by Victor Koman
Johnson put his hands in his pockets to stroll around the floor in a meditative posture. "Why draw the analogy between transoption and adoption? One is a surgical technique, the other a legal procedure." Fletcher's hands gripped the ends of the armrests. "Transoption is prenatal adoption, pure and simple. A woman adopts an unwanted fetus and takes from another woman the burden of bringing it to term. There can be no moral objec-tion to its use. It protects a woman's right to terminate a preg-nancy while protecting a defenseless human's right to life." She turned in the chair to stare straight at the women in the jury. "Jane Burke drew the analogy between a fetus and a houseguest. Whether initially invited in, as in the case of a woman who chooses to have sex without using contraceptives, or whether a trespasser, as in the case of failed contraception or rape, the woman has the ultimate say in whether the guest may stay or must go."
She raised a finger in emphasis. "It's immoral to forbid that. Everyone has the right to expel or evict an unwanted guest from her home. But she neglected to take the argument to its reasonable conclusion-that nobody has the right to evict a houseguest by resorting to murder. A woman has a right to expel a fetus, not to kill it."
She glanced at Burke for a moment. The woman shook her head again. She clearly rejected the implication. Fletcher pounded her fist on the chair arm. "I could have just refused to perform abortions and fought to keep women enslaved. In-stead, I searched for years to find a way to protect our rights. Transoption is the method you should welcome, not reject!"
Judge Lyang tapped her gavel lightly. "Counsel will instruct the witness to avoid addressing the spectators."
"Sorry, Your Honor," Fletcher said quickly. "I thought I was addressing Jane Burke's testimony." Lyang smiled in a pleasantly sardonic manner. "Continue."
Johnson nodded thanks toward the judge. Doing great, Doc. Just keep the logic and the passion going together. "In his testi-mony," he said, "Pastor Decker made it sound as if transoption were a crime against man, woman, and God. Did your deci-sion to perform the transoption take account of religious con-siderations?"
Fletcher addressed the jury, this time concentrating on the older men. "Mr. Decker claims to have personal knowledge of what God does or doesn't want. I don't buy that. If God exists at all, he wouldn't work through such scatterbrained, fuzzy thinkers. Decker and others have declared that transoption is an offense to God because it puts fetuses in jeopardy. I will grant that it is a dangerous operation. There is a high risk of morbidity."
Decker nodded in triumph, poking Rosen lightly in the ribs. Rosen shifted over to the far side of his seat, leaning on the armrest to listen intently.
"But remember our source," she continued. "Victims of abor-tion." She looked from one juror to another. "Suppose you found a baby that had been abandoned, thrown out of its home. It has no way to take care of itself. It will die; the homeowner knew that when she evicted it. Yet you know of a home where the child would be welcome. Wouldn't you take the child there? Is that not in fact a most Christian thing to do?" She glared at Decker. "Would the infant Moses not have died if Pharaoh's daughter hadn't taken him in?" She faced the jury once more, her voice rising. "Isn't such a rescue in fact a most humane, a most human act? Let's go further and ask, what if the home-owner had asked you to take that child out of the house and abandon it to die? Or even ordered you to kill it? What would you do?" Fletcher took a deep, trembling breath.
"I'll tell you what I did. I found a new home for Renata. Be-cause I knew that if I didn't save that baby, no one else would. And that is what Mr. Decker and his cronies conveniently over-look: That despite transoption's risk, it saved a child's life. It can save the lives of millions more." She threw the pastor a killing glare. "If he is so concerned with saving lives and souls, he should be transoption's most fervent supporter. He should be rescuing all the abortuses he can. I wonder if he really wants to help women or simply control them."
Decker glowered at her with cold anger. James Rosen stared at her in loose-jawed shock, a new vista of possibilities open-ing up before him. He had read many times of epiphany but had never felt the surge of emotion that accompanied such a clarity of revelation. His heart raced as he saw not just an isolated operation but a world transformed. Where once the scat-tered bodies of infants lay, there rose adoption centers. Where clinics now filled their trash bins with dead preborns, there could arise a new choice for women, a new chance for the preborn.
A poke from Decker shattered his vision.
"Sure," the pastor whispered with acid sarcasm. "I can just see us with our hands up feminist cunt-"
"Shut up." Rosen stood without looking at Decker and moved to a seat five rows back. He sat, visibly shaken, and backhanded the tears from his cheeks.
Fletcher saw the exchange. She looked Rosen in the eye.
"Why," Johnson asked, "did you take Valerie Dalton's fetus? Was it your intent to harm her in any way?"
"She didn't want her fetus. I removed it. She didn't ask that anything special be done with it after its removal. At that point, her contract waived any claim to what became of the fetus. I determined that it was immoral and unethical to kill that fetus or merely let it die, so I transopted it into a willing recipient. What I have done is neither criminal nor immoral. The AMA and the state of California had granted me the power to com-mit murder and call it abortion. I refused to exercise that power. Like the woodsman in the tale of Snow White, I pretended to commit the act for the queen while secretly permitting the child to live. I found a way to eliminate the moral dilemma of pregnancy termination.
"For you cannot make people behave morally by passing a law or blowing up a building. But you can make a moral choice technologically possible. You can make it fashionable, accept-able. You can make it as cost-effective as the immoral choice. You can make it marketable, easily available. And then I guarantee that people will make the right choice if you just leave them alone.
"All that I have done with my life is on trial here, so my life itself is on trial. Why? Because a bit of tissue was legally aban-doned by Valerie Dalton. I saw in it a human quality that she and the state chose not to acknowledge. I gave that tissue to someone who saw in it the same quality I did and wished to nurture it. Within her body, it grew into the baby named Renata. She is a distinct, individual human being, not chattel over which we can squabble about ownership. She is a human being in her own right. And Karen Chandler-by contract, by birth, and by choice-is her mother."
Rosen and several others applauded. More joined in just as Judge Lyang slammed the gavel for attention.
"Quiet down, please."
Johnson smiled, spreading his arms expansively. "I have no more questions for the witness."
"I do."
Czernek stood. Valerie grasped his sleeve, looking up at him.
"What?" he whispered.
She almost spoke, then shook her head and said nothing. Her fingers released him.
"I'd like to ask you," he said, "Doctor, whether you think society has any say in what is or is not right or wrong."
"Who are society?" Fletcher looked around the room. "Ev-eryone except me? Society is composed of individuals. The sum total of their separate choices is their `say.'" She leaned for-ward to gaze at Czernek with just the barest smile on her lips. "If fifty-one percent of society approved of infanticide or sla-very, should I approve of it? Would you?"
"Just answer the question."
"No, `society' has no say distinct from the choices of indi-viduals." She settled back in her chair.
"Immoral laws and primitive opinions should be ignored with impunity, even if society has to be dragged kicking and screaming toward a new respect for life and rights. Those in the pro-life or pro-choice camps who refuse to embrace transoption are enemies of both life and choice and will alienate themselves from the main-stream consensus that will form around transoption as it did around adoption." Czernek's voice boomed out at its most theatrical level. "Oh, you're a fine one to defend life and rights. You've been p
er-forming abortions for years, but you save one fetus, and that gives you the high moral ground."
Fletcher's face was a grim mask. "No one knows the truth. I never-" Czernek cut her off. "I haven't finished yet. You deceived Valerie Dalton into giving you her child, you risked the life of Karen Chandler in an untested operation, you let the baby get sick-" Fletcher coolly interrupted him. "I've stated before that Valerie was not deceived. She received the pregnancy termi-nation she wanted. Karen agreed to the operation and has not expressed any displeasure with the degree of risk. Renata had no say in the matter, but I suggest that we wait twenty years and ask her if she would have preferred to have been aborted."
Valerie wept silently, her head down on the table.
"As for your rights as the father, as I see it, you have none. You have no say in whether the woman should keep or expel the fetus; it is her body, her right. You do, however, have the right to rescue that fetus and find a new womb for it, some-thing you chose not to do."
She looked out at the spectators to stare at Ian, searching his eyes for something, anything. He gazed back at her, dis-passionately cool. Their past was a closed book; she could no longer read him. She paused, her mind suddenly focusing on a new thought. "In fact," she said slowly, still looking at Brunner, "there are places inside the male body where a fetus could be attached, brought to term and delivered by Caes-"
Her Metagram receiver beeped inside her jacket pocket. She reached in to silence it.
"I'm not interested in your scientific fantasies," Czernek said sternly. Fletcher withdrew the receiver and read the LCD display.
Czernek continued, not noticing the doctor's action. "The evidence has shown that she's suffered incredible pain, both mental and physical, to keep Renata alive-"
Fletcher stared at the words. Her worst fears had come to pass.
No stem cell act. Temp. spikes 101+
"Dr. Fletcher, are you listening to me?"
"To hell with you," she said, holding up the receiver. "Renata's dying, and you're bickering over who'll get the corpse." She bounded from the witness stand toward Valerie.
"Bailiff-" Lyang pointed at Fletcher. The tall, husky man stepped toward her as she leaned over Valerie.
"Renata needs marrow. Right now. Let's go."
"Stay right here, please," the bailiff said, firmly gripping Evelyn's arm.
"Motion to recess!" Johnson shouted.
"Move to declare a mistrial!" Czernek said even louder. "She's clearly seeking to prejudice the jury-" A single nerve-stunning blow from Lyang's gavel silenced everyone except Fletcher.
"-got to do it now before the temperature spikes get too-"
"Dr. Fletcher." The judge's voice ran cold. "Is this mere his-trionics, or is the child's life really in danger?"
"She's running temperature spikes. That means some infection's taken advantage of her depressed immune system. She'll be put on antibiotics and antifungals, but she needs more marrow. Now. We've got to try to kick start her stem-"
"Very well, Doctor. Court is recessed until Monday." The gavel fell. Its sound was lost in the chaos that erupted.
Valerie stood. The bailiff released Fletcher's right arm. Her left was seized by Czernek.
"Val-you're not going through with this, are you? The jury's watching." Valerie stared at him with an arctic gaze. "Let go of her." The two women strode from the courtroom into a sea of reporters, lights, and shouted questions. Fletcher said noth-ing, using one arm to blaze a trail while holding Valerie's hand tightly in the other. They made it to the steps of the court-house in record time.
The crowd outside must have been watching Fletcher's tes-timony. Shouts emanated from both sides, accompanied by thrusting signs and waving fists. Toward the center, though, stood a tiny knot of people with signs lettered in bright DayGlo colors. They stood silently. Then, as the pair approached, they pressed backward with all their might to create a narrow path for Evelyn and Valerie. Valerie read the signs. Each one said the same thing.
Transoption:
A Woman's Choice
A Baby's Right!
They guided Valerie and Dr. Fletcher through the crowd. The faces on the men and women-nearly all of them in their early twenties-possessed the serious intensity of people who had just found a new battle to fight, a new precept to defend. Or perhaps an old one to attack.
Several of the young people laid their hands on Fletcher's shoulders and back as they propelled the pair toward the car. Sympathetic arms gently embraced Valerie.
A woman not more than twenty wedged her way up to the pair to announce, "If I'd only known transoption existed, I wouldn't have had an abortion." Her pretty face was set in a grave expression. The jostling of the crowd around them forced her to bob and weave like a boxer. Her piercing blue eyes, though, remained fixed on Evelyn's.
"Please don't give up. There are thousands of us out there. We'll help you save-" The swirl of bodies moved her away from Fletcher, back into the crowd. They had broken free of the two clusters of demonstrators and rushed toward the parking lot. Scores of members from the rival groups followed quietly, observing Fletcher with undisguised curiosity. Newspeople closed in with more questions.
"We're going to the hospital," Fletcher shouted, unlocking the passenger side of the Saab to admit Valerie. "Medical emer-gency. Clear a path or you'll be wearing tread marks." She jumped around to her side, fired up the engine and punched it. Reporters and onlookers leapt away from the squealing machine. The sparse pro-transoption forces cheered, waving their signs with visceral enthusiasm.
Valerie looked behind her to see Ron's BMW in hot pursuit. They raced down Crenshaw toward Pacific Coast Highway.
"What kind of car do the Chandlers drive?" Valerie asked.
"I'm not sure." Evelyn pumped the brakes every few sec-onds to avoid rear-ending cars. She swerved smoothly into another lane and then slammed the accelerator. Traffic sig-nals seemed to turn from amber to red every time they en-tered an intersection.
"Someone's following Ron." She turned to watch the road ahead. "Can we save her?" Fletcher nodded. "I hope so. It just worries me that none of the three cell lines have recovered." She hit the brakes and turned the wheel hard. "I want to cover all bases, so I'm going to administer more marrow." She glanced quickly at Valerie. "Are you up for it?" Valerie nodded. "I'll do anything to save her." She fell silent for a long moment, then said, "If Renata needs me this much, doesn't that prove I'd be the better mother?"
"I don't know, Valerie." Though she drove with sharp con-centration, her voice sounded weary.
"Motherhood isn't a tug-of-war with a human being as the prize."
"I saw a play once," Valerie said. "In high school. Two women both claimed to be the mother of a baby, so the judge drew a chalk circle and put the baby in the middle and said that he would determine who the mother was by who pulled it out. They both grabbed the baby and started to pull. It cried in pain. One woman couldn't stand the cries, so she let go, and the other woman pulled it out of the circle." Evelyn nodded, jerking the wheel to the right. "And the judge knew that the woman who wouldn't hurt the baby was the real mother."
"You've seen the play, too?"
Fletcher smiled. "I know the story of Solomon. But I've also seen enough child-abuse cases to know that it's just a story, not a reliable human trait."
Valerie sat in silence for the rest of the trip.
"
Fletcher parked in the emergency lot and ushered Valerie past the handful of reporters staking out the area. The pair rushed up to the infant ICU before anyone had time to react. Valerie stared through the glass at the plastic box around which two nurses and a doctor hovered, gowned and masked.
"How is she?" Evelyn shouted when she saw Dr. DuQuette down the hall. DuQuette, a large, grey-bearded, pleasant-looking man, gazed at his former peer. "Platelets at twenty thousand, but only because of transfusions. Almost no white. Red being sus-tained-"
"I want another transplant. I'll get her prepped."
/> "I can't let you do that," DuQuette said. "Lawrence would yank me out of here, and then where would we be?"
"To hell with Lawrence," Fletcher snapped. "That baby-"
"I can handle a marrow job. You'll just have to watch out here." He gave Valerie the once-over.
"Ready?"
"Yes," Valerie said, preparing to unbutton her blouse.
"No!" Czernek's footsteps resounded in the hallway. Behind him ran Johnson and the Chandlers, catching up at the obser-vation window. Karen and David immediately looked inside, trying to get some glimpse of Renata.
Ron's eyes flashed with fierce inspiration. "We're all here. I've decided that we can come to an agreement. Out of court."
The Chandlers turned to listen, stunned apprehension grow-ing within them. Johnson spoke with caution. "Let's hear it."
Czernek took a deep breath. The sprint had been more than he had anticipated. "Either the Chandlers agree that Valerie is the legal mother and they grant us permanent, uncontested custody, or we refuse to provide the transplant. If you really want to play hardball, I called my office from the car, and they're preparing an application for a restraining order until the suit is settled. Take your pick." He smiled triumphantly at Valerie and reached out to draw her near.
Shock and agony raced through her. His words slashed at her with a blade that carved into her soul. Squirming to break free of his embrace, she stared at him in horror.
"No!" she cried. Pain and revulsion contorted her face. "That's my baby in there! She's not a hostage. I can't threaten her life that way."
"Val, I only-"
She slapped his arm away with stinging force, then turned to Dr. Fletcher.
"I paid you to kill her once and you saved her. I won't en-danger her again." Ron took another deep breath, this time to calm his own rage. "Then let me get-"