioned." He leaned toward
her. "But let me tell you this. The DA's going to get
you on something. You ripped a baby out of a woman and
sold it. And make no mistake, that's how the newspapers
will present it."
Fletcher continued to gaze at him, unblinking. "I
saved the life of a child who'd be \dead\ now if not
for--"
"I suggest," Dr. Lawrence interjected sharply,
"that we hold such arguments for the DA and right now
just find a way to moderate the impact of all this.
Surely you must see the sense in that, don't you,
Evelyn?"
Fletcher laughed. "There's no way you can moderate
this. You had eight years to consider all the arguments
pro and con. You waffled and fence straddled until
transoption finally rose up to bite you."
"Evelyn." Dr. Cospe spoke in level, sympathetic
tones. He was smaller than Dr. Fletcher, spare and
balding. He sat in the chair next to Dr. Lawrence and
gazed at her calmly. "What you don't seem to understand
is that such delays are an important part of the
ethical review process. A cooling-off time, if you
will. We're dealing with a procedure that involves a
high degree of morbidity and risk to the reproductive
potential of two women per operation. It is obvious
from your initial proposals that you viewed surgical
embryo transfer as some sort of universal solution to
the problems of both abortion and infertility."
He leaned one elbow on an armrest to support the
side of his head in the palm of his hand. In that
position, he continued.
"That was eight years ago, as you noted. In that
intervening time, such procedures as \in vitro\
fertilization and non-surgical ovum transfer have
solved virtually all problems of infertility. The
prospect of safe abortifacient drugs promises to
resolve the abortion debate."
"It does \not\," Fletcher said. "It just hides the
problem--"
"May I finish?" Cospe's voice never shifted from
its soft timbre. "All right, then. Contraceptive
technology is proceeding at such a pace that unwanted
pregnancies will soon be a thing of the past. Will you
admit that at that point transoption will be obsolete?"
"Mostly," Evelyn said grudgingly. "But there'll
always be someone who--"
Cospe raised his other hand. "Just let me finish.
The reason ethics committees grapple so long with such
difficult questions as the right to life of a fetus or
of risks of morbidity to the mother is that
occasionally the passage of time will make such
questions moot. You acted in haste. You chose to
perform an operation that in a few years will--in all
likelihood--be useless or at least extremely rare."
"Well," Fletcher said, lighting up a cigarette,
"it's damned useful \right now\. And if I had done this
five years ago and it had caught on, there might be a
few million kids alive today who are dead now."
"Oh, that'd be great," Deyo said from a corner of
the office. "Think of the population mess we'd be in.
The world's overcrowded now. Abortion may be the only
thing keeping us from Malthusian disaster."
Dr. Lawrence cleared his throat. "Do you see what
overwhelming issues we've had to contend with in this?"
"None of these considerations were in your
report," Fletcher said. She blew a puff of smoke in
Lawrence's direction. "You're making it all up on the
spot." She turned toward Deyo. "As for overpopulation,
I've heard predictions of doom every time the world
added another billion. Did it ever occur to you that
one of the children from those extra millions might
grow up to be the genius who'll find a solution to
hunger or war? How many potential Einsteins have been
aborted in the last eight years?"
Deyo snorted. "About as many as potential Charlie
Mansons."
Fletcher narrowed her eyes. "We obviously have two
different views of human potential. If an abundance of
people worries you so much, you can always rectify the
matter, starting with yourself."
"\Doctor\ Fletcher," said Lawrence in a strict
tone. "There is no need to stoop to insult. The ethics
subcommittee has no choice in this matter but to notify
the district attorney immediately. To do otherwise
would expose this institution to a severe liability."
"Which we may not be able to avoid, anyway," Deyo
added. "If Dr. Fletcher's criminal intent can be
demonstrated--"
"What crime?" Fletcher asked, stubbing out her
cigarette angrily. "Show me where the crime is. Valerie
Dalton came in for a pregnancy termination. She
received one. Karen Chandler came in to get pregnant.
She got pregnant. If there's any crime there, I can't
see it. If anything, I made efficient use of lab
equipment by recycling the fetus."
"That's enough!" Lawrence picked up the telephone
and punched a button. "Sherry? Get me the district
attorney's office. Yes. Frawley himself." He gazed at
Fletcher. "We'll see what he has to say."
#
Someone had called the reporters. Lawrence and the
others watched from the administrator's office window
as two screaming police cars, lights flashing,
screeched to a halt in the parking lot. Television
remote vans pulled up. Station wagons driven by radio
reporters and smaller cars loaded with newspaper
reporters and photographers disgorged their loads with
vomitous urgency. They had not descended
simultaneously, but it was obvious that someone had
broadcast word of the DA's arrival.
"Election year," Fletcher noted. "And a slow news
day, too."
Lawrence sighed. The reporters headed toward the
police cars with the giddy expectation of heirs around
a deathbed.
Big trouble was brewing, and the administrator was
determined to control not only what he said but what
the DA perceived.
"I would advise everyone," he told the other
three, "to remain calm and let me handle the DA."
His intercom buzzed. He pressed a button. "Is that
the DA, Sherry?"
"\Yes\," a tinny voice said over the speaker.
"Please send him in."
The door opened to admit Malcolm Frawley, an
impressively large man who was once a college football
star and radio announcer. He nodded his head of
thinning red hair at Lawrence.
"Dr. Lawrence," he said. His voice had the rich,
deep tones of a professional orator. "Is this the
woman?"
"This is Dr. Evelyn Fletcher," Lawrence said. "Dr.
Leo Cospe, Mr. Shawn Deyo." Frawley shook the men's
hands. He sat in the chair that Dr. Lawrence indicated.
The others returned to their own.
"I must admit, Dr. Lawrence, that your call
knocked me off my feet. I haven't heard anything this
monstrous since.. well, for a long time. Are you sure
it's as you say?" He produced a notebook and a gold
Cross ballpoint.
"I'm afraid so. I received a call from a lab
technologist who voiced suspicions that confirmed some
of my own. I confronted Dr. Fletcher, and she admitted
everything. I called you only minutes later. You have
my assurance that the medical center knew nothing of
this." He eyed the DA with earnest intensity. "You must
understand that we wish to avoid publicity if at all
possible. It's the policy of Bayside to assist in the
prosecution of doctors who engage in unethical or
illegal practices. An ethics subcommittee has
already--"
"Railroaded me," Fletcher said.
Before Lawrence could continue, his intercom
buzzed again. This time he picked up the phone.
"Yes?"
He listened for a moment, thanked the secretary,
and cradled the phone. His puffy fingers tapped a few
times against the black plastic.
"There you have it," he said. "The valiant press
decided to interview members of our permanent floating
picket line. They naturally found out what's going on
up here. Someone just decided to heave a bench through
the lobby window."
Frawley nodded wearily. "I think you'll want to
issue a statement that my department has everything in
hand." He turned toward Evelyn. "As an officer of the
court, I'd like to inform you of the following rights.
You have the right to remain silent. If you give--"
"If you had any understanding of or respect for
rights," she said icily, "you wouldn't be here doing
this."
Frawley shrugged. Rising to stride over to the
office doors, he poked his head through to signal one
of the young officers. He promptly entered with a pair
of handcuffs.
"Must you?" Dr. Lawrence asked.
Frawley nodded. "It's for her own protection."
Fletcher held out her hands. "What he means is it
looks good on TV around election time."
The DA shook his head with a disappointed
expression and removed his navy-blue jacket, offering
it to the manacled woman.
"What's that for?" she asked.
"To cover your face when we go past the
reporters."
She threw him a withering glare. "I had reason to
be secretive. I have none to be ashamed."
"Have it your way," he said, slipping back into
the jacket. "Gentlemen."
The two officers flanked him by the door. He
grasped Evelyn by the arm and said, "Keep your head low
and walk with me as fast as the boys can clear a path."
The doors opened. The two officers pushed into the
throng, politely asking everyone to stand aside,
please, as they shoved with hands and forearms against
the human sea of reporters. Frawley pushed forward on
Fletcher's arm to set up a quick pace.
She resisted. Rather than cowering to avoid the
cameras, she held her head high and walked with a slow
gait that Frawley found impossible to quicken. He took
a deep, irritated breath and fell in step with her
pace, tugging at her arm every so often in an effort to
make her appear unsteady. She seemed to sense his
strategy and to counter each tactic he attempted to
employ.
This was the day she had anticipated for so long.
Anticipated, feared, and rehearsed for. She was not
going to act the criminal's role.
A raven-haired woman shoved a microphone past the
officers while her partner pointed a glaring videocam
at the doctor. Amidst the din of questions, hers rang
through clearly. "How many babies did you steal?"
"Our only comment," Frawley said, "is that a
complete investigation is underw--"
"After performing three thousand six hundred
eighteen pregnancy terminations," Fletcher said in a
powerful, level tone, "I managed to save one baby from
death. I welcome being convicted of such a crime."
That was enough for Frawley. With a subtle but
firm tug at her arm, he caused her to stumble over her
own feet. She recovered, glared at him, and resumed her
tall stride.
The cloud of reporters orbiting around Dr.
Fletcher encountered a choke point at the elevator. The
police cleared out a car, and the four descended.
"I know," Fletcher said, "that it's in your
interest to make me look bad before the press. Battery
complaints go both ways, though. Don't set the grounds
for a civil suit against you when all this is over."
Frawley rubbed his nose and stared at the elevator
door. "You're right. That was a lame trick. But don't
\you\ get your hopes up. You doctor types get so
wrapped up in your experiments that you think the rest
of the world will welcome you as a god floating down
from Olympus. Don't count on it. You're a cold,
calculating demon, and I'm personally going to see you
raked over the coals for this."
The doors parted before another swarm of
reporters. The faces were familiar, if a bit flushed,
from the third floor. They continued their questioning
with labored breath. The entire knot of people moved
outside.
"Were you driven to this by religious
convictions?" shouted one voice.
"How much did the parents pay you?" hollered
another.
"How do you justify breaking the law?"
"I broke no law," Fletcher said in a loud and
level tone. "Except the unwritten one that thou shalt
not act on conscience. I delib--"
Something hit the side of her head with stunning
impact and exploded in a cloud of brown dust. She
stared incredulously at the man who had thrown the dirt
clod. A member of the picket line, he carried a sign
that read ABORTION IS MURDER--SAVE THE FUTURE.
#
The attack, caught on video, played for the noon news
viewers.
Terence Johnson sat in his cluttered Long Beach
apartment, watching with intense fascination.
Surrounded by stacks of law books upon which rested
empty fast-food containers from Popeye's, Del Taco, and
Gourmet to Go, the twenty-six-year-old man observed the
scene with sharp black eyes. His curly almost coal-
black hair was longer than was currently fashionable
for his profession, and the cramped quarters of his
Seventh Street lodgings gave lie to the canard that all
lawyers made a fortune. As if any further proof were
needed, he wore aging acid-wash jeans that had
apparently seen more acid than wash. The T-shirt
clinging to his trim frame bore the smiling face of
Captain Midnight, urging everyone to drink their
Ovaltine.
He scooped up another mouthful of \yakisoba\ with
chopsticks, set the nearly empty carton on his copy of
\Black's Law Dictionary\, and concentrated on the
woman's expression. He tried to read her personality
from her body language and neurolinguistics.
He might as well have used her sun sign for all
the information he was able to glean. He was intrigued,
though. Enough to reach for his briefcase, shove a few
notes into its crammed interior, slip on a reasonably
clean, natural-hued knit sweater, and listen carefully.
The camera shifted to the reporter at the scene.
"This bizarre story of medical experiments and stolen
babies has only just begun to unfold. Dr. Fletcher will
be interrogated further in the DA's office downtown.
When further word develops on this astonishing--"
Johnson heard nothing more. He slammed the door
running and rushed to his battered white Volkswagen.
#
"You can't make any of the charges stick, Mr. Frawley."
Dr. Fletcher addressed the DA in cool, precise tones.
She was calm now, sitting in a comfortable leather
French Provincial chair inside Frawley's well-
appointed, wood-paneled downtown office. Lawrence and
Deyo sat in similar chairs off to the side. Dr. Cospe
had elected to stay behind at the hospital, his stint
as a member of the \ad hoc\ subcommittee at an end.
The police officers, at a glance from Frawley,
unshackled Fletcher and promptly retired to the outer
room.
She spent ten minutes silently listening to what
the DA had against her, then struck back.
"Any charge," she said, "related to kidnapping,
child abuse, child endangerment, or indeed any charge
that implies what I withdrew from Valerie Dalton was in
any way human will directly conflict with the Supreme
Court's rulings on abortion. If a fetus is human enough
that you can accuse \me\ of kidnapping, then \I\ accuse
the hospital's other abortionists of murder in the
first degree. A charge that others have brought with no
results." She glanced at Dr. Lawrence for support; he
merely stared ahead at Frawley.
Frawley glared back at Fletcher. "For criminal
purposes, a fetus \can\ be considered a human being. If
you'd shot Ms. Dalton in the abdomen, wounding her and
killing the fetus, I could easily charge you with
murder."
Fletcher smiled a smile that failed to conceal her
contempt. "The problem is that she \asked\ me to remove
the fetus. And it's alive. You can't have it both ways
or you'll be playing right into the antiabortionists'
hands. You can't arrest me for kidnapping someone I was
legally permitted to kill." She drew her cigarette
package and Zippo lighter from her lab coat.
Frawley cleared his throat. "There's no smoking in
city buildings."
She grinned, lighting up. "If you really want to
get coverage, add aggravated smoking to the charge of
fetal kidnapping. The press loves little touches
like--"
The sound of arguing voices drifted into the room.
From outside the office a policeman thrust in his head
to say, "Sorry, sir. There's a guy out here claims to
be her lawyer."
Terence Johnson peered inside, waved at Fletcher
as if they were old army buddies, and nodded at the DA.
Evelyn looked back at him with a blank stare.
Frawley cleared his throat. "Is he?" he asked.
Tapping cigarette ash into an empty coffee cup,
she smiled with wry anticipation. "He said he was,
didn't he?"
"What's his name?" Frawley asked her.
"Terence Johnson," the lawyer spouted before
Evelyn could react. He let himself in and dropped his
briefcase beside an empty chair. "But everyone
including Dr. Fletcher calls me Terry." He looked at
the bemused doctor. "You really should give a guy a
call. I had the toughest time finding you."
"I'll remember the next time I'm busted," she
replied, sizing him up with cautious eyes.
He looked to be fresh out of law school, full of
energy and spirit. If he had legal skills to match his
enthusiasm and ingenuity, he might be worth retaining.
He pulled a canary-yellow notepad from his
briefcase. "How much have you told them?"
She reiterated the conversations nearly verbatim.
He switched on a tape recorder and took simultaneous
notes. Occasionally, he used his Pilot Razorpoint pen
to brush a curly lock of black hair away from his eyes,
back with the rest of his mop.
"Well," he said, jotting quick, almost unreadable
notes, "it seems that you don't have any charges
centered around child abuse." He looked up at Frawley,
then at Lawrence and Deyo. "What else have you got left
to try?"
"We've got plenty. Failure to receive informed
consent--"
"From whom?" Fletcher asked.
Dr. Lawrence folded his arms and gazed down his
nose at Fletcher. "From the women. You'll naturally
point out that we can't accuse you of failing to
receive informed consent from a fetus since they are
not considered humans capable of granting informed
consent. But the women were involved in highly risky
experimental surgery. The `donor mother,' as you call
her, faced the risk of--"
"Valerie Dalton faced the risk," Fletcher said,
"that any woman seeking an abortion faced. Pain.
Bleeding. Severe cramping. Possible hemorrhaging and
loss of blood requiring transfusion. Even the chance of
being rendered sterile by the procedure. She signed--"
Johnson cut in. "You don't have to say anything
else. I'll handle it from here."
"Don't interrupt me." Her voice was harsher with
him than with the DA.
"As your legal counsel, I strongly urge you to--"
"When I hired you," she said in a sharp tone,
"didn't we agree that I'd handle this my way?"
Johnson gazed at her silently for a moment. The
trace of a smile appeared at the edges of his mouth.
"I was hoping you'd changed your mind," the young
man said, bending over his notepad. "Do as you like."
Fletcher turned toward Frawley. "Ms. Dalton signed
the proper paperwork that's been approved by the ethics
committee."
"I looked at those." Lawrence quickly said to
Frawley. "They were nonstandard. Wherever the word
`abortion' had been in the original, the term
`pregnancy termination' was substituted."
Fletcher took a drag of her cigarette and blew
smoke toward an empty part of the office. "The
committee approved the use of the euphemism six years
ago, if you'll bother to look at the revision number on
the form. Since they were unaware that any other form
of pregnancy termination existed, I was able to push
that through. All your doctors have been using it." She
began to look as if she were enjoying the exchange.
"Nothing in the contract required that I kill the fetus
or inform anyone of the uses to whi--"
"The recipient mother ran just as much risk, if
not more, from the implantation procedure." Dr.
Lawrence unfolded his hands and leaned forward in his
chair. "Don't tell anyone who's had more than a week of
medical school that this transoption technique is safe.
Anytime you surgically attach foreign matter into a
healthy human being, the capability of tissue
rejection, trauma, infection, and morbidity exists. You
had no experimental basis for this procedure. No animal
research, not even peer-reviewed experimental protocols
for establish--"
"What do you propose to do?" she asked him.
"Convince Karen Chandler to press charges against me
for giving her what she most fervently wanted?" She
dropped the cigarette in the Styrofoam cup. "Go to her.
Tell her what you plan to do. Tell her you want to
imprison the doctor who gave her what no other
fertility program could. Wait for her answer. Then take
a good look at the waiver she signed. The language is
legal." She turned to Johnson. "Did you review the
copies I sent you?"
Poker-faced, he replied, "I'll need more time, but
they seem airtight on first glance."
Deyo gave Johnson a curious once-over. Dr.
Lawrence stared emotionlessly at Fletcher, drumming his
fingers on his armrest. "There are noncriminal ways of
handling this, as you well know. The principle of \non-
surgical\ ovum transfer was established in 1983, under
the most rigorous of guidelines. You've chosen to
expand that frontier of research in a clandestine,
surreptitious, and completely unprofessional manner.
This is clearly a matter for the Board of Medical
Quality Assurance. I can virtually guarantee the
revocation of your license to practice in the state of
California. That would effectively bar you from
practice in the United States."
"Fine," Frawley said with a relieved nod. "We'll
formulate any criminal charges based upon the findings
of the board." He looked at Lawrence. "That should keep
things out of the limelight for a few weeks. Time
enough for things to cool down." The D.A. relaxed--at
least \he\ was off the hook awhile.
Johnson cleared his throat for attention. "Is that
what you intend to tell the press out there?"
Frawley eyeballed him. "Why?"
Johnson ran his hands through his hair and leaned
back, notepad and pen resting on his lap. "Because the
subjects of abortion, host mothers, and radical new
forms of fertility are all violently emotional
subjects. You've got people smashing up your hospital
just on the \rumor\ that something strange is going on,
fetuswise. What sort of publicity will you generate if
you let Dr. Fletcher walk out of here with nothing from
you but a `We'll look into it' statement? Everyone
would view your position as a wrist slap or as cowardly
stalling." He looked at Frawley. "They'll be knocking
in \your\ windows tomorrow. Maybe tonight.
"But any of those major charges you arraign her on
\I'll\ get shot down in pretrial because no judge is
going to go up against the prevailing opinion on the
nonhuman status of the unborn." He glanced from
Lawrence to Fletcher. "The AMA has too much riding on
the billion-dollar-a-year abortion industry. And that
charge of battery is ridiculous. Dalton \paid\ for the
operation. She got what she wanted. She wasn't touched
without her consent and I'd love to see you try to
prove criminal intent to \save\ a baby's life."
Lawrence's face turned the color and texture of
unpolished granite. Fletcher merely looked at the
bookcase across the room. Her eyes seemed to be looking
somewhere far beyond the office.
Frawley turned to gaze questioningly at Lawrence.
The doctor shook his head resignedly, peering at a
poker-faced Fletcher. "All right," the DA said. "It's
pretty obvious that you've thought all this out rather
thoroughly. You must have figured you'd get caught
someday." He sat back in his chair with weary
heaviness. "You've committed what I personally consider
to be a repulsive medical experiment, and you've
covered your ass admirably. I'm turning this over to a
grand jury, and I'll let \them\ issue any indictments.
Until then, you're free to go. And I hope you don't
have anything put through \your\ windows."
Johnson smiled. "Thank you, Mr. District
Attorney."
"And you--" Frawley said. "You just watch your
step. If I have to deal with you at all, just remember
that we're both officers of the same damned court."
The young man tried to suppress a sardonic smile.
"I'm fully aware of that, sir." He switched off the
recorder, putting it and his notepad back in the
briefcase.
Evelyn stood and turned to go.
"Oh, Dr. Fletcher," Frawley added. "Don't leave
the county of Los Angeles without giving us a call,
will you?"
"Of course I won't leave," she said. "I have
patients to care for."
"You certainly do \not\!" Dr. Lawrence stared at
her in shock. "Your privileges are suspended pending
full BMQA review. And I'm going to find a way to sack
you regardless of any outcome."
"That's absurd," she said. "Renata requires--"
"Newborn babies are not uncommon in medicine," he
shot back. "I'm certain that we--"
"You're certain of \nothing\ because you have no
\facts\!" Her gaze smoldered for a moment. "I know you
view the Hippocratic oath as a joke, considering how
you have your doctors ignore the part about never
conducting abortions--"
"I took the oath of Geneva," Lawrence said. "It
had nothing about abor--"
"--but think of the publicity crisis you'd have if
Renata died because I was barred from helping her," she
continued without interruption. "Bad for funding."
"Why does it always come down to money and
publicity with you?" he asked.
"Because that's what it comes down to with you."
"Until the outcome of the inquest," Johnson
interjected, "showing cause for suspension under such
circumstances would be diffic--"
"Shut up," Lawrence snapped.
"See you in court," Johnson said with a grin.
After a pause, Lawrence spoke in a quiet, steady
tone. "All right. Dr. Fletcher, you may remain on staff
under strict supervision and with the stipulation that
you desist from any further medical experimentation.
Agreed?"
Fletcher nodded eagerly. "I agree. As long as
neither I nor Nurse Dyer are required to perform or
assist in any abortions."
"Oh, you can rest assured on that point."
"Then," Johnson said, "in the interest of avoiding
any untoward publicity until the grand jury convenes,
how about showing us the back door?"
X
Valerie switched on the bedroom TV with the remote. The
lunchtime news appeared with an image of anchorwoman
Sally Lin, who spoke while a piece of artwork hovered
over her left shoulder, depicting a fetus and the words
\ABORTION SCANDAL?\ at an angle in red.
"--still unclear," the anchor said. "The doctor,
Evelyn Fletcher, is head of the medical center's
fertility program. She also apparently ran the center's
family-planning clinic and performed abortions, thus
giving her access to live fetuses. Hospital officials
have no comment as yet, but sources reveal that the
purportedly clandestine experiment came to light when
the baby, delivered by alleged surrogate mother Karen
Chandler of Torrance, fell ill and required blood from
the alleged real mother, Valerie Dalton of Palos Verdes
Estates."
Valerie felt as if a charging bull had gored her.
Her stomach tightened, her breath caught in her chest,
her heart pounded as if she were being truncheoned
every half second. The anchorwoman continued, unaware
of the effect she was having on a member of her
audience.
"There is no word on how many operations of this
nature may allegedly have been performed, but we'll
keep you informed on this bizarre story as it unfolds."
The scene switched to the other anchor, Jerry
Thompson, a middle-aged man with grey at the temples.
"Now you said `surrogate,' Sally, but this was actually
a mother who wanted to have a child, correct?"
"That's right, Jerry. This seems to be different
from surrogate mothering in that the woman who wants to
keep the child gives birth to it. I think the term they
used was `recipient' mother. But in both cases the real
mother gives up the child. The term we heard used was
\transoption\, though our medical expert, Dr. Joseph
Schulman, says he's never heard the word before."
Thompson gave Lin a concerned and probing look.
"And no word as to why this recipient mother quietly
went along with what she must have known was an illegal
procedure?"
"No word yet. She presumably wanted a child in the
worst way."
Thompson nodded. "And that's how she seems to have
gotten it. Shocking story coming out of Harbor City.
Something we'll follow up on tonight at six. Thanks,
Sally." He turned to face the camera. "And a shocking
loss for the Raiders in Denver, as Mauricio Sanchez
tells us when we return with sports after these--"
The phone rang. Valerie switched off the TV and
picked up the cordless hand unit an instant before the
answering machine could intercept the call.
"Val!" Ron's voice was distant but alarmed. "Are
you all right?"
"Where are you?"
"I'm calling from the car. I'm at PCH and Beryl.
I'll be home soon. I heard your name on the radio. Is
everything all right?"
"I'm okay. Just hurry home."
"Fifteen minutes," he said. "I'll cut it to ten."
"Drive safely. I don't--"
Someone pounded on their front door. She walked
over to look out the beveled-glass rectangle set in the
center.
A man with a microphone gestured at her. Another
man hefted a video camera on his shoulder. Behind them,
a van pulled to a stop, its tires screeching and
thumping to a halt.
"Ms. Dalton, could you step out here to comment--"
"Oh, God, Ron. They're showing up \here\!"
"Don't let them in!" shouted the tinny voice.
Somewhere in the static she heard the whine of the
BMW's turbine. "I'm coming!"
She watched as more gangs of reporters, cameramen,
and sound engineers trooped onto her front lawn.
Curious neighbors gathered at the fringes. So much for
Palos Verdes people not prying.
Her stomach tightened and began to heave. She
controlled the urge but ran to the bathroom anyway,
slamming the door.
It was quiet in the bathroom. The knocking on the
front door was almost imperceptible. She turned on the
faucet in the sink to drown out the last of it. She
sat, numbed, waiting for Ron to return.
#
Ron hit the left turn from Palos Verdes Drive to Via
Zumaya at nearly full speed, ignoring the oncoming
northbound cars a few yards ahead. He punched the BMW
to full power across the two lanes of traffic and
slammed onto Via Zumaya at fifty miles per hour. He
took his foot off the gas and downshifted for the turn
onto Via Carrillo.
And nearly collided with the knot of vehicles
jamming the tree-lined street. Brakes squealed in
protest, but the antilock system prevented a skid. Even
so, he bumped into a station wagon bearing the call
letters of the radio station to which he had been
listening.
He didn't give a damn.
He slammed the door and ran to the cluster of a
dozen and more Pecksniffs loitering on his doorstep.
"Move it!" he shouted in his deepest, most
authoritarian courtroom bass. "Get your asses to the
property line or be arrested for trespassing. Now!"
The reporters surrounded him, hollering their
questions and shoving for position. Awash in a Sargasso
of journalists, Czernek pushed toward the door while
fumbling for his keys.
"I said \no comment\. When we're ready to talk,
you'll know it. Get off the lawn and find some carrion
to circle around."
He unlocked the door, entered, and slammed it
forcefully shut. "Val!"
He heard the water in the bathroom and ran toward
it. "Honey!" he shouted.
She sat on the small French seat in front of her
vanity, gazing in the mirror.
He knelt down to wrap her in his powerful arms.
His hand stroked her soft hair, his voice even softer.
"I'm here now, babe. Everything's all right. I know
just what to do. Give me a couple of hours at the word
processor. I have to get something stamped at court
before it closes."
He released her almost as quickly as he had
embraced her. Seconds later, he sat in their office.
Valerie heard the whine and chunk of the computer and
knew that she would sit alone once more until he was
finished. She gazed at her image in the vanity mirror.
Her eyes, she noted, looked older, wearier, less alive
than they ever had before. In a robotic daze, she
brushed at her hair only to see that the polish on her
long nails had grown dull and chipped over the course
of the day. She laid down the brush. To the sounds of
running water and Ron's feverish typing, she sat
staring at the woman in the looking glass.
#
Evelyn, alone, took a long, meditative lunch at CoCo's
after the interrogation, mulling over the conversation
she and Johnson had engaged in during the rush to her
car.
"I saw you on TV," he said, riding down the
service elevator with her. "I didn't know whether you
already had an attorney, but I knew I had to give it a
try. And I'd like to represent the Chandler's, too, if
you and they won't see any conflict of interest there."
"Are you a specialist in reproductive law?" She
was fighting for her professional life, she thought,
and here was a kid offering his services.
"I will be by the time we go to trial." The
elevator doors parted. "There's really nothing to being
a lawyer except the ability to apply clear logic to
muddled legislation. Add a good head for research and
rhetorical skills and you've got a winning lawyer."
"You need one more thing."
"What's that?" he asked.
"A jury willing to believe you."
She ate her meal slowly, spending more than two
hours in the restaurant. She had managed to elude the
reporters and she wanted her privacy to last. As
daylight began to fade, she paid her tab and used the
public phone to call the lab. After fielding questions
from a concerned technologist and assuring him that she
was fine, she heard the news that managed to lift her
spirits.
Dalton's serologies were fine. And--crucially
important--her HLA matched Renata's rare type on five
points. That was close enough to make a marrow
transplant possible. Relieved that at least one good
thing had happened that day, she paid her tab and drove
home.
She maneuvered the Saab into the alley behind her
apartment, parked in the carport, and climbed out. A
buzz in the twilight air, different from the usual
noises of the neighborhood, alerted her to a crowd in
the front of the building. Suspecting reporters, she
looked this way and that. The back entrance was
deserted. She headed for the door.
A figure shifted in the shadows.
"Dr. Fletcher?"
The voice startled her. She gasped inadvertently,
drawing her key ring to hold beside her as a ready
weapon.
"Who are you?"
A man dressed in dark blue jeans and a navy
turtleneck sweater stepped out of the darkness into the
yellow light of the walkway. He handed her an envelope.
"This is for you."
She reflexively reached out for it with her free
hand. The instant her fingers touched it, the bearded
man released his hold.
"My name is Ron Czernek, attorney for the mother
of the baby known as Renata Chandler. You have just
been served on behalf of Valerie Dalton with a civil
lawsuit demanding the return of Valerie Dalton's and my
daughter, the payment of thirty million dollars in
actual and punitive damages, and a permanent injunction
against your practice of medicine in the state of
California. Have a nice night."
Evelyn stood in the pool of light staring
wordlessly at Czernek. She felt like an old woman who
had just been mugged. Her fingers shifted the smooth
surface of the envelope around in her hand.
He turned to leave.
"I only meant to save a child's life," she said.
Czernek whipped about to stare at the doctor with
icy contempt. "And how many lives have you ruined doing
so? Valerie's nearly mad with confusion and guilt. She
went through the pain of an abortion and had finally
learned to deal with it when she discovered that she
had to undergo more pain to save the life she thought
she'd ended. Why? Because a doctor's little experiment
screwed up."
"That's not how it was at--"
"I don't care how it \was\." He pointed at the
envelope. "This is how it \is\. We're taking our
daughter back." He waited just long enough for a
riposte from Fletcher, received none, and walked into
the night. His feet crunched against the gravel and
broken glass in the alleyway.
Evelyn unlocked the door to the stairwell and
stepped inside. In the harsh fluorescent light she
leaned against the wall to examine the lawsuit.
It was all he had said, naming her, Mr. and Mrs.
Chandler, and Bayside University Medical Center as co-
defendants. She walked up the stairs feeling old,
tired, and shaken. She had always known that her
research would be viewed with hostility by her peers.
She knew enough history to realize that medical
innovations in any particular age were rarely accepted
by the physicians then practicing. Usually the old
generation of researchers had to die off, clinging
intransigently to outmoded ideas and procedures, while
a new generation accepted the new concepts as the norm.
That's why it took a generation for practically any
idea or invention to gain widespread approval. The
thought gave her scant comfort. If how she felt after
today's ordeal was any indication, she didn't think she
could hold out that long.
The first action she took upon entering her
apartment was to throw the blue-backed insult on the
coffee table. Locking and chaining the door, she lit up
a Defiant and located her patient-address book. Finger
stabbing like a dagger, she punched in Valerie's phone
number.
The line was busy.
She hit the redial button. Busy.
\Probably being interviewed by\ People \magazine\,
she mused.
#
Karen Chandler sat in the ICU, weeping in David's arms.
She had tried not to cry, but watching the blood
transfusion a few hours ago had been the first blow.
Renata hardly reacted as the nurse tried to pierce a
slender vein with the tiniest of IV needles. The blood
brought a pink glow to her skin, but it didn't seem to
last.
Now Renata slept motionlessly inside the isolation
chamber. Minuscule electrodes, stuck with gel and taped
to her head and chest, delivered vital information to
the machinery against the wall. Except for the
electronic musings of the equipment and Karen's sobs,
the room was quiet.
The sound on the television set had been turned
off, but David looked up to see a silent montage of the
day's events: the line of demonstrators outside the
hospital; the arrival of the DA; the hospital
administrator fending off questions; Dr. Fletcher in
handcuffs, walking tall through the clog of reporters;
her reaction as a clod of dirt hits her; an interview
with the man Chandler knew had to be Renata's father.
Her \real\ father.
And finally, the news anchor with an insert behind
her that read "TRANSOPTION"--SURGICAL KIDNAPPING? The
accompanying artwork was that of a fetus surmounted by
a gleaming scalpel.
He watched the image fade, to be replaced by an ad
for disposable diapers. He looked away, buried his face
in Karen's sweet-smelling hair, and tried to soothe
her.
A man in dark blue jeans and a navy turtleneck
sweater strode quietly down the hospital hallway toward
the ICU.
#
The phone rang. Valerie, just finished talking with her
mother in Colorado, picked up the handset.
"Hello?"
"Valerie, this is Dr. Fletcher."
She felt as if her hands had been plunged into ice
water. "Y-yes?"
"I just ran into Ron."
"Dr. Fletcher," she said, her words running
together in a breathless plea for understanding, "I
didn't want it to come to this but everything seemed so
terrible when I heard that my baby was alive and I'd
have to give her a transplant and all. It was Ron's
idea but we both want that baby to live and wouldn't it
stand a better chance with me? I'm her real mother
after all and it's not as if we can't provide for her
even without that money that he asked for. You know I
don't care about the money; I just want her to be all
right."
"Valerie, I don't harbor any ill feelings. I only
want to know that this suit won't interfere with our
working relationship. With helping the baby get well."
"Oh, it won't, Dr. Fletcher, it won't." She
sniffed back tears, wiped a tissue against her nose.
"You've got to realize that all this publicity is
going to be tough on us. You've got to keep your
spirits up and stay healthy for Renata's sake as well
as yours."
"I will," Valerie said. "I will."
"Your HLA type is close enough to Renata's that we
can do a marrow transplant. Can I expect you to show up
at ten tomorrow morning?"
"Yes. Ten A.M."
"All right, Valerie." Dr. Fletcher's tone
softened. "Thank you."
"I want my baby to live," she said, choking back
the urge to break into tears.
"We all do. Get some rest. Good night."
Valerie said, "Good night," and switched off the
remote. She lay back on the bed and tried to think
about how all this would affect her, her job, and Ron.
She'd need more time off for the appointment tomorrow.
\And trials are usually held during daytime\. She
wondered if Ernie would understand. He always seemed
very sympathetic to her problems.
Her mother had been so sweet, talking to her just
a few minutes before. She'd called from Colorado
Springs to find out what was going on. She'd heard her
daughter's name on CNN and called immediately. They
talked for nearly an hour about it all, both crying,
Valerie assuring her mother that there was no need for
her to fly out--Ron was doing everything he could to
take care of her.
The phone rang, startling her back to the present
time. She picked up the remote. "Hello?"
"Is this Valerie Dalton?" The man's voice sounded
guarded.
"Yes. May I ask who's--"
"I'm a stringer with the \National Midnight Star\.
I'd like to check a few facts about the changeling for
our next issue. I think we can definitely swing a cover
headline, though the royal triplets get priority for
the pho--"
"What?" was all that she could muster. A sick
tightness gripped her stomach.
"Hey, I'm sorry, but we've already got the color
separations done on their photo. We'll do the best we
can on interior layout, though. Now, let's start off
with vital stats. What's the baby's birth weight and
length?"
"I--I don't--"
"You're right, I can get that from the mother.
Now, do you suspect that the doctor was in the service
of the CIA, KGB, or extraterrestrial forces?"
Valerie stared at the phone in revulsion and
switched it off. It promptly rang again. She let it.
After four rings, the answering machine took over.
"Hello?" her voice said.
"Good evening," said another man's voice. "I'm--"
"Oh, hi! You have reached Ron and Valerie's
place..."
Following the tone, the caller, obviously annoyed
at having been tricked by the recording, said, "My name
is Bobby Roy Jensen, and I heard about you on the TV. I
know you must be going through a terrible crisis, and I
considered it my Christian duty to offer you Bible
counseling during your time of troubled decision.
Please call me at Klondike five four-one-eight-oh. If
you need immediate help, please turn to psalm eighty-
eight, especially verse te--"
The recorder's thirty-second timer ran out,
cutting him off. The phone rang again. This time the
message activated on the first ring. Valerie numbly
listened to it play through, waiting for the caller's
message as if she were tuned in to a radio drama.
There was no message. The caller hung up. The
phone rang again a few seconds later.
"I think you're a real sick bitch," said a man's
voice tinged with the slur of alcohol. "You and your
money-hungry boyfriend. You live in sin and try to kill
your bastard to cover up your evil, but you got
tricked, didn't you, and now you try to gouge some
money out of it."
She listened to the voice in a nauseated, drifting
blur of unreality. The world was invading her bedroom,
and it was a world of hate and invective directed at
\her\.
"Whaddayou want your baby back \now\," the voice
rambled, "after you'd given it up for dead? `Cuz
there's a buck in it? Or is your boyfriend running for
office? Your kind makes me--"
When the tape cut off, the caller rang again. At
the sound of his voice Valerie reached out to switch
off the unit's monitor. Then she walked slowly through
the house, turning the switches on all the telephones
to silence. The messages would accumulate, but she
wouldn't have to hear them.
In the silence, the words of the last message
echoed relentlessly in her mind. She'd given up her
baby months ago when it was nothing more than a little
blob of tissue. Just a \potential\ baby. Now that it
was real, did she have any right to demand it back? Did
the money matter? Why did Ron put that in the lawsuit?
She understood that it was a way to make the defendants
sit up and take notice, but it all seemed so venal. All
she wanted was Jennifer.
Someone knocked at the door. She ignored it.
Whoever it was rang the doorbell again and again.
"Stop it!" she screamed. Running to the bathroom,
she seized a thick green towel and ran to the foyer.
She rammed folds of cloth between the hanging chimes,
deadening the sound to the muffled thunk of the
solenoids.
The thunking stopped suddenly, accompanied by a
flare of camera lights and flashes, a scuffling sound
on the front steps, and a familiar voice shouting, "Get
the hell off!"
Ron quickly entered, closing and locking the door
behind him. He hugged Valerie with fierce intensity.
Through sobs and tissues she told him about their
hour apart. He guided her to the bedroom, where he laid
her down on the covers and helped to undress her.
"And the really awful part of it was those phone
calls." She looked at Ron as he pulled her blouse off.
"I don't want to go through with this, Ron. Can't we
just let them have the baby?"
Ron helped her under the sheets and pulled the
comforter over her before answering. She could tell
that he was marshaling his thoughts for a convincing,
logical statement.
"Val, you know I love you and I don't want to put
you through any pain. But what Dr. Fletcher did to you
is just unconscionable."
He pulled off his turtleneck and jeans, undressing
quickly to slide into bed beside her. "Doctors can't be
allowed to treat women and children like experimental
cattle. She can't go around taking babies as if they
were livestock to be sold to the highest bidder. That
sort of thinking leads to political eugenics. To
breeding and killing programs for the good of the state
or the good of the race. Dr. Fletcher may think she has
the noblest of motives, but she's really no different
from a Nazi scientist--"
Valerie buried her head in Ron's arm and cried,
her tears hot and unyielding.
"This will be a very important case, Val. A
landmark decision. I \have\ to be the lawyer who sees
this through, who makes sure it never happens again.
Don't you understand that?"
She stopped crying. A drunken voice reverberated
at the back of her mind.
\"Or is your boyfriend running for office?"\
"You'd be famous," she said softly.
"Remember," he whispered, "what my dad always used
to say about doing well by doing right? It's \right\ to
fight for your baby, and we'll be rewarded for it by a
jury of good people."
Without a word, Valerie rolled over to stare
silently at the wall.
XI
"This will be the easiest case I've ever had." Terence
Johnson's voice sounded bright and cheerful in Evelyn's
ear. She had only just a few minutes before hung up
from her conversation with Valerie.
"I've been thinking about it over dinner," he
continued, "and I know that after a few days, when all
the facts come out on this, there'll be a broad base of
support for you."
Fletcher stretched out on her bed, pulled the
covers over her, and curled up with the phone.
Exhausted, not looking forward to the marrow job
tomorrow, she shared little of the young lawyer's
enthusiasm.
"If I had seen any such support among my
colleagues," she said, "I wouldn't have worked in
secret."
Johnson's voice tutted dismissively. "Doctor's are
a stodgy bunch. Don't you see how transoption cuts
across the traditional divisions? The antiabortionists
will cheer you because you've finally found a way to
save the lives of all those unborn babies. And the pro-
choice feminists will applaud you because you're giving
women the freedom to terminate a pregnancy without the
stigma of death that has always surrounded abortion.
Free choice without guilt. Babies saved without
oppression of women. You've brought the world to a new
pinnacle of civilization. Single-handedly, you--"
"Since I seem to have taken you on as my lawyer in
all this," she said levelly, "what exactly am I paying
you?"
His tone returned to earth from its stratospheric
courtroom excesses. "Oh, just expenses. The other guy
is doing this for the publicity, so can I. In fact, I
probably have lower overhead."
"Why?"
"I'm unemployed."
"Unemp--" She cut the word off. "Just what legal
experience do you have?"
"Well, I passed the bar last year."
"Yes."
"And before that I worked as a paralegal while at
law school."
"And after your bar?"
"There are a lot of amoral and immoral law firms
out there, Dr. Fletcher." His voice took on a curiously
cautious tone. "I have yet to find anyone who views the
law the way I do. It was hard enough to get through law
school. I had to keep my opinions to myself and just
parrot back what the profs told us. Study section was
the place where conformity of opinion really got
bullied into... Why am I telling you this? You've been
through med school."
Fletcher smiled at the memories of her own run-ins
with professors and facilitators at every stage of the
hierarchy in her teaching hospital. She rolled over on
her side, switching the phone to her other ear. "So
you've never really practiced law, have you?"
"I've \practiced\ a lot. Now I want to \do\ it."
"And your plans for this trial?"
"Character witnesses. Expert witnesses. Convince
the jury that transoption is literally a giant step
forward in human rights and that all who understand it
agree."
Fletcher said nothing for a moment, then, "You
know where to reach me."
After she switched off the phone, she stared at
the darkness, where the ceiling hung, until sleep
enveloped her.
#
Valerie faced the morning with a dread that approached
terror. She lay on the bed, fully dressed, staring at
the ceiling, listening to the sound of vehicles
stopping in front of her house. She would have to
penetrate that wall. And another at the hospital.
Ron stepped out of the bathroom, vigorously drying
his hair and beard. "You understand why I can't go with
you," he said.
"No," she said without emotion.
"I've got to get the ball rolling on this lawsuit.
The other side's probably going to try to stall for as
long as possible, taking the full thirty days to demur,
so I've got to be ready to get it to trial ASAP. And
I've got to assemble witnesses, prepare a strategy for
jury selection, rearrange my schedule--"
"I understand. You'll be busy."
"Val," he said, sitting on the bed to lay an arm
on her shoulder. His dark eyes gazed at her with firm
intensity. "It's good that you're going. If the baby
has to have a bone-marrow transplant, I'm behind you
all the way. It can only help the case if we cooperate
in every way with her medical needs. But we can't let
that sap our momentum."
"It's supposed to hurt. A lot."
He hugged her. "Honey, I'll \be there\. You'll be
spending the night at the hospital, right?"
"Right."
"So I'll be there after five." He kissed her cheek
tenderly. "Just relax and concentrate on saving our
little girl."
He escorted her to the Porsche. The reporters
flashed pictures, shouted questions, and pointed their
videocams. Wisely, they stayed on the other side of the
property line.
"How do I get past them?" she whispered.
"Just tell them that you can't comment on the case
but that all you're interested in is seeing \your\ baby
get the medical care she needs." He shut the door with
a firm push. "Drive carefully and remember--The press
can be our best friends in this."
She pulled slowly out of the driveway. A crush of
newshounds encircled the vehicle, thrusting microphones
into the half-lowered window.
"What did you feel when you found out your baby
hadn't been aborted?"
"Can you explain what's wrong with the baby?"
"Why do you want her back?"
"What name do you have picked out for her?"
"What do you feel toward the surrogate mother?"
Valerie just said, "I want my baby to be healthy,"
and rolled up the window.
"How sick is she?"
"Did you foresee your decision to abort having
such repercussions?"
"How do you feel helping the doctor who did this
to you?"
She rammed her foot on the accelerator and peeled
away.
The newspaper and radio teams hastened to form a
convoy behind her, leaving the TV crews to tape wrapup
segments using the house as a backdrop.
The trip down the hill toward Harbor City unnerved
Valerie. Trying to concentrate on the simple act of
driving, she nonetheless kept gazing into the rearview
mirror in an effort to observe the cars and vans behind
her. She counted six, several sporting the logo of a
radio station or newspaper. Curious glances from
drivers and passengers in other lanes made her blush
with embarrassment and fury.
She pulled into the medical center's north parking
lot after a quick survey of the entrance. The line of
protesters was longer than ever. Several policemen
stood at the periphery, quietly watching the
proceedings, making their presence tangibly felt with
that projected mixture of self-assurance and mortal
threat that members of their profession so effectively
exude.
As soon as she parked her car, reporters
surrounded it, quickly joined by the others from the
convoy.
"Ms. Dalton--Why are you here?"
"Is it true the baby needs an organ transplant?"
"Do you think you'll be a fit mother?"
"Did you want an abortion because you weren't
married?"
"Why aren't you pressing criminal charges?"
"Can you get us inside to see Renata?"
She found it impossible to move away from her car.
They had her surrounded by an impassable wall of
polyester and power cables. Her breath stopped. Ahead
of her she saw a tiny pinpoint of scintillating
darkness appear. It grew, expanding across her field of
vision as something drummed in her ears with growing
power. She remembered having fainted in the cafeteria
and welcomed the feeling as an escape that would
temporarily solve her problems.
A huge hand reached out of the shimmering
blackness to seize her arm. Another equally massive
hand shoved something under her nose. The sharp odor of
ammonia brought her to with a startling memory of her
mother cleaning the kitchen floor. Just a flash of that
lovely, sweet face laboring with a sponge mop and a
pail and then the crowds returned.
This time, though, she was in motion.
The beefy pair of arms, clad in white, served
double duty. The left arm held her by her right upper
arm as the right plowed a path through the reporters,
huge elbow out like a powerful wedge driving through
the field of inquiring minds.
The arms were attached to a singularly huge brute,
nearly as wide as he was tall. Topped with close-
cropped platinum hair that curled like the wool of a
highland sheep, the face was contorted by the sneering
smile of a man who enjoyed this sort of confrontation
and probably did not get to see it often enough.
"Move it or lose it," bellowed a deep voice with
an unplaceable accent. The speed of their progress
stunned Valerie. They glided through the crowd, which--
though small--replenished itself from rear to front as
they moved.
"You'll be all right, ma'am," the deep voice
reassured. "They sent me out to get you. Doc Fletcher
figured you'd be bothered by these guys."
The elbow threatened, swung, cut swaths through
the reporters, never hitting, barely touching. They all
quite professionally avoided getting bruised.
"The name's Mason, ma'am. Johnny Mason." He
charged with her toward the line of protesters. "I'll
be around to take you back through tomorrow." He turned
his head to smile at her. Under a gnarled brow framed
by thick silver eyebrows, emerald eyes smiled as his
fighter's lips twisted into a grin. "I used to be a
movie-star bodyguard before I became an orderly."
He elbowed the chest of a particularly obstinate
paparazzo. "It was tough leaving show business, but I
knew medicine was my calling."
Mason and Valerie moved almost as one into the
thick of the pickets. They all stopped what they were
doing to stare at the woman and her burly escort. Most
gazed at her, not knowing how to react. Were they to
hate her because she had wanted an abortion or support
her because she came to save her baby? Or vice versa?
Rather than make a hasty decision, they simply
stared.
Valerie saw a few of their signs as Mason rammed
through the gap that opened to let them pass.
BAYSIDE UNIVERSITY STEALS BABIES.
ABORTION IS MURDER--TRANSOPTION IS KIDNAPPING.
One sign merely read: I COR. 1:28.
There were more signs than she could read before
the entry doors swung open to admit the pair into the
reception area. They breezed past everyone, Mason
leading her into Dr. Fletcher's office.
"Sit down and take a rest, ma'am," Johnny said.
"That little girl in there needs you in the best
health." He smiled gently and patted her on the
shoulder with a thick, soft hand.
Valerie thanked him and lowered herself into the
brown vinyl easy chair.
Dr. Fletcher entered a moment later, crisp white
lab coat over baggy hospital greens. She looked calm.
Without any enmity in her voice, she said, "Good
morning, Valerie."
Valerie hesitated a moment before replying. "Good
morning, Dr. Fletcher. I--I just want to let you
know--"
Fletcher held up her hand. "Please. I understand
your position, and I accept it. Let's separate that
from why we're here. There's a little baby down the
hall who's in great danger. Usually there's enough time
for me to confer with prospective donors and give them
a few days to think things over. As it is, I'm going to
explain the procedure to you and give you only a few
minutes to consider.
"A bone-marrow transplant is far easier on the
recipient than the donor. What we'll do when we have
the bone marrow is inject it into Renata's bloodstream.
The stem cells will find their way to her bone-marrow
cavities and set up shop, turning out the three kinds
of cells she needs. It will take anywhere from two to
four weeks, though, for us to be sure that all three
cell lines have taken hold and are producing."
Valerie reclined a bit in her seat, unconsciously
worrying at the nail on her left index finger. All her
nails were in disrepair, opalescent polish chipped and
dull, but the left index had cracked near the quick.
She levered the nail back and forth gently, without
even noticing her action.
"What happens then?"
"Then we'll know whether she'll be all right or
whether we have to try again." Evelyn shifted in her
seat, craving a cigarette. "The marrow creates the red
blood cells, the white cells of the immune system, and
the platelets that are essential for blood coagulation.
If any one of those three is missing, life is
impossible. We already have to keep her in reverse
isolation to prevent others from infecting her.
Luckily, her infant's digestive system lacks the bowel
flora that could turn deadly in such a condition.
That's why a transplant is of crucial importance."
"That's why I'm here," Valerie said, puzzled.
"I hope that's why," Fletcher said, "because a
bone-marrow transplant is a far greater trial for the
donor."
Valerie's nail snapped between her fingers.
#
She lay on the table in the same small operating room
where, months ago, her baby had been taken from her.
Entering the room, she caught memories of the
operation, flashes of remembrance that caused her to
tremble with fear and anger. She steeled her nerves and
concentrated on a mental image of Renata lying helpless
in her electronic cradle. She stared overhead at the
red-brown spot on the ceiling. Its familiar presence
comforted her. Amidst all the madness of the past two
days, it had appeared to her, when she lay down, as a
steady, old friend. All the activity that must have
taken place in here between March and October had not
changed it. Scores of women must have stared up at the
ceiling. Had any of them seen it? Could any of them
have missed it?
She felt a kinship with all of them, all the women
who had given up their unwanted children to Evelyn
Fletcher. What were \they\ thinking about at this
moment, hearing the news of transoption?
As Dr. Fletcher explained it, this would be a
simple but slow operation, assisted only by Nurse Dyer
and an anesthetist. Nurse Dyer looked different.
Valerie realized that the tall woman wore a minimal
amount of makeup today. The pants and short-sleeved
shirt of hospital greens showed beneath her lab coat
instead of a dress. She could not have had a good night
last night, Valerie thought, and probably wasn't
expecting one tonight.
"Do you and Dr. Fletcher work very closely?" she
asked impulsively.
"I'm her right hand," Dyer replied with brusque
formality. "Please roll on your side into a fe-- Into a
curled-up position."
She curled up as requested, sensing the hostility.
"She didn't really do it for the money, did she?"
"No more," Dyer said, "than I presume you're suing
her for the money. She did it because it was right.
Knees up toward your chest."
Valerie knew the dangers of anatagonizing a nurse.
Dyer exposed the patient's back, swabbing a small patch
high on the back with Betadine.
"How could she be so sure it was right," Valerie
asked, "if she never sought the opinion of other
doctors?"
Dyer snorted. "If she couldn't figure out on her
own whether it was right or wrong, how could any other
doctor or group of doctors? She knew at the outset what
she wanted. And she worked for years finding a way to
do it. That's what nobody seems to see. It's not as if
she stumbled onto transoption in an old book and
thought, `Gee, let's try it.'"
"Drugs, anyone?" The door to the room opened,
pushed by a rolling cart maneuvered by a smiling older
man in greens, surgical gown, and cap. Sallow but
cheerful, his face regained decorum when he saw the two
serious gazes turned his way.
"Riiight," he said with a pronounced drawl.
"Dyer." He nodded curtly in her direction while pulling
on a double pair of surgical gloves.
"Tom." A reply just as curt.
"How're you feeling?" he asked the patient as his
cool gloved fingers explored her upper spine.
"I'm ready."
"Fine. I'm going to give you a high spinal block.
That'll numb you from the neck down."
She could not see what he was doing from her
position, but she heard the sounds of instruments and
bottles clattering gently on the tray.
"Okay, Valerie." He pressed his thumb between two
vertebrae. "I'm going to poke you right there. It's
very important that you don't move. Just relax." He
dabbed something cool on the spot. "Juuust relax."
Her first reflex was to flinch, but she resisted
the urge. The sting was not nearly as bad as she had
feared, but to think about what he was doing made her
want to shudder. She thought instead about the clouds
rolling in over Lunada Bay in the winter. About the fog
that sometimes filled the cove so that one could stand
on the bluffs and not see the ocean churning a scant
hundred feet below the cliff. In all of L.A. nothing
was more like a seaside village to her. It soothed her.
Something had gone quite wrong with her hands.
They tingled.
"Very good," the voice drawled. Something tugged
out of her back. "Let's roll her over."
Nurse Dyer pulled at her legs, though she felt
nothing but a sensation of pressure and a vague
tingling that diminished quickly into an eerie numbness
from the neck down. Looking up, she saw Dr. Fletcher
gazing at her. She hadn't heard her come in. Gowned,
gloved, capped, and masked, as was Dyer, now, she
nodded to Valerie and said, "Remember what I told you.
Just relax and think about pleasant things."
Valerie nodded, looking up to concentrate on the
spot. It seemed to scintillate a bit. A motion at the
side of her head caused her to turn. The anesthetist
taped a capsule of smelling salts to the pillow. She
was fairly certain that it was for her, but for a
moment she wondered.
Nurse Dyer brought forward a cart with the
aspiration device. It hissed in much the same way the
suction device had. Grasping a large, long needle
attached to clear silicone plastic tubing, Fletcher
hovered over Valerie's exposed sternum. Positioning the
needle squarely on the midline between her patient's
breasts, she leaned on the device and gave it a hearty,
firm push.
Valerie felt only the pressure of something
against her chest. The aspirator make a sucking noise.
That was when the pain hit her. She tried to visualize
the cliffs on Oahu's windward side where she and Ron
had flown kites on their vacation two years back. It
wasn't working.
Another shove. Again the needle pierced skin,
muscle, and bone. Another gasp from the machine.
Another lance of searing agony. Valerie chanced to gaze
downward to see a clump of thick, dark-red glop slowly
moving halfway up the tube. Needle out, reposition,
push hard. She felt no sting but heard the faintest of
crunches underneath the sound of the pump. The pain
came with aspiration.
How long would this go on?
She felt a panic overwhelm her. There must be some
other way to help Renata. She'd donate a thousand pints
of blood just to be free of the spike that plunged into
her chest every few seconds. Sweat beaded up on her
face. She watched the spot overhead waver, turn grey.
A hand stroked at her hair. Looking to the side,
her gaze met Nurse Dyer's. Above her mask, her eyes
revealed a compassion Valerie hadn't seen before. The
nurse's gloved hand tenderly stroked her long blond
hair. "Be brave," she whispered. "This is the only way
to save Renata. Your daughter's counting on you."
Tears leaked out of Valerie's eyes. Dyer picked up
a piece of gauze to dab at them, all the while stroking
her head. "You've a great deal of courage," she said.
"The courage to do right no matter what the--"
"Gauze," Dr. Fletcher said quietly.
Dyer stopped stroking Valerie and assisted the
doctor. Fletcher continued to probe, drive home the
needle, and aspirate the bone-marrow.
\Where would it end?\ Valerie wondered. Not just
the operation. All of it.
The needle punctured her, inches from her heart.
XII
Terry Johnson sat on the brushed grey fabric couch in
the reception area of Women for Reproductive Freedom,
reading their position paper on surrogate mothering.
Before he could get more than a few paragraphs into it,
the woman at the desk, who looked as if she had just
stepped out of \Cosmopolitan\, said, "Ms. Burke will
see you now."
Johnson followed the woman to an austere office
that, though spacious, contained little more than a
large mahogany desk, executive chair, two conference
chairs, and a matched pair of Jackson Pollock
paintings. A trio of woodgrain-painted metal filing
cabinets stood to one side. There were no bookcases.
Jane Burke stepped in a moment later. She was of
moderate height, though she seemed taller due to her
high-heeled pumps. They were purple and perfectly
matched to the suit she wore. On her lapel, a gold
Venus symbol, surmounted by two slender hands clasping,
indicated that she was a member of the Sisters Network,
a sororal order of female executives. Her brown hair
was full-bodied, permed, and businesslike. Behind her
aviator-style glasses, she could have been a mid-
forties executive at any Fortune 500 company whose old-
boy network had relinquished control to the new-woman
network.
"What's up, Mr. Johnson?" She sat behind her desk,
smiling courteously.
Realizing that she favored brevity, he jumped
immediately to the point. "I am representing Dr. Evelyn
Fletcher in the Baby Renata case. I'd like to enlist
your assistance as an expert witness for the
defendants." He paused to await a reply, received none,
and continued. "This case is certain to be a landmark
in human rights, and I knew you would be interested in
having a part in the outcome."
Burke leaned back in her chair, peaked her
fingers, and watched Johnson with a cool, noncommittal
gaze.
"As a champion of freedom of choice," he
continued, "I knew you'd be the person to speak out on
this issue from a feminist viewpoint."
"Oh," Burke said with a smile, "I plan to. You
see, I've already volunteered to be an expert witness
for the plaintiff."
Johnson's jaw dropped. Trying to recover, he
stammered in disbelief. The words caught somewhere down
inside him and refused to escape in any intelligible
form.
"If you're that composed in court," Burke said,
lowering her hands, "perhaps your client should leave
the country tonight."
"How can you be on the plaintiff's side?" he
demanded. His voice cracked at the end in an almost
boyish squeak. "How can you be opposed to a technique
that gives women a new option in birth control?"
Her smile faded to a glare of undisguised
contempt. "A new option? What good has any sex
technology done for women? Did contraceptives liberate
women? No. They merely allowed men to demand \more\ sex
of women without the burden and responsibility of
fatherhood." She leaned forward, one elbow on the desk.
"Women didn't invent contraceptives, you know. Men did.
For \camels\. They applied those methods to women with
the same lack of regard for their health and well-
being."
"Well," Johnson said warily, "I don't know about
that, but transoption seems to be a way for a woman to
rid herself of a pregnancy while freeing her from the
guilt feelings associ--"
"Don't try to convince \me\ that this latest
medical meddling frees women. Not when I've seen women
injured and killed by IUDs, pills, and botched
abortions. You won't get \me\ to say that it's anything
more than a scheme to turn women into interchangeable
breeding units so that one womb is no more important
than any other." She smiled stonily and leaned back in
her chair. "Do you know where embryo-transfer research
began, Mr. Johnson?"
"I think you'll tell me."
"It began with \cattle breeding\. And \that\ is
what this male technology seeks to reduce us to."
"Evelyn Fletcher is a woman."
Burke's glare deepened. "And she's doing a man's
work, the traitor. I haven't met a female doctor yet
who hasn't been spayed by the act of attending medical
school. I'll make sure that she receives no sympathy
from the women she's betrayed."
The lawyer stared at Burke for a long moment, his
sensibilities rocked by the unexpected hostility. "How-
-" He stopped to think. "If you consider all medical
technology to be anti-woman, why does your organization
so fervently support legalized abortion?"
Her expression retreated ever so slightly to one
of cautious reserve. "Because," she said, "no matter
how it has been abused, abortion still allows a woman
to have final, absolute control over what becomes of
part of her body--something this transoption madness
would destroy."
"I see." He didn't, really, but he knew wasted
effort when he stared it in the face.
Burke smiled a crooked, nearly impish smile. "Why
don't you trot over to Avery Decker?" Her tone bordered
on sarcasm. "Protecting blobs of protoplasm is his holy
mission."
"He was next on my list," Johnson said.
#
Since Jane Burke and Pastor Avery Decker were
diametrically opposed on the abortion issue, Johnson
expected his meeting with the fundamentalist minister
to be much less strained and much more productive than
his run-in with the feminist. He mulled her arguments
on the drive from Santa Monica over to Decker's Tustin
office. Passing Disneyland's Matterhorn on Interstate
5, its artificial snow resisting the afternoon's heat,
he wondered at the woman's position. Was her outlook
the norm? Why did she support abortion but oppose
transoption? They both ended pregnancy in exactly the
same way. Wasn't that what they were after--the right
to expel an unwanted fetus? Why should she care what
became of it afterward?
His lawyer's mind filed the question away. If he
was to meet her on the other side of the lawsuit, it
might be worth bringing up. He ran through possible
cross-examination scenarios in his mind, trying to
anticipate her responses to certain questions, forming
his counterresponses.
He missed the Tustin exits entirely.
Five miles of backtracking brought him to the new
office building situated under the approach path to the
marine helicopter air station. A huge Sikorsky Skycrane
thundered overhead, with basso pulsations that rumbled
straight through Johnson's guts. The slamming of his
car door faded to inaudibility amidst the roar.
He watched the copter descend toward the airfield.
The noise level dropped abruptly, though a throbbing,
ringing sound lingered in his ears.
The building was only two stories high, the
offices of the Committee for Preborn Rights occupying
the second floor. Johnson glanced at his watch and
bounded up the stairs.
"Sorry I'm late," he announced to the elderly
woman at the reception desk. "I'm Terry Johnson. I have
an appointment with--"
"Yes, young man. Please step right in." She
gestured with an age-spotted hand toward a frosted
glass door.
Pastor Avery Decker stood when Johnson entered. He
extended a chubby hand to the taller, younger man. The
fluorescent light overhead reflected from his balding
pate, seeming to wink at Johnson along with the
minister's twinkling eyes.
"Greetings, Mr. Johnson. I'm Avery Decker, this is
James Rosen." He indicated a young, intense man
standing by a bookcase in the bright room. Tall and
darkly handsome, he seemed more suited to the Colonial
furnishings than did the overweight middle-aged
preacher. "Jim's my assistant and legal advisor. I hope
you don't mind his sitting in on this meeting."
"Not at all." Johnson shook Rosen's hand, making
the usual small-talk introductions.
"Won't you have a seat?" Rosen pointed to a well-
stuffed wing chair.
Johnson eased happily into the soft leather
recesses. This, at least, was a warmer reception than
Burke had given him.
Rosen sat in a chair off to Decker's right. He
watched Johnson with a studied alertness that marked
him as more of a bodyguard than an assistant. It made
sense. Decker was a hated man.
"You know," Decker began, leaning back in his
swivel chair and placing his hands in his pockets,
"when I spoke to you on the phone, I wasn't too aware
of what this whole transoption thing was about. I had
Jim, here, do what he does with his computer and search
the AP news wire to get us up to date." He tapped at a
thin stack of printout on his desk. "I don't like it.
Not one bit. I'm afraid the answer has to be \no\."
Johnson dove right in, unwilling to lose the
argument to slow response. "I don't know what's in
there, but the truth of the matter is that Dr. Fletcher
has found a way to save the lives of fet-- of
\preborns\ and she's being persecuted for rescuing a
defenseless victim of abortion."
"And who did the aborting, Mr. Johnson? She didn't
just stumble across this `victim.' She \created\ it in
the first place. If she had refused to perform
abortions, this new technique would be unnecessary."
"Oh, come on!" A strange anger grew inside
Johnson. "Women would just go to some other doctor, and
the preborns would still be aborted and dead, and the
problem would remain. Is that what you'd prefer?"
"We'd prefer," Rosen said, "that all the doctors
obey their Hippocratic--or is it \hypocritic\--oath and
`not aid a woman to procure abortion.' A very simple
solution--just say \no\."
"You can't expect that," Johnson said with a
sharpness that surprised him. \Why are\ they \acting
like the enemy, too?\ "Some women will always need
abortions and there will always be a market to perform
them. Dr. Fletcher has found a way to give women what
they want and yet \save the babies\. Isn't that what
you're fighting for?"
Decker cleared his throat and put his hands on the
desk, clasping them as if in prayer. "What we're
fighting for, Mr. Johnson, is an end to all
interference with God's plan. If God had wanted that
baby to be born inside of Mrs. Chandler, he wouldn't
have needed Dr. Fletcher to act as a go-between. It's
not just a preborn's right to life we're struggling to
defend here. It's the right to live and be born
\according to God's will\. Anything that disrupts or
interferes with that plan--be it abortion or
contraception or transoption--is contrary to God's holy
plan."
"I suppose adoption is evil, too?"
Decker smiled with condescending patience. "I
would say that it is the least of many evils, the
minimum in a wide spectrum of meddling in God's will."
"You'd outlaw that, too?" Johnson leaned forward a
few inches, as if the increased closeness could deepen
his understanding of Decker's position.
"We don't seek to outlaw anything," Rosen
interjected in a calm, conversational tone. "What we
seek is a world in which evil actions are never chosen.
We don't fool ourselves that it's going to be an easy,
overnight task. Caesar's laws are only a temporary
expedient toward the implementation of God's law."
Johnson looked from Rosen to Decker. "And are you
the infallible interpreters of God's plans?"
The minister smiled. "I never laid claim to such
an honor."
"Then perhaps," Johnson said, "there's a slim
chance--however inscrutable to you--that Dr. Fletcher
\is\ part of God's plan and you are just too bullheaded
to see it." He rose to leave.
Decker spoke to Johnson's departing back. "If the
plaintiff doesn't accept my offer to appear on her
behalf, I'll be making our position clearer in the
\amicus\ we'll be filing."
"Thanks for nothing" was the sharpest retort
Johnson could summon. He slammed the door with
unprofessional force and strode angrily to his car. As
a pair of Huey Cobras whined a few thousand feet away,
his brain burned with fury and incomprehension.
What was going wrong? Everything had seemed so
clear and logical to him just that morning. Pro-lifers
say abortion is murder; pro-choicers say forced
motherhood is slavery. A doctor finds a way to end
pregnancies without killing the fetus. Why weren't both
sides of the issue rushing to her aid? Where was the
united front he'd hoped to present? Why wasn't \either\
side burning with rage at the persecution of a maverick
scientist?
He sat in the car amid the noise and doubted his
own ability to present his case cogently. \Maybe I just
wasn't making myself clear enough. Maybe I'm just going
to submarine the entire case by\...
He took a deep breath. He wasn't going to let such
juvenile fears force him to give up the case. He knew
what another more experienced lawyer would do: demur to
the complaint, delay, argue trivial points of law, find
loopholes, delay and attempt a settlement. That wasn't
what he wanted.
Johnson wondered what it was he \did\ want. In his
fury at the dual snubbings, he realized what it was. He
wanted to blow the whole abortion issue to pieces.
\Decker and Burke. They're both petrified that
transoption would put an end to their crusades. And
they're both too lazy to find new evils to battle or
just give up and get along, so they continue to fight
each other and gang up on anyone who threatens to wage
peace.\
He gazed up at the warbirds circling overhead. He
felt that he had a tenuous grasp on some deeper wisdom.
Something that could apply to more than just a custody
trial.
The trial.
He keyed the ignition and floored the accelerator.
He had thirty days to answer or demur. The game,
though, had to be won \right now\, in the blaze of
publicity.
He grinned with feral glee as tires squealed. He'd
confuse Czernek by answering the complaint \today\ and
pushing for the earliest trial date possible, based on
urgency.
XIII
Karen insisted on watching the transplant. "I don't
care what any lawsuit says." She spoke through the mask
of her isolation garb. "She's my daughter, and I want
to be there for her."
Dr. Fletcher nodded, laying two sacks of pulpy red
material on the cart. "Marrow transplants are no big
thing. It'll be just like receiving an injection."
David stood by his wife to place a protective arm
around her. "Will it hurt?"
"Oh, no," the doctor said in an easygoing tone.
"We'll be injecting right into that IV tube."
Karen's eyes goggled when she saw the two huge 60
cc syringes Fletcher had prepared. She quavered
slightly upon seeing the thick, soupy fluid withdrawn
from the sacks. The doctor calmly and efficiently
unfastened the tubing from the bag of IV fluid,
connected the syringe, and bore down on the plunger.
Renata was awake now and stared at her parents
with the blank, noncommittal stare of a newborn. Karen
knew in her heart that the little girl was taking all
of this in without any idea of what was going on. Being
fed by tubes and diapered regularly, she was physically
content. She must assume, Karen thought, that
everything else must also be the normal way of life:
electrodes, lights, beeps, plastic cribs, heat lamps,
people in white robes wandering in and out.
She wondered what effect all this would have on
her daughter's later perceptions of life. She wanted so
much just to hold and cuddle the pale little child.
Renata looked up at her, jerked her arms suddenly, and
grinned a wide, toothless grin. The tubes shook.
"Hi, sweetie," Karen said, her voice catching
despite her brave smile. She waved with broad motions.
"We love you, little honey."
Evelyn met with the expected resistance. Bone-
marrow stem cells were much thicker than blood. She put
her shoulder into play, pressing firmly against the
plunger with the palm of her hand. Slowly, a red strand
of color mixed in with the IV fluid at the top of the
tube. The entire length of clear plastic took on a red
hue, then grew cloudy. The line of crimson life entered
the isolation box, disappeared under cloth tape on
Renata's chest, and began its short but vital journey
along her veins to hidden chambers in her young bones.
After a minute of steady pushing, the first
syringe was empty. Fletcher quickly inserted the second
and continued the transplant.
David coughed into his mask. "Will we see some
change?"
"Not immediately." Fletcher pushed the remaining
few milliliters of Valerie Dalton's bone marrow into
Renata's bloodstream. "It will take a couple weeks or
even a month before we know if all three cell lines
recover. Until then, it'll be touch and go, with
ordinary blood transfusions as needed. There are a few
new things we're doing to make it easier for her. We've
found that the drug thalidomide can prevent graft
versus host disease."
David immediately grew worried. "Doesn't that
cause birth defects?"
Fletcher shook her head, nodding toward Renata.
"She's already born. Its use is only contraindicated
for women during pregnancy, something she's a bit young
for. What I wish we could get is a lymphokine called
GM-CSF. It could speed her recovery dramatically. It's
only just been developed, though, and it's still hard
to come by."
Karen put an arm around her husband for support.
"I guess I did expect something dramatic. You think of
transplants, you think of teams of doctors and hours of
surgery and an instant improvement as the new parts
replace the old."
Fletcher shrugged. "On the other hand, she wasn't
put in such a dangerous situation as surgery. The wait
will be tougher on you than on her. She has no idea
what's going on." She waggled her fingers at the baby.
"Do you, you little huggly wuggly?" She looked up at
the parents. "I received a message from my lawyer,
Terry Johnson. He wants us to know that everything is
going according to plan. He's pushing for an early
trial date so that we can get this cleared up as soon
as possible. I don't think we have anything to worry
about."
"What about the--" Karen's voice caught on a word.
"What about Valerie Dalton? What does she think of all
this?" She waved an arm at the syringes.
"She was very cooperative. I think we can avoid
quite a bit of enmity if we remember one thing." The
doctor covered the stained syringes on the tray with a
Tyvek cloth, then turned to check the monitors
recording Renata's heart rate and temperature.
"Whatever the trial decides, the more important outcome
is that the baby regains her health, right?"
The Chandlers nodded in urgent agreement.
"Then we're all on the same side." She looked at
the young pair and spoke in soft tones. "We've all made
choices that will have consequences for the rest of our
lives. If we can come to a civilized decision about
what to do next, our lives--and especially Renata's--
will be made easier. We musn't see Valerie and Ron as
strangers who are trying to steal your baby. I will do
my best in court to convince them that \we\ aren't,
either. The blame for all of this will fall on me, and
I'll gladly handle it. You should just concentrate on
letting Renata see how much you love her. That will
help her recover as much as anything I can do. Babies
need smiles." She waved at the little one. "I wish you
could give her hugs, too. Real ones, not glove-box
caresses." She fell silent, staring at the protective
cage that kept out both germs and affection.
"How's Valerie?" Karen asked. Her voice was
subdued.
"She was very cooperative. We tranqued her out so
that she could sleep without pain. But with ninety-
three holes in her sternum, she's going to feel it
tomorrow morning."
Karen turned white.
#
A burning pain in Valerie's chest awakened her from a
dreamless sleep. Somehow, she had rolled over onto her
stomach. Now the aching forced her eyes open. In groggy
semiconsciousness, she pushed up on an elbow and rolled
over again.
That's when it hit.
In a surge of intense fire, the agony seared every
nerve in her body. It caught her by surprise, rendered
her unable to take a breath. Every drop of adrenaline
in her body seemed to jet into her bloodstream at once.
"Ron!" she cried out breathlessly. Fingers
clenched around the low bars of the hospital bed, eyes
tried to shut out the red haze within them, teeth
ground together for a hellishly long instant.
She forced herself not to move. Lowering ever so
slowly back to the sheets, she rediscovered the ability
to inhale. The events of the previous day came back to
her in an overpowering rush of memory.
"Ron?"
"He's in court," said an unfamiliar voice,
"arranging the trial."
Valerie rolled her head over toward the speaker.
The dark-haired woman standing near the bed watched
Valerie with undisguised curiosity and apprehension.
"You're Mrs. Chandler."
Karen nodded. After a moment of hesitation, she
extended her hand. "I want to thank you for what you
did."
Just staring at the proffered hand caused her
chest to ache. "I didn't do it for you. I did it for my
baby."
"Please." Karen lowered her head, fighting hard to
suppress her conflicting emotions. Here, after all, was
the real mother of the child she gave birth to, ready
to use the might of the state to force her return. Even
so, she had endured a torturous operation for that same
child. "We both love Renata. What you did yesterday may
very well save her life. I just want to thank you...
for her."
When Karen gently grasped her hand, Valerie did
not pull away. She returned the clasp, tears coming to
her eyes. The small sobs hurt deep in her chest. It
didn't matter. So much more pain was being released by
the tears.
"Hey!"
Both women looked up to see Ron standing in the
doorway. With a dozen white roses in one arm and a box
of Godiva chocolates in the other, he looked like a
suitor coming to call. But he looked none too pleased.
"I won't have you in here disturbing Valerie."
"It's all right, Ron." Valerie reached for a
tissue, but the pain stopped her arm. Karen pulled one
out of the wall box and handed it to her. "She's here
to tell me how Renata's doing."
Ron's lips curled inward meditatively until beard
and mustache met. "Okay," he said with a sigh. "But I
don't think it's a good idea for plaintiff and
defendant to fraternize." He smiled with a reflexive
sort of mock-friendliness. "I guess I mean sororize."
He extended his hand. "I'm Ron Czernek."
"Yes," Karen said, taking his hand for a minimal
duration. "I've seen you on the news."
"Well," he said cheerily, "you'll see a lot more
of both of us real soon. Jury selection begins on
Monday."
"What?" Valerie cringed at the pain associated
with speaking.
"I asked the court to exercise its inherent power
to set the earliest possible date. Much to my
surprise"-- he stared at Karen-- "the other side agreed
not to demur. I pointed out that the immediate health
risks to the baby required that we determine custody as
soon as possible."
A wave of illness permeated Karen.
"Fletcher's lawyer got the judge to spike my
application for our taking temporary custody. The judge
said that it was moot, since the child was in the
hospital for the time being. And Shawn Deyo--the
hospital's lawyer--he got the judge to sever the case
against Bayside from the rest of the suit because
they'd turned Fletcher in the moment they found out
about it. We lost a deep pocket, but on the other hand,
we'll get this over with in no time. Don't worry." He
stood over Valerie and stroked her golden hair.
Karen stepped back from the bed. "I'll go, now. I
hope you'll feel better soon."
"Thank you," Valerie said.
Ron muttered something under his breath.
When Karen's footsteps receded down the corridor,
Valerie asked him what he had said.
"Nothing." He continued to stroke her head. "I'm
sorry I couldn't show up earlier. It's just been a
bitch of a morning. Want to hear it?"
Valerie closed her eyes for a moment. "Not
really." She opened them. Her voice was soft but
strained. "Could you call the nurse? I really need
something to handle this pain."
#
Mark Landry would have preferred not to run into Dr.
Fletcher, but by the time he saw her, there was no
graceful means of escape.
"`Morning, Doctor," he mumbled. He tried to keep
walking, but Fletcher took him by the arm.
"Don't worry," she said in an even voice. "I'm not
going to break your neck." Her hand released him. "It
was all bound to come out sooner or later. I just
objected to your sneaking around instead of confronting
me directly."
"You evaded my questions."
"You didn't ask what was on your mind." She folded
her arms and looked at him with that weary expression
doctors reserve for when they are particularly
professionally frustrated. "Look, let's just ignore all
that. I've got to concentrate on Renata \and\ all my
other patients \and\ a lawsuit. You saw that line of
pickets out there this morning. And the cops. And the
reporters. Anyone in white coming and going here is
going to be considered fair game. I admit I brought
this down on all of us, but--"
"You certainly did," growled the voice of Dr.
Lawrence. He strode up to the pair, dark anger across
his brow. "I wish the board would get off its duff and
agree to file a cross-suit against you. We had to admit
one of our own residents with a gash on his head from
one of the protesters. Damned pro-lifer tried to beat
the kid to death with her picket sign." He narrowed his
gaze to Fletcher. "I hear the trial begins next week."
"Actually, just jury sel--"
"I'd advise for everyone's safety that you attend
all the proceedings and come here only under the most
urgent necessity."
"I can't do that," she replied.
"Try." He turned to the young man. "And you,
Landry. Back to the lab." He continued on his way.
"Pompous jerk," Landry muttered after the
administrator turned a corner. He looked at Dr.
Fletcher. "I always wondered why you seemed so
unconcerned to be running both the baby factory and the
abortion mill. I think I understand why you had to do
things the way you did. Maybe after the trial I'll find
out why you bothered at all. It doesn't seem to pay to
rock the boat either way."
Fletcher's voice was grim. "Sometimes a boat has
to be rocked hard to steer a new course."
XIV
Terry smiled with satisfaction. Using every peremptory
challenge in his possession, he had managed to put
three women on the six-person jury. Czernek had
engineered three men. Now the battle for their souls
could proceed.
He gazed at the six. He had wanted the full
twelve, but Judge Lyang had pressured him to settle for
six in order to save court time. He agreed--it was only
fair, since Lyang had been kind enough to arrange for a
speedy trial. Two of the women were in their thirties,
both housewives. The third was in her fifties, a real
estate professional. He figured he could get the young
ones to side with Karen, the older one to identify with
Dr. Fletcher. His task was to convince the men to see
his side of it.
\Piece of cake\.
Ron smiled with satisfaction. Having exhausted his
peremptory challenges, he wound up with three men to
counter Johnson's women. He wanted men who would side
with his own interests as the genetic father in this
case. While he worried that his unmarried status might
put them off, he hoped that he had tap-danced around
the problem by making Valerie the sole plaintiff. The
three men were all fathers, in their forties, from
working-class backgrounds that most likely did not
cotton to newfangled medical shenanigans. He pondered
the women with amusement. If Johnson thought they would
save him, he was wrong.
\Rhetoric Ron will have you weeping for Valerie by
summation time\.
L.A. Superior Court Judge Madeline Lyang watched
the court clerk swear in the jury. \They had to demand
a jury\, she thought. Since the odd, hybrid suit dealt
with issues of fact, though, and not just equitable
relief, they had a right to it. A small sigh escaped
her. Juries always meant greater histrionics on the
part of the lawyers. In her fifteen years on the bench,
she had developed a fair instinct for determining how a
case would proceed.
\This one will be a killer\.
She was a woman of moderate height. Sitting at the
bench, though, she looked impressive and forbidding. At
fifty, she still retained the smooth, sculpted features
of her Chinese ancestry. Open and expansive in private
life, she capitalized upon the myth of oriental
inscrutability in the courtroom setting, maintaining an
impassive, unreadable expression when she wanted or
needed to. Custody cases usually demanded that. Such
trials involved few villains and fewer heroes--just two
people trying to do what they saw as best for the
children.
While this was not strictly a simple custody
battle, it had wound up in her docket by those most
powerful of judicial forces, expediency and mere
chance. She knew on first sight, though, that this case
would be a publicity H-bomb.
She used the gavel she'd received in high school,
where she had served as chief (and only) justice of the
student court.
"Court will come to order. In the case of Valerie
Dalton versus Evelyn Fletcher and David and Karen
Chandler, jointly, I'd like first to address the
question of televised proceedings." \Here we go\, she
thought, expecting the first of many tugs of war.
"Counsels will please approach the bench."
"The plaintiff," Ron whispered to the judge,
"favors allowing the presence of the press."
Terry chimed in immediately. "The defendants
welcome the opportunity to let the truth be heard."
Judge Lyang permitted a smile to cross her face.
\Publicity hounds\. "Fine." She addressed the
courtroom. "Permission is gran--"
The sound of plastic and metal scraping and
sliding emanated from the back of the courtroom.
Photographers and video crews lined the back wall,
eagerly setting up their equipment.
Lyang rapped once. "Granted, but on condition that
courtroom decorum is maintained back there. Quiet
down." She gazed at the plaintiff. Valerie Dalton sat
beside Czernek. She wore a stereotypically middle-
American house dress in light blue. It made her eyes
take on a sapphire hue and went flatteringly well with
her blond hair and very light makeup. Perfect, the
judge decided, for someone playing the part of betrayed
innocent. She admired Czernek for stopping at a solid
color and not going all the way to gingham and bows.
His own outfit was a solid navy business suit with a
light blue oxford cloth shirt under a midnight-blue tie
with the smallest, most tasteful maroon-dot pattern.
The defendants seemed to be using much the same
tactic. David Chandler wore an unimpressive grey
business suit, not expensive enough to seem like a
spendthrift, yet just well fitting enough to imply
fitness for fatherhood status. His wife wore a simple
beige Victorian-collared blouse and matching skirt.
Neither woman wore any extra jewelry, though--in
addition to her wedding ring--Mrs. Chandler sported a
nice little cameo on the collar of her blouse.
\Darling\, thought Lyang. Their lawyer, she mused,
must have been brought up watching reruns of \The Paper
Chase\--he wore appropriately rumpled brown tweed
slacks and jacket over a sky-blue shirt with thin white
vertical and horizontal lines. His tie was tan and
narrow. He indeed looked the part of an energetic,
young defense lawyer working sleepless nights to
prepare his valiant case.
Dr. Fletcher was the only one who failed to fit
in. Dressed in a dramatically white business suit that
Lyang had seen the week before at Nordstrom's, she sat
between Johnson and Mrs. Chandler with a notebook and
pen at the ready. Her black hair, peppered with grey,
was in place but for one strand that curled toward her
right eye despite occasional efforts to brush it back.
She was the magnet that drew the gaze of the
jurors and the spectators. Who, they must wonder, was
this doctor who had performed such bizarre surgery?
Judge Lyang took a deep breath and prepared to find
out.
"Counsel for the plaintiff, you may present your
opening statement."
Ron Czernek stepped from behind his table to
address the jury. He made a point of stepping around
the overhead projector that Johnson had asked to have
available.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said in a
conversational, undramatic voice. "We're here today to
decide something that's never been decided before.
There have been countless trials in the past between
husband and wife over the custody of their children.
There have been battles between unmarried persons for
children born out of wedlock. There have even been
highly publicized cases of surrogate mothers demanding
custody of the children they gave birth to under
contract to others.
"But no one, ever before, has been asked to decide
the fate of a child," he turned to gaze at Dr.
Fletcher, "\kidnapped before it was even born\, and
secretly planted in the womb of another woman."
Johnson rose to object to the prejudicial remark
but hesitated. Maybe he would want equal latitude with
his own opening statement. Letting the lawyer get away
with it, however, was no guarantee that Czernek would
reciprocate. He quietly sat down. It was worth the
gambit.
Czernek pointed to Karen. "The evidence will show
that this woman--Karen Chandler--paid a surgeon several
thousand dollars to `get pregnant.'" Ron made little
quote marks with his fingers as he turned back to face
the jury. "She got pregnant, all right. With a fetus
ripped out of Valerie Dalton's womb and stitched into
Karen Chandler's in a clandestine medical experiment
carried out in the dead of night last March."
Valerie lowered her head, a vortex of conflicting
emotions seeking to pull her down into despair. She
looked to her side to see that everyone--\everyone\--
was staring at her, including the unwavering glass eyes
of video cameras. She thought her heart would seize up
and never start again. And Ron, the only one there who
could sit beside her to put an arm around her, paced
around telling his tale, unable to comfort her. Watched
by all, she had never felt more alone.
"A medical experiment," Czernek continued, "that
the facts will reveal had been performed on human
beings without the approval of the hospital in which it
took place. Without any basis in animal research or
medical theory. In short"--he leaned over Dr. Fletcher-
-"an experiment that used Valerie Dalton as an
unknowing guinea pig in a conspiracy to sell her stolen
embryo to a woman willing and able to buy it!"
Johnson sat quietly, gazing at his opponent with
an unreadable expression. Inwardly, he burned with the
desire to interject his own statements. \Just keep
talking\, he thought as he took notes without even
glancing down at the paper. \I'll tear you apart in\ my
\opener\.
Ron took a deep, emotional breath and let out a
sigh. The courtroom smelled of air-conditioned humanity
and stale autumn air. His face became a mask of hurt.
"I can't pretend to maintain objectivity in this case.
As Valerie Dalton's fiance and the father of her child,
I am as much an injured party as she." He leaned on the
jury box rail to gaze at each person there as he spoke.
"Did Karen and David Chandler want a child to raise and
love as their own? Then why didn't they adopt one? We
shall show that this baby is as far removed from them
genetically as an adopted child. And Lord knows there
are plenty of children rotting in orphanages who could
use a little love and tenderness. No, their interests
were not with the child itself." He stared coldly over
at the Chandlers. Karen buried her face into David's
chest. He comforted her and stared back at Czernek,
wishing looks could not only kill but maim as well.
"No," Ron said. "To them, the fetus they bought
was simply an amusement. A way to play at being
pregnant, at giving birth to a child. No matter to them
that a woman had been invaded--raped, more accurately--
to tear the living child from within. No matter that
the true father and mother would never know their
daughter, never even know that they \had\ a daughter.
No matter that the child could have died at any point
in this outrageous procedure. No, pregnancy at any
price was the Chandler's goal, and they got it."
He took a moment to calm his anger, flamed by his
own well-rehearsed words. He faced the couple. "But
what happens when the novelty fades? They've had the
fun part. The baby showers, the expectation, the
approval of relatives, and the excitement of
anticipation. They've shared the ecstatic joy of seeing
a life come into this world--a joy denied to the true
father and mother--and now what? Now begins the
drudgery of child rearing. Will they maintain an
interest in the little gadget they'd bought? Or will
they lose interest, shunt Renata off somewhere while
they pursue other amusements? Will they regret their
purchase?"
David tried to suppress his anger, gazing up at
Czernek. His head, held stiffly by his rage-clenched
neck, began to tremble in an effort to remain still.
Karen lowered her gaze to hide from the lawyer's eyes,
convinced she had entered hell.
Ron turned back toward the jury. "The evidence
will show that--as we speak--the baby they call Renata
lies in the infant intensive care unit of Bayside
University Medical Center. She is deathly ill. Can
Karen and David Chandler do anything to save her? No.
She needed bone marrow from her nearest relative. Is
her nearest relative the woman who gave birth to her?"
He pointed at Karen. "It is not. Her bone marrow would
at best do nothing to save the baby's life. At worst it
could kill her." Turning to Valerie, he said, "The only
person in the entire world who can save that little
baby is right here in this room. Valerie Dalton, the
\real\ mother of Renata Chandler."
Dead silence in the courtroom, the absence of any
muttering, let Czernek know that he had everyone caught
up in the web he spun.
"You are here," he said to the jurors, "to make a
simple choice. You are here to declare that a baby
should not be cut away from its mother without her
knowledge or consent. That brutal, unauthorized medical
experiments have no place in civilized society." He
stared at Fletcher. "And that Dr. Evelyn Fletcher
should pay for the misdeeds she performed in full
knowledge of their danger and impropriety."
He gazed at each member of the jury, silent for a
long moment. Every one of them, he was certain, had
listened to and appreciated his statement. No sleepers
or blockheads on this jury.
"Thank you." He walked sedately to his table to
sit beside Valerie, who--having waited for him alone in
the crowded courtroom--clasped his shoulders and placed
her head against him.
The cameras zoomed in.
Judge Lyang avoided any show of emotion, though
Czernek's arguments made sense to her. She wondered if
Johnson had anything that might sound equally as
compelling. It was not often that a judge usually stuck
with family law cases had an opportunity to preside
over a landmark suit. Yet this, she realized with a
warm glow of satisfaction, is what she had entered the
judiciary for.
"Thank you, counselor," she said. "Counsel for the
defense may make his opening statement."
Johnson stepped in front of his table. "Thank you,
Your Honor." He paused for a moment, seeming to gather
his thoughts.
\God, that was good\, he marveled in panic. \How
can I top that?\ He turned to face the jury and looked
up at their inquisitive faces. He had watched their
reactions at listening to Czernek. \Hit them on the
same points, I guess\.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," he said. "This
is not a custody battle. This lawsuit is not the result
of righteous indignation at discovery of some sort of
evil crime. We are all here because of a nuisance suit
brought by a money-hungry couple who are more
interested in the thirty-million-dollar so-called
`damages' than they are in the welfare of Renata
Chandler."
He looked down at the plaintiff. Czernek took
notes, while Valerie stared at Terry in disbelief.
He turned back to the jury box. "Mr. Czernek may
indeed view himself and his live-in lover as the
injured parties, but the tale he spins is one of purest
fantasy. What he skillfully neglects to mention--and
what the evidence will show--is that we are here today
because Renata Chandler was rescued from death nearly
eight months ago."
Johnson's hands began to move as he spoke, weaving
their spell. "Think back to a day in early March when
Valerie Dalton discovers that she is pregnant. It's
unplanned, a surprise. Well, Valerie's a modern woman.
She has a job of her own, and she's just gotten a
promotion. She's living pretty well in a Palos Verdes
home overlooking the ocean. She has no need for the
commitment of marriage to enjoy life with the
moderately successful lawyer Ron Czernek, her lover of
several years."
Valerie, despite her best efforts, turned red with
anger and embarrassment. She knew she had no reason to
react to what everyone who mattered already knew. But
\strangers\ were hearing about it, here and on TV all
around the country. People who had no way to judge her
life except for the selective words uttered by a
hostile attorney.
"What's a modern woman to do?" Terry paced slowly
about, looking as if he were thinking on his feet.
"Giving birth to a baby would just be an intrusion on
her life. How could she work effectively at her job?
How could she take pleasant vacations in Hawaii and
Europe?"
\That bastard\, Czernek thought, \has done his
homework\.
"How indeed?" Johnson gazed from juror to juror.
"Some of you have children. You know what they can do
to your lives. A baby changes you forever. Some of you
are unmarried. I know a couple of you are career women.
You know what I mean. You know what Valerie feared.
Being tied down. Having to care for a defenseless,
demanding infant. She wasn't ready for it. Wasn't ready
to commit the rest of her life to supporting and
nurturing the child she and Ron Czernek had begotten."
He smiled at the word, paused to scratch at his chin.
"What's a modern woman to do? Well, she sought the
venerable solution of abortion, a convenience women
have turned to for thousands of years." He paused to
let them mull that over.
"What is abortion? The word comes from Latin.
\Oriri\ means to rise, appear, be born. \Ab\, meaning
off or away; it's a prefix that means `badly,' as in
abnormal or abuse. So an abortion is a bad birth. The
dictionary describes abortion as `the \fatally\
premature expulsion of a fetus, whether natural or
induced.'" He stopped in front of the plaintiff's
table. "We're here today because Valerie Dalton and Ron
Czernek sought to abort their child. Attempted to kill
it. And it survived."
This time, he managed to coax a murmur out of the
spectators.
Valerie tried to look straight ahead without
emotion, but tears leaked from her eyes. As she dabbed
at them with a tissue, Ron stopped taking notes to put
his arm around her.
Terry wandered over to the jury box. "You'll
probably hear a lot of talk during this trial about a
wicked medical experiment conducted in secrecy by a mad
doctor." He waved a hand in Fletcher's general
direction; she smiled imperceptibly at the description.
"You'll hear a lot about a woman so desperate for a
child that she paid for her pregnancy. I intend to
demonstrate, however, that this was a far nobler act
than that of the plaintiff, who paid to have a living
being torn from the womb of its mother and disposed of
like so much garbage. A living being actually \rescued\
by Dr. Fletcher and Karen Chandler. If they had not
done what they did, Renata Chandler would not be alive
today to be reclaimed by the very people who eight
months ago paid for her \death\." He looked at each
member of the jury. "A killing that, I assure you, Dr.
Evelyn Fletcher was fully certified to perform by the
laws of the United States and the codes of the American
Medical Association."
He walked back to his table. "Had Dr. Fletcher not
had a rare and amazing conscience coupled with an
astounding medical insight, Renata Chandler would have
been just one of millions of aborted fetuses tossed
away every year. Instead, she is a beautiful, living
baby girl who is the center of a controversy that is
shocking to behold: her attempted killers demanding
custody on the specious argument that \they\ would be
better parents!"
Terry Johnson shook his head and stepped to his
seat between Evelyn and Karen. "That's all I've got to
say for now. Let's see what happens." With that, he sat
down.
The murmuring behind the bar grew louder. The
judge rapped gently a couple of times to bring silence.
"Mr. Czernek, you may call your first witness."
Valerie looked at Ron with apprehension. He
clasped her shoulders, looked her in the eyes, and
whispered, "Just be brave and tell it the way it
happened. Make eye contact with the jurors. Answer my
questions and nothing more." He stood.
"Your Honor, I'd like to call the plaintiff,
Valerie Dalton, to the stand."
Valerie approached the stand and was sworn in by a
tall, aging Latino court clerk who spoke with a deep,
solemn voice. She sat in the wooden chair, adjusted the
drape of her dress, and tried to be calm.
Czernek's first few questions were standard. She
stated her name, her address, her age, her educational
and business background. The recitation of such simple
facts soothed her. The sense of panic subsided.
"Now tell us what happened on March third of this
year."
"Well, I had discovered that I was pregnant, so I
made an appointment with Dr. Fletcher for an... an
abortion."
"Something," Czernek said, "that millions of
Americans do every year with no complications."
Valerie nodded. "You drove me out there and helped
me fill out what I thought was an ordinary consent form
for the operation."
"What time was this?" he asked.
"About seven in the evening."
"Basically," he said, "after hours."
"Yes."
"Did the hospital appear fully staffed at that
hour?"
"I don't know. It seemed pretty empty there."
"Go on."
Valerie looked at the jurors. They appeared to be
listening with interest and without prejudice. "I was
led into an operating room and got undressed."
"Was this a big operating room?" Ron asked. "With
several surgeons and lots of equipment and lights?"
"No," she replied, events of the evening unfolding
in her memory. "It was small, more like an examination
room. Just the table and stirrups and some cabinets and
a sink. The only equipment was the thing the nurse
wheeled in." At Czernek's request, she described as
much as she remembered of its white exterior, the video
monitor and switches.
"Did you know what this device was for?"
Valerie looked at Evelyn. "Dr. Fletcher told me
that it was for a suction abortion."
"Objection!" Johnson stood forcefully and walked
to the bench. "Your Honor," he whispered, "use of the
word abortion to refer to transoption will be
prejudicial to my clients' case."
Judge Lyang looked down at the man. "Does this
really have any bearing?"
"Immense bearing, Your Honor."
She shrugged. "Sustained."
Czernek asked his question again. Valerie answered
uneasily. "She told me that it was a suction device. I
was given a local anesthetic, which didn't do much
good. Then she turned the machine on, and it started to
make these hissing and sucking sounds."
Ron turned around as if in thought. "At any time,"
he asked, "were you aware that anything was out of the
ordinary?"
"Well..." She frowned. "I had never seen an
abortion before, so I had nothing to compare it to.
High school sex education classes and college women's
studies both seemed to ignore the actual medical
procedure--"
"Please, just answer my question."
She frowned again, this time at Ron. "I'd never
seen an abortion, so, no, I didn't think anything was
wrong. I figured I knew it might hurt, so when she
inserted the tube, the pain was no real surprise, I
guess."
"Was there any talk between Dr. Fletcher and her
nurse that might have aroused your suspicions?"
"I can't remember any."
"So as far as you were concerned," he said, facing
the jury, "Dr. Fletcher had performed an abortion by
medically approved means."
"Yes."
"Did you later find out that this was not the
case?"
"Yes," she said, rage at the memory of the day
growing in her.
"When?"
"Twelve days ago when Dr. Fletcher called me to
ask for a blood test. She said a sick baby needed a
transfusion."
Czernek nodded and stroked at his beard. "Did she
tell you at this time that the baby was yours?"
"No."
Dr. Fletcher gazed steadily at Valerie, though she
noted through peripheral vision that the jurors stared
at her now, not the witness. She labored to avoid
looking guilty at hearing her deception revealed.
"Did you later discover this fact?"
"Yes."
He asked her when she found out.
She replied with obvious bitterness. "The next day
in the hospital. A lab technologist was interested in
why my blood would be more useful to a baby than the
blood of its own supposed mother. He left the room
while I was donating the pint, and when he came back,
he started asking me what I thought were crazy
questions about whether I'd regretted having my
abortion and what if my baby had lived."
"What did you say?"
"Nothing. Before he could finish, Dr. Fletcher
walked in, and he stopped talking."
"Did Dr. Fletcher tell you then that Renata was
your child?"
"No. First she asked if I would agree to a bone-
marrow transplant. I said I wanted to see the baby.
When I did, I had the feeling that she was mine. Then
the technologist--"
"Do you remember his name?" Ron asked.
"Yes. Mark Landry. He told me his theory that Dr.
Fletcher had invented some way to implant aborted
fetuses into other women and that the child born to
Karen and David Chandler was actually mine."
"What happened then?"
"I fainted. Mr. Landry brought me about with
smelling salts. Then Dr. Fletcher walked in."
"Did she tell you then?"
"No. Only when I confronted her did she bother to
tell me that my child had been given to someone else."
Throughout the morning, Czernek questioned her on
every minute detail with repetitive precision and
through her answers painted a portrait of irresponsible
medical experiments performed on an unsuspecting woman
without benefit of informed consent. All the while, Dr.
Fletcher watched with intense concentration.
"Valerie," Czernek finally asked softly, "would
you be a good mother for Renata?"
"Yes," she said, barely audible.
"Could you tell the court why?"
Valerie thought about the question for a moment,
though the time was mostly spent remembering what she
and Ron had decided the night before. She turned to the
jury. "My baby was born to another woman, who claims
that makes her the child's mother. Yet when the baby
fell ill, \I\ was the only one who could save her. Dr.
Fletcher would not have been forced to bring everything
out in the open if there were anyone else who could
help. That baby needs me. She needs her real mother in
order to survive." Her voice was level, unemotional.
"She needs her true parents to love her, not two
strangers. Strangers who considered her a commodity to
be purchased. And I hope that, along with returning my
little girl to me, this court decides that no one else
should ever have to suffer this deception again."
Ron waited for her words to sink in, then asked,
"Did you bring this lawsuit just to get money?"
"No! What Dr. Fletcher did to me was wrong. She
should be stopped. That's why I brought this lawsuit.
To get my baby back and to prevent future abuses."
He paused again. "Thank you, Ms. Dalton. No
further questions."
Judge Lyang looked over to Johnson. "Would the
defense care to cross-examine?"
Terry rose. "Yes, Your Honor." He sidled out from
behind the table to approach the witness stand. He put
his hands in his pockets as if in deep thought. He
looked up at the ceiling. "Ms. Dalton, when you
discovered you were pregnant, what did you see as your
options?"
"Objection," Ron said. "Counsel must restrict
himself to areas covered in direct examination."
Johnson snorted and looked at Lyang. "Counsel for
the plaintiff is trying to restrict me a bit too much.
He \did\ cover her choice to get an abortion."
"Overruled," the judge said flatly.
"What options did you consider, Ms. Dalton?"
Valerie sat admirably still. Inside, she wanted to
shake free. "I had no option besides abortion."
"Did you consider giving birth? Raising the
child?"
"We weren't ready for that. I wasn't ready."
"That's fine," Johnson said in a calm, accepting
tone. "Lots of people have abortions. It's legal. It's
relatively safe. Were you aware at that time that
abortion was the only \known\ method of pregnancy
termination?"
"I certainly didn't know about transoption, if
that's what you mean."
"It is indeed." Johnson put his hands back in his
pockets and strolled around with a meditative air. "Did
you know that abortion entailed the killing of the
fetus?"
"Objection," Czernek said. "To use the term
`killing' in regards to abortion implies that a first-
trimester fetus is a living human being, something
denied by every major court decision of the past
thir--"
"Sustained, Mr. Czernek. I am familiar with the
law."
Johnson smiled. \Right where I wanted you, you
litigious bastard\. "Allow me to rephrase the question.
Did you know when went in for an abortion that the
individual cells in the tissue removed from you during
the abortion would, one by one, cease to function after
said removal?"
Valerie shook her head. "I don't understand the
que--"
"Surely, Ms. Dalton," Johnson's voice rose, "you
can comprehend that when a piece of living tissue is
deprived of its source of nutrients, it won't survive
long. Did you know that extraordinary measures are
taken during organ transplants to keep a heart or a
liver viable--'alive'--while being transported to its
new host?"
"Yes. I guess I--"
"Did you know that once aborted, your fetus would
soon cease to be a fetus and become a mass of
nonfunctioning tissue?"
"Well, yes. Of course."
He turned to her. "So you didn't really consider
it alive to begin with?"
"No. I mean, not in the sense of it being a
person. That's the way I learned it." She sounded more
confident.
"And if you had lived in the South a century ago
and had `learned it' that blacks weren't human, you'd
believe that, too, right?"
"Objection!" Czernek shouted, Johnson mouthing the
word in perfect synchrony.
"Sustained." Judge Lyang leaned slightly forward
to address Johnson. "Your analogy is totally
prejudicial. The difference between a fetus and a human
is far greater than that of mere skin color. And may I
remind you that the Supreme Court has long ago
recognized the humanity of all races."
"At one time it had not," Johnson replied. "Just
as at one time it had not considered children to have
human rights." He stared at Lyang. "Or women." Before
the judge could react, he immediately said, "I'll
retract the question, of course, and ask Ms. Dalton if
she did not in fact sign a waiver of claim to the non-
living bit of tissue she wanted removed. Did you?"
"I signed something."
Johnson reached into his briefcase. With a
flourish, he placed a transparency on the overhead
projector and threw the switch. On the screen opposite
the jury box glowed several pages of typescript. "Would
this be the contract?"
She looked at it. "Yes," she said, "it is."
"Am I correct that it says nowhere on that
contract that you were to receive an abortion?"
She looked at Ron, then at the jury. "Yes. I
thought the wording was a bit strange, but the way
people use euphemisms for everything these days--"
"What term do you see that you \thought\ meant
`abortion?'"
"The term was `pregnancy termination.'"
"And you thought that the only way to terminate a
pregnancy was through an abortion?"
"Of course."
Johnson pointed at the screen. "It says right here
that the undersigned--that's you, Ms. Dalton--
'relinquishes any and all claim to tissues removed
during said pregnancy termination.' Did you agree to
that?"
"I don't remember," she said. She took a deep
breath to calm herself.
"Are you in the habit of forgetting what you
sign?"
"No, I remember it."
"Did Ron Czernek read it?"
"Yes."
"I see." Johnson began walking about again. He
handed a copy of the contract to Czernek, then to the
clerk, saying, "Please make this contract Exhibit A."
He put his hands in his pockets. "So you knew that the
abortion you wanted would result in the-- Well, I want
to say `death,' but how about the `cessation of
viability' of the fetus?"
"Yes," Valerie said.
"Since you didn't consider it a living human
being, though, you contracted with Dr. Fletcher to have
it vacuumed out of you and disposed of. Is that a clear
statement of the facts?"
Valerie paused, looking to Ron for guidance. The
lawyer's jaw tightened. He could object to the
argumentative nature of the question, but the issue
would remain. His head nodded ever so slightly.
"Yes," Valerie said without emotion.
"And you meant to sign away any claim to this non-
living bit of tissue?"
"Yes."
Johnson walked over to the witness stand, placed
both hands on the rail, and looked her fiercely in the
eye. "Why, then, are you now laying claim to this bit
of garbage you threw out?"
Czernek shouted a loud objection. Johnson shouted
even louder over the other lawyer's protest. "Why do
you suddenly care about this child that a few short
months ago you paid to have killed?"
"\Objection!\ I want that stricken from the
record! Harassing the wit--"
"I am capable," the judge said loudly, "of
discerning harassment, Mr. Czernek."
Ron sat down, fuming. Lyang laid down her gavel
and folded her hands. "Approach the bench." The lawyers
stepped toward the judge.
"Mr. Johnson," she whispered, "the entire subject
of abortion and the rights of the unborn is frightfully
emotion laden, as the two groups of protesters outside
this courtroom demonstrate. You do your clients' case
no good by harassing the plaintiff." She glanced down
at the court reporter, a young man fingering the keys
of a battered old Stenotype. "The last two questions
shall be stricken from the record, and"--she turned to
the jury box--"the jury is to disregard the nature of
the question and any inferences they may draw having
heard it. You may continue, Mr. Johnson."
"No further questions, Your Honor." \I've never
heard of a jury yet that could erase its own memory\.
"Then I suggest we recess for lunch," Lyang said,
knocking once with her gavel.
XV
"If his tactic is to act self-righteous and abusive,"
Ron said, "it can only help our case."
He faced Valerie across a small blue table in the
courthouse cafeteria. A few yards away sat Johnson, the
Chandlers, and Dr. Fletcher. Johnson spoke quietly, but
with intense emphasis about something. Czernek glanced
over at them, then turned his attention back to
Valerie.
"I'm not going to redirect you, so I don't think
you'll have to worry about any more testimony." He bit
down into the club sandwich, chewed on it while
thinking. "I'm going to call Mrs. Chandler next. If I
can establish that she was a knowing accessory to the
transoption, that'll draw a pretty bad picture of her
for the jury. Then I'll follow up with the expert
witnesses--"
"Is it okay if I talk to Dr. Fletcher now? There
aren't any reporters around."
"Legally you can, but I don't think you should,"
he said.
She stood. "I just want to find out about Renata."
Ron grunted and took another bite of the sandwich.
Mentally, he rehearsed his line of questioning, knowing
that if he kept it narrow enough, Johnson would have
practically nothing to seize on in the cross-
examination. Calling a hostile witness was risky, but
he calculated that he could turn that hostility to his
advantage.
"How's Renata?" Valerie asked, sitting in an
available chair next to Dr. Fletcher.
Fletcher gave her a comforting smile. "She's still
in guarded condition. We just won't know for a while.
She's hanging in there, so \we've\ got to, too."
"Valerie?" Terry looked at her.
"What?" Her voice was as cool as the air in a
glacial cavern.
"I'm sorry I put you through that. You know why I
had to, don't you?"
"Lawyers will be lawyers," she said, rising.
"Mr. Czernek will be just as rough on Karen," he
said. His tone was matter-of-fact, but his eyes
revealed an apprehension about something, the nature of
which Valerie was unaware.
She chalked it up to the trial jitters she assumed
everyone else also felt and returned to Ron. He hovered
over his coffee, searching his notes to prepare for the
afternoon.
"How is she?" he asked without looking up.
"They don't know yet."
It was strange reporting to him in such a way. His
attitude seemed almost that of a man in some gothic
romance. Dark and brooding, he pondered his own
thoughts while expressing only a cursory interest in
their child. He flipped over a sheet of the yellow
legal pad, continuing to read his hasty shorthand.
Suddenly, a repetitive beep erupted from his
jacket. For a moment, he was unsure what it meant. Then
he remembered that in his haste to bring the case to
trial, he had rented a pager to keep in contact with
his office. He pulled it from his pocket, noted the
phone number on the LCD display, and switched it off.
"That's my callback from the doctor I asked to be
an expert witness." He headed for the phone booths. "I
hope he agrees to testify--it's cutting things close to
do this so far into the trial."
Valerie watched him go, then turned to observe the
defendants. It was her first opportunity to view them
together in a relaxed climate.
David Chandler doted on his wife so sweetly, she
thought. Always an arm around her or a hand touching
hers. She knew it couldn't be an affectation. Ron
sometimes did that: a pat on the hand or an obligatory
hug. The impression she received, though, was one of
distraction, as if her lover had more on his mind than
pleasing or soothing her.
Karen had that troubled look of a mother concerned
about her child. Valerie could tell that the woman was
unable to concentrate on the courtroom proceedings; her
mind was miles away in a hospital room at Bayside.
Renata created a bond between the two of them that was
even stronger than the one between Ron and her. It was
a bond, though, with built-in stress, one that could
never be acknowledged as long as they vied for
possession of Renata.
It was Dr. Fletcher's fault. Valerie glared at the
woman, at her black and silver hair, at her starched
white demeanor. She acted as if she cared about Renata,
about Valerie--indeed, about everyone. Was it a sham?
Just so much bedside manner repeated rote? What really
lurked behind that doctorly exterior? Was she trying to
help all women and unborn children, as Johnson implied?
Or was Ron more correct that she had used her and Karen
as a means to test her theories?
She knew Ron's reasons for being here. What were
Johnson's? He seemed sincere to the point of a stroke,
yet he used every nasty rhetorical technique available.
Stuff she'd seen Ron use in other trials. He knew how
to play the jury, just as Ron did. Was that the key?
Would the best player win regardless of who was right
or wrong?
"He's in!" Ron returned to the table, scraping the
chair across the linoleum to sit. "He'll be available
tomorrow to give expert testimony on embryo transfer.
And here's something I didn't know; he's on the ethics
committee of his own hospital, so he \really\ knows the
implications of Fletcher's actions."
"Tomorrow." Valerie finished her coffee in one
swallow. It went down bitter despite the two packets of
Equal. "What about today?"
Ron grinned and looked across the room at Karen.
"Leave that to me."
#
Karen sat in the witness stand, determined to answer
the questions without overreaction.
"We had exhausted all other--"
"Just a yes or no answer," Czernek said coolly.
"Did you enter the Bayside University Medical Center
fertility program to become pregnant by any means
possible?"
"Yes."
Rather than stroll around before the bench in
Johnson's manner, Czernek stayed close to Karen, facing
her to ask his barrage of questions in a clipped,
businesslike manner.
"Were you aware that your problem could have been
solved by the medically accepted method of non-surgical
ovum transfer?"
"We'd tr--"
"Yes or no?"
"Yes, but--"
"So you knew about non-surgical ovum transfer?"
"Yes. We tried--"
"Just yes or no, Mrs. Chandler. Did you know that
clinics performing the procedure regularly contract
with women as conscious, informed ovum donors?"
"Yes."
"And you knew that the Bayside clinic had a frozen
supply of fertilized and unfertilized eggs available
for you to pick and choose the traits you want in a
child?"
"Yes." Karen burned to tell the jury about her
failures with the procedure.
"Yet you instead allowed Dr. Fletcher to implant
an embryo in you by surgical means?"
"Yes."
"And you allowed this even though you knew that
such an embryo must have been torn from the womb of
another woman?"
Johnson popped up. "Objection! The question is
argumentative and establishes nothing new."
Judge Lyang nodded. "Sustained."
"Were you aware that the embryo must have come
from an abortion?" Czernek asked.
"Yes," she answered firmly.
"And yet you allowed Dr. Fletcher to perform this
procedure?"
"Yes."
"And you carried this child to term and gave birth
to it?"
"Yes."
"And you filled out a birth certificate naming you
and David Chandler as the mother and father even though
the child bore no genetic relation to either of you?"
"Dr. Fletcher told--" She stopped just as Czernek
opened his mouth. "Yes, I did."
"And you had no compunctions about that? You
didn't think that perhaps there was something dishonest
or perhaps even illegal about it all?"
"I object!" Johnson said. "Mrs. Chandler is not a
legal expert."
"Sustained."
Czernek rubbed the bridge of his nose. "It's a
simple question, Mrs. Chandler. Did you suspect that
you were involved in something that was wrong?"
"No, I did not."
"I see. And now that you have been caught, do you
feel any remorse?"
Johnson shot to his feet again. "Objection, Your
Honor! The question of remorse is totally irrelevant."
Judge Lyang sustained.
Czernek shrugged and turned to face Karen. "I have
no more questions."
On his way to the witness stand, Johnson glared
at the more experienced lawyer, turning his head so
that his expression was hidden from the jurors' view.
Czernek smiled cordially and regained his seat.
"Mrs. Chandler," Johnson began, his hands in his
pants pockets, jacket bottoms draped over his wrists.
"Please tell the court why you had to seek out the
services of a fertility clinic."
She looked at the women in the jury, speaking
softly. "David and I had always wanted to have
children, and we tried right from our wedding night.
But nothing ever seemed to happen. We went to doctors,
and they determined that it was sort of both our
faults." She lowered her head for a moment, then looked
up, this time at the men. "I had very poorly developed
ovaries, and David had an industrial accident when he
was twenty and had a very low sperm count."
"And what options did you consider?"
"Non-surgical ovum transfer was one method," she
said, glancing over at Czernek in pleasure that the
truth could now get out. "Of course, since David
couldn't contribute the sperm, we used eggs that had
already been fertilized."
"Did you actually undergo such an operation?"
"Yes. Four times."
The spectators began to trade whispered sounds of
astonishment. Johnson stepped close to Karen.
"What was the outcome of each?"
"I miscarried all four."
The murmuring in the courtroom increased an
increment. The judge gaveled for quiet. The sounds
abated momentarily.
"At what point did these pregnancies spontaneously
abort?"
"All of them within the first three weeks."
"And were these your first attempts?"
"No. We had tried \in vitro\ fertilization with
donor ova and sperm."
"How many tries there?"
"Three."
"Any other methods?"
"Yes," she said in an almost ashamed tone. "Three
attempts at artificial insemination before my problem
was properly diagnosed. But that was long before I
found Dr. Fletcher."
"So altogether, how many times had you tried
orthodox methods of artificial impregnation?"
"Ten times."
"And the outcome each time?"
She looked straight at the jury. "They all
miscarried."
"How soon after each procedure?"
"All within the first three weeks, when they took
at all."
Johnson gazed at the members of the jury as if to
drive his point home. Actually, he scanned their faces
for some sense of their reaction. He read sympathy on
most, but the two young women seemed a bit put off by
the idea of such colossal efforts. One of the older
men, too, appeared embarrassed by the clinical details.
"Did Dr. Fletcher," he asked, "say why she
suggested surgical embryo transfer? Transoption, as she
calls it."
"She said she suspected that a more fully
developed embryo might have a better chance of
thriving. We were at our wits' end. We'd tried
everything else under the sun." Tears welled in her
eyes. She pressed at them with a tissue. "We just
wanted a baby."
Terry held up his hand and nodded in sympathy. He
ran the hand through his curly mop of hair and said,
"Did Dr. Fletcher ever speak to you about abortion?"
"Yes."
"What did she say?"
Karen put her hand in her lap and crumpled the
tissue in its grasp. "She said that transoption was
something that she hoped would make abortion obsolete."
"I object," Czernek said loudly. "This line of
questioning is not germane--"
"On the contrary, Your Honor." Johnson stepped
over to face the judge. "Counsel for the plaintiff has
raised the question of the defendant's awareness of
abortion. I am merely probing the question further."
Lyang mulled the problem for a moment.
"Overruled," she said.
Johnson strolled around the witness stand. "Mrs.
Chandler," he said, "were you aware of the identity of
the embryo donor?"
"No. Dr. Fletcher insisted that we have no contact
with the donor."
"Did you know that the donor was unaware of the
use to which her aborted-- I'm sorry." He nodded at Dr.
Fletcher. "I mean her \transopted\ fetus. That she was
unaware of the use to which it would be put?"
"No. She never really discussed the source with
us. Just that embryos were available."
"Where did you think the embryo must have come
from?"
"An abortion," Karen replied. "I mean, that was
pretty obvious, don't you think?"
Several spectators laughed in a nervous sort of
way and almost immediately shut up.
"Was it your intent to become pregnant simply to
enjoy being pregnant?"
Karen shook her head, an inadvertent smile
crossing her face. "Pregnancy isn't something you do
for fun. David and I wanted to bring a child into the
world. To raise it with love."
"Did it make any difference to you that the donor
was totally unaware that her child would be
transopted?"
"No."
The muttering increased. People nodded to
themselves and one another.
Karen continued, staring squarely at the jurors.
"I had \no\ uncertainties. I knew that I wasn't taking
a child from someone who would miss it. It's not as if
the donor had an abortion just to provide me with a
fetus. I knew that I was saving a child from absolutely
certain death."
Looking out at the spectators, she saw and heard
dozens of people arguing with one another. Some
expressed astonishment at her blatant statement; others
spread their hands in reluctant agreement with her
logic. She glanced down at Valerie.
The plaintiff lowered her head in an attempt to
hide her tears. Unsuccessful, she grasped Ron's
shoulders and clung to him.
"Please, Val," he said. "I've got to stand up to
object." He stood, letting her arms slide down him.
"Objection!" he shouted. "The defendant's personal
opinions are of no consequence here."
"Sustained," Lyang said. She looked down at the
court reporter. "Strike the last question and answer
from the record. And counsels will please approach the
bench."
Czernek and Johnson stepped over to the base of
Judge Lyang's dark wooden tower. She looked down at
both of them and whispered.
"What is going on here? This is a custody lawsuit
we're hearing, and neither of you has addressed the
issue of the best interests of the child." She pointed
a dismissive hand at Czernek. "Well, maybe \you\ have,
perfunctorily. Neither of you, however, has bothered to
raise questions of financial resources, parental
fitness, personal habits, or any issues of fact that I
would normally hear in this court."
"Your Honor--" Johnson glanced hesitantly at
Czernek. "This case is not one of divorced parents
deciding on custody. That is why we all agreed to
forego the discovery phase. This is a case of two sets
of parents, both well-off, who dispute the--I don't
know how to put it--the \parentship\ of a child, who
dispute its \maternity\. \That\ is an issue of fact. I
am of the opinion that the standard criteria for
determining the best interests of the child are
superfluous here and that once we determine whether or
not transoption is a legitimate medical procedure, the
answer to the question of Renata's custody will follow
\ipso facto\."
Czernek frowned at his adversary. "I'm afraid I
have to agree," he whispered to Lyang. "The entire
question of custody hinges on whether or not Dr.
Fletcher kidnapped my daughter. If she did so by
performing an illegal operation--"
"If the question is one of legality," Lyang said,
"I can end this trial right now by taking judicial
notice of transoption one way or the other. Transoption
is not on trial here."
"The contract is," Johnson said. "Whether Ms.
Dalton's contract is legally enforceable--"
"Or fraudulently induced," Czernek muttered.
"--determines what claim Dr. Fletcher had to the
fetus after its removal. That's the impasse we
encountered at the mandatory settlement--"
"All right," Lyang said in a harsh whisper. "So
both of you think we'll be creating big precedents
here. Fine. Just remember that the law is what the
judge says it is, and don't either of you be so eager
for headlines that you abuse these women." She nodded
at Johnson. "You may resume."
"I have no further questions, Your Honor," he said
to the court at large.
"Does counsel for the plaintiff wish to redirect?"
"No, Your Honor," Czernek said, "I would now like
to call on expert testimony. Will Pastor Avery Decker
please step forward."
The minister hefted himself out of his seat next
to his assistant, James Rosen, in the first row of the
spectator's area. Karen looked at the large man in his
fine dark brown business suit, light blue shirt, and
silk rep tie. She stepped out of the witness box,
passing him as she returned to her seat.
"Is that the man you interviewed?" she asked
Johnson.
The lawyer nodded in annoyance. "You're about to
hear the self-proclaimed pro-life stance on saving
Renata's life." He poised his pen over his legal pad,
ready for anything.
"Do you swear," the clerk said, "that the
testimony you are about to give shall be the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
Decker pressed his palm lovingly on the Bible. "So
help me \God\," he said with pride, "I do."
Czernek strode over to the witness stand. "Please
state your name for the record."
"Avery Hamilton Decker."
"What are your qualifications as an expert witness
in ethics?"
Decker eased back in the wooden chair, which
creaked under the load. Looking at Dr. Fletcher, then
at the jury, he said, "I'm a minister in the Universal
World Christian Church and president of the Committee
for Preborn Rights. I have a Doctorate of Div--"
Johnson stood quickly to interrupt the recitation
of credentials. "The defense stipulates that Pastor
Decker is qualified."
Czernek smiled. He stepped closer to the witness.
"What, Pastor Decker, are the ethical problems with
transoption?"
Evelyn looked over to Johnson, waited, then
scrawled a hasty note and slid it under him. He read
it.
\No objection?\
He wrote at the bottom and handed it back.
\Let Decker braid his rope. I want to hang the SOB
on X-exam\.
Fletcher read it and smiled. Karen tapped her arm
to see. When the younger woman read it, she frowned.
"The problem," Decker said, "simply stated, is
that transoption is an unwarranted intrusion into the
bodies of two separate women and a threat to the life
of the preborn. There can be no justification for such
interference with God's plan." He smiled cordially at
the spectators, recognizing Jane Burke in their midst.
"Or, to those who refuse to acknowledge God,
interference with the functioning of nature."
"Isn't it ethically proper," Czernek asked, "to
bring more children into the world?"
"Outlawing abortion outright would be a far
greater step in that direction," Decker replied. "If
even one preborn died as a result of transoption, it's
reason enough to forbid the entire procedure. At the
very least, it is an unnecessarily risky procedure,
since the real mother could always have given the child
up for adoption \after\ birth. At the worst,
transoption is nothing more than kidnapping, child
abuse, rape, and murder. It is an offense against God
and the dignity of man."
"For the purpose of such an ethical position,
where would you say human life begins?" Czernek
realized that he was on shaky ground. Anything Decker
might accidentally say attacking abortion could redound
to the detriment of Valerie's character. He had
discussed the problem with Decker, who had agreed to
stick to lambasting transoption. Ron, though, remained
alert and ready for anything.
Decker smiled. "Life begins at conception. Most
people assume that because a preborn grows inside the
mother, it must be part of the mother. Not true." He
settled in, folding hefty arms across a stout belly. He
nodded toward Dr. Fletcher and smiled sardonically.
"I'm no medical expert, but I believe it has been
confirmed that the preborn actually creates a barrier
against the mother, which is called the placenta, out
of its own genetic material. The placenta filters the
mother's blood and only permits certain nutrients
through into the preborn's own bloodstream. The
placenta is Checkpoint Charlie for the fetus."
"And what is your conclusion?"
"A fetus is a human being with full human rights"
Decker made an expansive gesture with his hands. "And a
doctor has no more right to relocate a fetus--by force-
-on an adult's whim than a government has to relocate
its citizens by force. No surgeon should be allowed to
play pharaoh."
"Who then, has the ethical right to claim
motherhood of the baby named Renata?"
"Without a doubt, in the name of God and morality,
she is the daughter of Valerie Dalton, though stolen
even before infancy."
"Thank you, Pastor Decker." Ron returned to
Valerie's side. "No more questions."
"Well," Johnson said, rising to his feet, "I have
a few." With controlled eagerness, he walked over to
the witness box and leaned forward.
"You told the court little about your
organization. Does it not in fact advocate the right to
life of preborns?"
"Indeed it does, sir."
"And you take a rather zealous approach to
opposing abortion, do you not?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," Johnson said, striding to the jury box,
"that you picket abortion clinics, lobby for
legislation banning abortions, and counsel pregnant
women against having abortions, correct?"
"All true."
"Has your rage against abortion ever led you to
engage in illegal activities?"
"Objection!" Czernek shouted. "Counsel is asking
the witness to incriminate himself."
Judge Lyang sustained, but Decker raised a hand.
"I'd like to answer that at length, if I may."
"As you wish," Lyang said, her dark eyes observing
the man with curiosity. She held up a finger of
caution. "However, bear in mind that what you say
becomes part of the public record and you are \not\
under a grant of immunity."
"My life," he replied, "is part of the public
record." He shifted about to lean against the wooden
rail before him.
"Your Honor, members of the jury--I understand
what Mr. Johnson's question attempts to wrest from me.
If the defense can show that I have ever broken the law
in my opposition to abortion, then Dr. Fletcher and the
Chandlers could jump on the coattails of my moral
position to prove that they were acting in the best
interests of the child. I have never broken any law in
my quest to outlaw what I and God consider to be murder
in the first degree. Some supporters of the cause
\have\ bombed abortuaries and physically assaulted
abortionists. If you encountered a man or woman who
freely admitted to having murdered thousands of
defenseless babies and merely shrugged their deaths off
as the removal of unwanted tissue, you'd be shocked and
moved to violent outrage, too. I mean, how did the Jews
feel when confronted with doctors who treated them as
little more than experimental animals? Imagine our rage
and understand our reactions."
He sat up straight, hands on his knees. "But none
of us has ever assaulted a pregnant woman. None of us
has ever wrenched a living baby from inside a woman and
claimed that we were \saving\ it. And \that\ is what
separates the sometimes illegal actions of a pro-life
activist from the unconscionably evil actions of this
mercenary doctor and her child buyers."
Decker stopped, leaning back. Johnson said nothing
for a moment, merely looking the minister in the eye.
\Now what?\ he thought.
"An interesting point of view, in that it reveals
a good deal of bias on your part."
"Is it biased," Decker asked with an astonished
tone, "to reach an ethical opinion and then act upon
it?"
Johnson smiled. "No. The evidence is clearly
demonstrating that Dr. Fletcher did just that." He
resumed his stroll around the courtroom, hands in
pockets. "So, your group seeks to preserve the life of
the preborn?"
"Yes. And its right to be born according to God's
plan."
"And you seek to outlaw abortion. At least until
people come to their senses and never choose it as an
option."
"Correct," Decker agreed.
"And do you acknowledge that simply by outlawing
abortion, you will not put an end to the practice?" He
stopped to stare at Decker.
"You'd certainly cut down on--"
"Just yes or no, Pastor."
"Yes."
"So even with laws forbidding it, women will still
seek abortion, and preborns will still be murdered--at
\far greater\ risk to the mother from botched, illicit
abortions. Correct?"
"They'd get what they des--"
"\Yes or no?\"
"Yes. Women will break the laws of the state \and\
the laws of God." He shook his head. "The curse of
Eve."
"Curse or no, Pastor, if you so highly value the
lives of these preborn babies, why are you opposed to
the only technique that gives them a fighting chance
for life?"
Decker jabbed a finger into his palm with emphatic
force. "Leaving the preborn \alone\ gives it an even
better chance for life."
"Does it?" Johnson stepped over to the jury box
without looking toward the jurors. "Are you aware of
how many pregnancies end in spontaneous abortions and
stillbirths?"
"No." A small laugh erupted from his depths. "It
must be small or we wouldn't have overpopulation
problems."
"The answer is about fifty percent."
"Objection," Czernek said.
"Sustained." Lyang gazed down at the defense
counsel. "A lawyer's statements are not evidence, Mr.
Johnson."
Johnson paused to rephrase his question. He was
surprised at how he considered each objection to be a
personal affront. It hadn't seemed that way in law
school. After a moment, he asked Decker, "I you knew it
was fifty percent, would transoption be less ethically
objectionable?"
"No."
"You mentioned that the preborn builds a barrier
against the mother. Did you know that from the point of
conception onward, the mother's immune system wages an
unrelenting war against the embryo?"
"I've read about it." Decker smiled wryly. "The
curse of Eve again."
"You didn't know, however, that most pregnancies
abort spontaneously--miscarry--within the first month?"
"No." Decker shifted restlessly in the chair.
Johnson turned toward the jury. "All those actual
human beings with rights to life, all dying without the
mothers even knowing they're pregnant." He turned back
toward the pastor, raising his voice. "Where, Mr.
Decker, did \you\ receive the godlike ability to
determine who shall live and who shall die? Or do you
simply resent the idea that a woman can have her
freedom of choice without any moral complications?"
"Objection, Your Honor." Czernek's voice boomed
with stern force. "The witness's personal opinions do
not affect his expert testimony."
"On the contrary," Johnson countered. "It bears
heavily on the issue of bias."
"Overruled."
The younger lawyer nodded thanks toward the judge.
"Is it not ethically superior for a woman to terminate
an unwanted pregnancy \without\ becoming a murderess?"
"Not," Decker said angrily, "if she becomes a
party to kidnapping."
"Do you feel that you have lost a little of your
moral high ground to Dr. Fletcher, who labored for
years to find a way to protect the rights of the
preborn while you just pushed for laws to make pregnant
women a new criminal class?"
"Not at all."
Johnson shrugged. "You said that if just one
preborn were lost in a transoption, that was reason
enough to forbid the procedure entirely. Would you say
the same for prenatal heart surgery? I submit that if
transoption \saves\ even one preborn that might
otherwise be lost to abortion--\as it has\--then Dr.
Evelyn Fletcher is closer to the spirit of God than you
or anyone in this room!"
Turning his back on the minister, Johnson looked
triumphantly at Czernek and said, over his shoulder,
"No further questions."
Czernek, annoyed at being upstaged by his
opponent, glowered at the tangled-haired young man.
Looking up at the judge, he said, "I wish to call Ms.
Jane Burke to the stand."
Burke arose, catching the attention of the
courtroom cameras not simply because she was the next
witness. Years ago, Jane had realized that it did her
movement no good for their proponents to look and dress
like frumps. Men \and\ women, it turned out, rejected
the feminist message from women who looked as if they
spoke through a mouthful of sour grapes. She had lost
weight, toned up, and dressed for the public eye.
Looking more like someone from the cover of a fashion
magazine than someone from a politically active
organization, she wore a white-and-mauve business suit
with broad shoulders, narrow waist, and a skirt that
ended a few inches above the knee. She clasped a thin,
matching mauve notebook in her hand. Striding
gracefully past the bar, she nodded cordially to the
departing sour-faced minister.
"Do you swear," the court clerk said in sonorous
tones, "that the testimony you are about to give shall
be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth?"
"I do," she said simply, and sat in the witness
seat.
She inadvertently cringed at the warmth left by
Decker's corpulent flesh, as if both his girth and his
philosophy might be contagious. She suppressed it
almost instantly, though, sitting up with composure and
elegance. Her walnut-hued hair possessed a fashionable
wave, and she left her glasses in her purse.
"Please state your name for the record," Czernek
said, approaching her casually.
"Jane Harrison Burke."
"And what are your qualifications as an expert in
reproductive ethics?"
She touched her Sisters Network pin unconsciously
and said, "I am the president of Women for Reproductive
Freedom. I have a Ph.D. in--"
"Defense stipulates she's qualified." Johnson knew
the breadth of her education and did not want the jury
to hear it.
"Ms. Burke, as an expert in reproductive ethics,
tell the court your observations concerning
transoption."
She sat back, straight in the chair, like a queen
on a throne. "Ethically, transoption is a dehumanizing
abomination."
Czernek nodded toward the jurors. "Could you tell
the court why?"
She turned toward the jury. They watched her and
listened, some with admiration, some with cautious
distrust. "Over the past decade, advances in
reproductive science have been made in an absolute
moral vacuum. Purely in the interest of male genetic
narcissism, doctors have labored mightily to devise
ways that a man can have a child--usually a male child-
-in spite of a woman's inability to conceive.
Transoption is just another part of the mosaic."
She used her long, graceful hands to explain,
emphasize, illustrate. "New treatments for infertility,
whose basic tenet is that an infertile woman is `sick'
and must be `healed' at any cost, really do nothing
more than reduce women to depersonalized breeding
machines. Billions of dollars are being poured into
research that tells a woman, `Look--all that you have
done with your life is meaningless if you can't make
babies. We'll find a way to make them in spite of your
shortcomings. You are superfluous.'
"\In vitro\ fertilization meant that a woman who
once could not conceive normally could now be forced to
bear an heir for her husband. Surrogate motherhood went
one step further by cutting the woman out of the man's
plans for fatherhood entirely. Now he could hire a
woman--usually someone who had no choice but to accept
the thousands of dollars offered--to undergo a
pregnancy that would shove his chromosomes forward one
more generation. Thank goodness laws are being made to
ban \that\ bit of mercenary bondage." She looked at the
women in the jury. "Transoption goes totally beyond
anything yet encountered. It allows a man to seize a
fetus from one woman and force it into another woman so
that he can claim an heir even if that heir has
absolutely no relation to him whatsoever! It is the
ultimate cruelty for the ultimate in hollow victories.
For the maintenance of the sham of fatherhood, women
are now to become completely interchangeable wombs,
totally robbed of any say in the use and disposition of
their bodily tissues.
"Mr. Decker made a big point about the fetus being
genetically different from the woman simply because it
contains a little genetic matter from a man. May I
point out that it receives \everything else\ from the
woman? It wouldn't be able to convert nutrients into
its own genetic matter if there weren't a woman eating,
breathing, and living to surround and protect it.
"Or does Dr. Fletcher intend to cut out the woman
entirely? Why should a man even marry? Is Dr. Fletcher
working on ways to remove the entire uterus from a
woman, connect it to a machine, and churn out babies on
male demand? All for a price?" She stared hatefully at
Fletcher. "A price not calculated just in dollars but
also in the immeasurable suffering and oppression of
the entire female species."
Applause erupted in scattered portions of the
courtroom. Cameras swung about for reactions. Judge
Lyang gaveled for silence.
Czernek let out a breath he had been holding,
spellbound. "Thank you, Ms. Burke. Thank you for your
insight on this. I have no further questions. You've
covered it all." He returned to his seat.
Johnson stood, running a hand through his hair.
"Ms. Burke," he said with a touch of confusion, "you
leave me at a loss for words. I can't understand how
someone who battles so valiantly for women's rights can
support something as brutally murderous as abortion.
Doesn't abortion deprive an unborn woman of her right
to life?"
Burke smiled at the obvious baiting. "There is no
such thing as an unborn woman," she said with a touch
of condescension. "A fetus is a piece of tissue inside
a woman, just as much a part of her as an appendix. It
cannot reason, it cannot survive outside her body. It
only has the \potential\ of someday being a human
being. And that point comes at birth, when it becomes a
separate and distinct human being."
"Maybe I'm a little thickheaded," Johnson said.
"Doesn't the fact that we are here today arguing over
the custody of Baby Renata \prove\ that a fetus can
survive outside its mother's body?"
"By planting it in another woman's body,
certainly. But that's the same as saying a parasite can
survive without its host if one can move it around from
host to host."
Terry raised a surprised eyebrow. "Fetuses are now
parasites?"
"In a sense, yes. It is an invading organism that
takes nourishment from its host."
"So now you admit that it is a distinct organism."
"No," she said. "Well, yes, inasmuch as it is a
tumorlike growth that swells at a fantastic rate."
"Tumor, parasite." He stared at her for a moment,
then back at the jury. "Don't these words describe
unnatural invasions of the human body that can happen
to both men and women?"
"Of course."
"Isn't pregnancy, though, something that is not
only natural but \vital\ to the human race, which can
\only\ occur in women?"
"Put that way, yes. But--"
"Parasites stay with their hosts until the host
dies. A fetus stays with a woman for nine months \max\,
correct?"
"Yes," Burke replied in a tight voice. She knew
where he was leading her.
Mild laughter mixed with whispered comments from
the spectators.
"It's common knowledge," he continued, "that a
tumor can either remain one size indefinitely or grow
until it kills the victim but a fetus grows at a
specific rate to a specific point at which it signals
the woman's body to expel it. Why do you support a
woman's right to expel a fetus and let it die but not
another woman's right to rescue an expelled fetus and
implant it in her own body? Shouldn't that \also\ be a
reproductive freedom?"
"The fetus is not another woman's property."
"True. And I'd question whether it is the first
woman's property. Let's assume, though, that it is. If
I abandon my property, can't someone come along and
claim it?"
"This is the problem, don't you see?" Burke
pounded her fist on the chair arm. "Treating human
beings like property whose title can be--"
"Excuse me?" Johnson nearly shouted. "What is
\that\ conclusion based on? When did fetuses become
human beings to you? How can you object to the buying
and selling of tumors and parasites?"
"That's not what I mean. A fetus is like a
houseguest of the woman. The uterus is the home, and
the woman is the landlord. She has a perfect right as
landlord to evict the tenant at any point. To demand
that she care for the tenant against her will is
slavery. But that doesn't mean a landlord can \sell\
the tenant to another landlord."
Johnson waved his hand dismissively. "Once again,
only human beings can be considered tenants. But let's
get back to body tissue. I presume you have your hair
and nails done at a salon?"
"Objection!" Czernek said loudly. "What possible
bearing does the witness's groom--"
"I am trying to establish a line of questioning,
Your Honor."
Judge Lyang, intrigued by the left-field nature of
the question, said, "Overruled. Be aware, though, that
I may interrupt at any time if I think you are
harassing the witness."
"Thanks, Your Honor," Johnson said. Turning back
to Burke, he lowered his voice "Well?"
"Yes," she said. "I do."
"And when your hair and nails are trimmed, do you
demand that the trimmings be burned in your presence?"
"Hair and nails are composed of already dead
cells."
"Just yes or no, Ms. Burke."
"No, of course not."
"Have you had your appendix removed?"
"Yes."
"Do you have any idea what the surgeon did with it
afterward?"
Burke smiled wryly. "No."
"I see." He paced around for a moment. "Have you
ever had an abortion?"
Some spectators frowned at hearing such an
intrusive question.
Burke sat up straight. "Yes, I have," she
announced with pride.
"Oh? And what did the surgeon do with the
abortus?"
"I don't know. I presume she disposed of it
properly."
Johnson slammed his fist on the rail. "You
\presume\?" Did you know that aborted fetuses are the
major source of liver cells for transplant research?"
"No."
"Did you know that their pancreatic islets are cut
out and used for insulin experiments?"
"No." She shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
She wasn't alone. Spectators and members of the
jury found images coming to mind that generated a
queasy discomfort.
Johnson pressed on. "Did you know that some brands
of hair spray contain human placental extract?"
"Yes." She laughed nervously without realizing it.
"Did you know that fetal brain tissue is being
used to treat Parkinson's disease? That fetal nerve
fibers and astrocytes can be used to treat spinal
injuries?"
"I've read something about it."
"And none of this disturbs you?"
"Why should it?"
Johnson turned toward the jury to make a helpless
gesture with his hands. "You attack the mercenary
nature of surrogate mothering and of doctors who charge
fees for their services, but you seem unconcerned that
there exists an entrenched financial interest involved
in the practice of abortion. Researchers, after all,
are getting valuable fetal material for free from
women--in fact, charging women for having the material
removed after the dubious privilege of being
incubators. Do you find no ethical conflict in that?"
Burke tried to formulate a reply to the lawyer's
question.
"At first glance," she said, "there might seem to
be..." Her voice trailed off, her confidence slipping
like a worn stocking.
"Why do you support abortion and not transoption?
Is it because abortion allows a woman to ensure that
her mistakes don't live to haunt her?"
Czernek shot to his feet. "Objection, Your Honor.
Badgering the witness won't--"
"Sustained."
"--make up for his dearth of--"
"\Sustained\, Mr. Czernek."
Ron sat down. Terry slipped his hands into his
pants pockets.
"What, Ms. Burke, makes you think that Valerie
Dalton was deprived of control over her body by
transoption but that \you\ were not deprived by
abortion? Neither of you knew what became of your fetal
tissue. Would it have been better if Renata had been
sent to a lab to have her liver, pancreas, and brain
removed? Would it really have been better?"
Burke stammered for a moment, her composure
faltering. "I..." She stiffened. "Valerie Dalton
expected an abortion, not an embryo transfer."
"What she expected," Johnson said, "is what she
\contracted for\. To be free of her pregnancy." He
pointed to the screen. "Exhibit \A\ once again. Does
the word `abortion' appear anywhere on it?"
"A legalistic, semantic trick," Burke replied.
"Is it? Valerie Dalton went into Bayside Medical
pregnant. She came out not pregnant. She contracted for
a pregnancy termination, and that's what she received.
She explicitly signed away any claim to the tissue
removed. She took full responsibility for her body, Ms.
Burke, when she signed this paper. Her pregnancy was
terminated just as surely as \your\ pregnancy was, Ms.
Burke. Now what's the difference? Why didn't \you\ sue
\your\ abortionist?"
"Because \I\ received an abortion. \Her\ fetus
\lived\!"
"So it's not the right to a terminated pregnancy
that you defend. It is the right to a dead fetus. Your
ethical concern is with the life or death of the child.
Is that correct?"
"A fetus is not a child, God damn you!"
Johnson slammed both hands on the rail and stood
inches away from her. Sweat beaded on his face. An
anger that was not feigned burned in his expression. In
a voice that thundered, he said, "Everything you say
and support \screams\ that a fetus is a child. You have
no objection to individual fetal cells living on inside
another person's liver or pancreas or brain. The only
thing you object to is letting those cells remain
intact to become a living, breathing human being!"
"Mr. Johnson!" Lyang slammed her gavel. "You--"
"No more questions, Your Honor."
He turned away from Burke and returned to his
seat. Karen Chandler hugged him, tears flowing down her
face. Dr. Fletcher patted his arm with approval.
The whispering from the spectators threatened to
erupt into loud arguments. Everywhere, opinions
polarized. Judge Lyang pounded away to no avail.
"Court is recessed until"-- she glanced down at
her calendar--"November tenth. Jurors are instructed
not to discuss this case with anyone. Bailiff, clear
everyone out!"
\\END OF EXCERPT OF CHAPTERS 9-15\\
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Egalitarianism
By Sheldon L. Richman
Reproduced from *The Free Market*, July 1990.
Copyright (C) 1990 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute,
851 Burlway Road, Burlingame, California 94010,
(415)579-2500, and Auburn University, the O.P. Alford
Center for Advanced Studies in Austrian Economics; the
University of Nevada, Las Vegas; the Lawrence Fertig
Student Center; and the *Review of Austrian Economics*.
The magazine, The Free Market, included this
statement in the front of its July 1990 issue:
"Permission to reprint articles is hereby granted
provided full credit and address are given."
The *Washington Post* recently devoted front-page space
to report a decline in support for egalitarianism.
More than 70% of the people responding to a poll said
they disagreed that "redistributing" wealth from those
who earn it to those who do not was a proper function
of government. The story, of course, could barely
conceal the paper's concern over the apparent growing
opposition to the welfare state and its policies to
"narrow the gap between the rich and the poor."
Nevertheless, this represents a breakthrough.
The people who worry about these things attribute the
decline to Ronald Reagan and the 1980s, the alleged
Decade of Greed. That it might have something to do
with developments in Eastern Europe, where governments
preaching egalitarianism have failed so miserably, has
not occurred to them.
One is always entitled to be skeptical about polls, so
it is too early to celebrate the demise of
egalitarianism in America. Besides, the evidence that
it is really out of favor is scant. How are we to
explain most of the pending legislation in Washington,
including the Americans with Disabilities Act and the
Civil Rights Act? There could be a lag between a
change in the people's attitude about the welfare state
and the legislative process, but I doubt that
egalitarianism is dead or could die so easily.
It is quite possible that egalitarianism still
functions as an ideal, but that people have grown
doubtful about whether it can be carried out. Here the
experience of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union has
been instructive. The governments in these countries
assumed nearly complete power, ostensibly to fulfill
the principle "from each according to his ability, to
each according to his need." The result was a caste
society in which the rulers lived in relative luxury --
compared to their subjects, if not the working class in
the West. Practice fell short of theory. That ought
to make people rethink the theory, but many will just
chalk it up to flaws in human nature. The last thing
they will conclude is that the flaw is in the theory,
not ourselves.
Before sorting all this out, let's dispose of an
economic point first: the government cannot
"redistribute" wealth. The word in quotation marks
implies that wealth is initially *distributed*. It is
not. In the market there is no common pot from which
someone ladles wealth. The incomes we observe result
from a long series of voluntary exchanges. In each
transaction, two parties decide that what they will get
is more valuable than what they will give up. If each
did not believe that, no transaction would occur. (The
exception, of course, is income derived from government
sources.)
Since there is no distribution, it cannot be judged
fair or unfair. No one decided how much each person
would get. Rather, everyone had opportunities to enter
or not enter into transactions, depending on their
values and what contribution they could make to the
productive process. It makes no sense to call the
"distribution" of income unfair if each step in the
series of exchanges that brought that outcome was fair,
that is, voluntary.
But this basic economic point is not likely to persuade
the egalitarian. To him, the impersonal market process
is unfair precisely because it does not take into
account his feeling (for that is all it is) that
something is wrong with variations in income. If the
market's principle of reward is contribution to
production, he argues, and if that principle leads to
unequal rewards, then the principle should be changed.
Changed to what? Different egalitarians have given
different answers. The differences are not important
here; only the principle is. Every egalitarian has
presumed to call for interference in the peaceful
system of voluntary exchange to bring about an
arrangement of wealth fairer than the one the market
would create.
The egalitarian is right about one thing: left to its
own devices, the market will "distribute" wealth
unequally. It is an elementary truth, requiring no
proof beyond simple pointing, that people are different
in almost every way. The have different degrees of
intelligence, different talents, different levels of
ambition, different qualities of alertness to
opportunities, different physical capacities.
Difference -- inequality -- is the rule. We have no
say in the matter, and we should be thankful for it.
Imagine a world where everyone was the same. The
division of labor would not work, and we would all be
equally poor. It is precisely because we are different
that the law can treat us in the same way and not cause
a catastrophe.
The law is the only realm where equality is properly
recognized. But equality in this context means one law
for everybody. A free society is one in which there
are no castes, that is, no legally enforced divisions
as found in feudal and socialist societies. It is not
a classless society. Classes are merely groupings,
based on income and other criteria, that result from
voluntary association. Using Ludwig von Mises's
distinction, a class is not legally closed to entry; a
caste is.
The egalitarian is not satisfied with equality under
the law. In fact, he resents it because it accepts the
natural differences between people. In his effort to
bring about equality in the economic realm, he must
establish inequality in the legal realm. Those thought
to have too much will be treated differently from those
thought to have to little. The first will be deprived,
the second endowed. Bad equality therefore drives out
good equality. But notice that the egalitarian merely
succeeds in substituting one set of inequalities for
another.
Only a dreamer would maintain that under an egalitarian
regime all inequalities are wiped out (or even
diminished). On the contrary, the system rewards those
excelling in the manipulation of the political process.
Obviously, these skills are not equally "distributed."
Instead of the market system, which rewards people for
satisfying consumers, the egalitarian favors a system
that rewards people for winning political office or
currying favor with politicians and bureaucrats. The
egalitarian no doubt is the best judge of which kind of
skill he has.
What motivates the egalitarian? Maybe at one point in
history the motive was naive humanitarianism. But no
more. The consequences of the interventionist state
are too stark to be missed. The poor are its first
victims. They are made humiliatingly dependent on the
state, while regulations deprive them of the freedom to
help themselves and taxes choke off economic
opportunity. In their name, a multitude of bureaucrats
(and "private"-sector consultants) grow rich. The
politicians gain a constituency, but no matter how much
money is spent, the problem is always worsening and the
producers of wealth are always expected to give more.
It is hard to find humanitarianism in this. Honest
humanitarians would have given up on the welfare state
long ago.
Those who cling to it are motivated by something else:
envy. What else can explain a system that worsens the
condition of the purported beneficiaries as well as
society's achievers? At some point all innocent
explanations fall away and what is left is hatred -- of
achievement in itself.
It is bad enough that the administrators of the welfare
state are moved by a hatred of ability. The greater
tragedy is that they poison the minds of the
constituency they so desperately need. Instead of the
poor learning to admire the productive and aspire to be
like them, they are taught by the system that their
poverty is caused by others' affluence. They learn to
resent achievement and to prefer seeing the achievers
dragged down. That is all the welfare state can bring
about.
Egalitarianism rests on the principle that people are
not responsible for themselves. It is not a poor
person's fault that he is poor; nor do the rich deserve
their wealth. The opposing view need not hold that
everything is in a person's control. Luck can play a
part in wealth and poverty. Nevertheless, no two
people react the same way in the same circumstances. A
person's perceptiveness, judgment, and ambition play a
large part in his fortunes.
The welfare statist will cry out that we have
responsibility to those less fortunate. We do, but in
a sense other than the egalitarian imagines. We have a
responsibility to create and maintain a free society so
that all may go as far as their abilities and
determination will take the
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