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Trust only genuine AFI-packaged archives ... anything else may be just that: ANYTHING ELSE. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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\\ ### WANT TO READ THE WHOLE BOOK???? You can obtain the complete paperless book, Solomon's Knife, in any of three ways: 1) It is available for downloading from the SoftServ Paperless Bookstore (and the WRITERS RoundTable on GEnie) in ZIPped files which require a password to open; the software to open the archive with the password is, at the moment, available only to MS-DOS (IBM compatible) users. 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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 ### +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ End of this section of ShareDebate International; Information about the magazine, distribution policy, copyright statement, subscription and/or back-issue orders is in the file, SI_MISC.TXT +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++