“So a fetus is her property?” Martin Tierney asked. “Not a life, not a creation of God with an animating spirit—but a tumor she can excise at will.” In the dim light, his eyes held a quiet passion. “You remember the Dred Scott decision, where the Supreme Court ruled that an escaped slave was not a person under the Constitution, and therefore ‘had no rights which a white person was bound to respect.’ Roe v. Wade is even worse—it says that an unborn child is property, to be disposed of as we like. And by helping Mary Ann put her own child to death, you’re wounding her more terribly than a problem childbirth ever will.
“In the next five years, abortion in America will take more than the six million lives which perished in the Holocaust.” He leaned forward, speaking intently. “The only difference is that our murders are committed by the mothers, one child at a time.
“You want to believe that we’re the adherents of some outmoded way of thinking. But the slow yet inexorable progress of moral development has taught mankind to value life, and the rapid rush of science has given us pictures of how life develops in the womb, and ways of preserving it we never before dreamed of.”
Though he looked at Sarah keenly, his voice held sadness. “You think that Mary Ann ran to you as some beacon of truth. We believe she went to you to hide out from the truth. We’re not just trying to protect our grandchild, we’re trying to protect her—from you.”
The depth of his belief, and its cogency, made his concern for Mary Ann more palpable to Sarah. “So you’ll pressure her until she cracks.”
“Do you expect us to be neutral?” Margaret Tierney asked. The question was more disbelieving than hostile. Sarah felt Martin Tierney regard her closely.
“No,” she acknowledged. “I don’t. That’s the problem with a law which makes a minor subject to her parents’ beliefs. My beliefs give her a choice.”
“In a moral society, murder is not a ‘choice.’” Tierney’s voice remained quiet. “Our daughter’s in your apartment, estranged from anything she’s known. It’s a parent’s nightmare. We love her, and she needs to be with us. Think of us how you like, but we want you to bring her home …”
“Please help us.” To Sarah’s surprise, Margaret Tierney reached out to touch her wrist. “We could have called the police. But instead we asked you here. We don’t want this to be any worse for her than it already is.”
Sarah felt deeply sorry for her. “Neither do I. Please understand, Mrs. Tierney, that I could go back to Judge Leary tomorrow. Along with a psychiatrist who can confirm how damaging it is for Mary Ann to live with parents who are opposing her in court, and that the best way to preserve your family is to place her with a guardian until this case is over.”
Margaret Tierney withdrew her hand, eyes wide in disbelief. Sarah sat back, looking from wife to husband. “Don’t you see what’s already happening to us all?
“All sorts of people have told me how hard this case will be for me—that I’ll be humiliated; that I’ll make enemies; that you two will bring charges against me; that I might even lose my job. But you may be losing your daughter.”
For the first time, Sarah’s voice rose in anger and frustration. “I didn’t recruit her. I didn’t ask her to come tonight. I don’t want to be accused of undue influence. I don’t want those fanatics from the Christian Commitment picketing my building. I don’t want to be her parent, her sister, or her role model. But I do care what happens to her.
“This unbelievably stupid, cynical law is tearing your family apart. And that’s true whether you fight her in court or succeed in breaking her down at home.” Sarah paused, drawing a breath before she turned to Martin Tierney. “Bringing in the Commitment is a huge mistake. You may know them on a philosophical and legal basis—that they have the best lawyers, the best data, the best experts. But I’ve seen them close-up—they don’t care how they win, what they do to raise money, or who they damage in the bargain. All I’m asking is that you consider letting her stay with a friend, or relatives who can see their way clear to leave Mary Ann in peace.”
“That’s very considerate of you.” Tierney’s voice, though even, carried its first hint of anger. “Everything that’s happened is because you explained her ‘rights’ to Mary Ann, instead of respecting ours.”
“I made a moral choice,” Sarah answered. “Like you. Now I can’t turn my back on Mary Ann unless she asks me to. And I can’t do that in good conscience if I feel she’s been coerced.”
A silence fell on the room. Sarah could feel how the absence of their daughter must pain the Tierneys, and how invasive her presence must feel. “So you’d drag her to court this time,” Tierney said at length, “to say she didn’t want to be with us.”
“I wouldn’t want to. But the judge might need to see her.”
Tears filmed Margaret Tierney’s eyes. Glancing at her, Martin Tierney said, “We couldn’t put her through that.” Nor, Sarah suspected, did he care to do this to his wife.
With emotions this raw, it would not do to push them. Sarah spoke to Margaret Tierney, “I know this is difficult for you to accept, but I’m trying to do what’s best for Mary Ann. I’d far prefer not to be here, or to cause you any pain.”
Margaret Tierney’s eyes softened fractionally. “You’ve never been a mother,” she answered. “I can remember feeling Mary Ann move inside me. You can’t feel what I do. What’s more hurtful is to think that she doesn’t feel what I do. But if she aborts this child, she will.”
Perhaps it was true, Sarah thought. Mary Ann was struggling to detach herself from the fetus, and to focus on her own protection. Sarah could accept that this was necessary to her emotional health; to Margaret Tierney, the response was alien.
“Your child was healthy,” Sarah answered. “This fetus has more chance of harming her than it does of living.”
Margaret fidgeted with the hem of her dress. Sarah found herself wondering if, without the resolve of Martin Tierney, Mary Ann’s mother might relent—and at what cost to the marriage. “I don’t want her living with a stranger,” Margaret said, “some counselor from an abortion clinic. I want to see her every day.”
“Aren’t there friends?” Sarah asked. “Or relatives?”
Margaret shook her head. “We have no relatives here. And we don’t want to take this outside our family.”
Sarah found this less sympathetic—the reflex of a family to hide its secrets, common in cases of alcoholism and family violence, seldom served its members. But it might help preserve what chance there was that Mary Ann’s identity stay private.
“Right now,” she said to Margaret, “Mary Ann’s in my guest bedroom, crying and afraid. Do you have any suggestions that don’t involve police or the courts?”
Margaret did not answer. At her side, Martin looked from his wife to Sarah.
“That for the next few days we can see her,” he said at length. “Just as Margaret says. If that goes well, she can come home for good.”
“And where will she stay the rest of the time?”
“If Margaret agrees, with you.”
As Margaret turned to him, Sarah felt dismay at her own entrapment. “I’m not set up for a roommate, Professor Tierney, and I’m absolutely not prepared to defend charges of undue influence. Which is exactly where this leads.”
“We can prepare a written agreement,” Tierney answered in a weary tone. “Better the devil we know than the one we don’t know at all. At least we’ve got a common interest in her privacy.
“You say you care about her, Ms. Dash. The impact of taking a fifteen-year-old to court transcends the courtroom, and makes you more than just a lawyer. Just as you contend that it makes us less than parents.”
Once more, Sarah feared entanglement with the Tierneys— the bitterness that clashing in court would bring, the hydra-headed price of her commitment, both in private and in public. She had deluded herself when she thought she had reckoned the cost, and measured the risk. Yet the alternative was to leave Mary Ann with her parents, or t
ake them to court tomorrow.
“Let me think about it,” she answered. “And talk to my client, of course.”
As she left, Sarah was exhausted. Her elation over Caroline was forgotten. The trial would start in ten days.
PART III
THE TRIAL
ONE
RESOLUTE YET anxious, Sarah arrived at the federal building with Mary Ann Tierney.
For the last ten days Mary Ann refused to sleep at home. “They wear me out,” Mary Ann told Sarah, “even when they don’t mean to. I can’t stand the way they look at me.” Yet the night before, Mary Ann had insisted on coming to court.
“This is about me,” Mary Ann argued. “My parents will be in court, talking about what’s best for me, while I’m hiding from my own case. That would be like saying this law is right.”
This observation, Sarah realized, was surprisingly acute. For Mary Ann to be in court was a powerful statement that she knew her own mind; her absence would reinforce the Tierneys’ authority to speak for her best interests. And Mary Ann could help Sarah refute the arguments Martin Tierney offered in his daughter’s name.
But there were risks. Though a Democrat, Judge Leary was Catholic, and seemed more sympathetic to the Tierneys than to their daughter: the sight of Mary Ann’s swollen belly could remind Leary more acutely of the progress of her pregnancy and the nature of the procedure she requested. The trial— which Sarah expected to be angry and emotional—could traumatize her further, or seal her estrangement from her parents. Or she might back down entirely, and change her mind.
Sarah explained this. “If I back down,” Mary Ann answered, “then I shouldn’t have the operation, should I?”
And so, together, Sarah Dash and Mary Ann Tierney climbed the steps of the federal building. They made an odd pair, Sarah thought—a pregnant waif of a teenage girl, a solid dark-haired woman with Eurasian eyes and the controlled demeanor of a lawyer. What felt so familiar about this escaped her until, at the top of the steps, she saw the cluster of pickets.
It was like the day at the clinic when she had rescued Mary Ann. But now the members of the Christian Commitment, enlisted by Martin Tierney as co-counsel, had come to shame his daughter. Their picket signs were brutally precise: DON’T MURDER YOUR SON one read; another, showing a remarkable photograph from Life magazine of a fetus in the womb, was captioned, THIS IS YOUR CHILD AT TWENTY-FOUR WEEKS. What made this even crueler was that the fetus in the photograph was normal.
Flinching, Mary Ann turned away. “It’ll be all right,” Sarah told her, although, sleep-deprived and on edge, she was far from feeling this. The girl slipped her hand in Sarah’s.
In front of the glass door was the man from the clinic.
He stood slightly apart from the others, and held no sign. Seeing him, Mary Ann froze.
“Keep moving,” Sarah murmured, and steered Mary Ann around him. For once his tone was conversational, that of a man imparting an interesting piece of knowledge. “They won’t just kill him, you know. They’ll crush his skull, then tear his arms off like the wings of a chicken. He’ll come out of you in pieces.”
Jaw clenched, Sarah pushed open the door. As they entered the elevator, Mary Ann was weeping; inside she leaned against Sarah’s shoulder. “You don’t have to be here,” Sarah said.
“No,” the girl answered. “I do.”
On the nineteenth floor, the elevator opened. As they approached the swinging doors of Patrick Leary’s courtroom, the clicking sound of Sarah’s heels echoed off the tile floor.
Inside, the benches were jammed with reporters. Three television cameras were trained on the well of the courtroom. Mary Ann stopped; she had never been inside a courtroom, Sarah knew, and the glass eyes of the cameras seemed to signify the ordeal she must now endure in public. Sarah mentally cursed Patrick Leary for his vanity.
“Well,” Sarah said in a low voice, “here we go.”
The atmosphere had a muted electricity, the sense of things about to happen, of a courtroom awaiting a judge. The defendants’ table was manned by Thomas Fleming, a flinty, gray-haired veteran of the Justice Department, and Barry Saunders, a florid Texan who was General Counsel to the Christian Commitment. Standing apart, a somber Martin Tierney whispered to his wife.
As Sarah and Mary Ann walked between the rows of reporters, Tierney saw them.
A range of emotions crossed his face—surprise, anger, grief, love for Mary Ann. Gently, he touched Margaret Tierney’s shoulder; as she turned, facing their daughter, her lips parted in mute protest. No words were needed to tell Sarah that the fragile peace they had achieved was shattered.
“Sit down at the table,” Sarah instructed Mary Ann. “I’ve got to talk with your father and mother.”
Crossing the courtroom, Sarah saw them as a frieze— stricken mother, a father paralyzed by love and outrage. Under his breath, Tierney told Sarah, “I knew you were young, and self-certain. But I never grasped how cruel you are.” His voice rose in anger. “How dare you bring her here. How dare you do this to her—to us.”
The cutting words shook Sarah badly. “You can’t be that surprised,” she answered. “Your friends from the Christian Commitment surely weren’t. Or did you somehow miss the little show they put on for Mary Ann’s benefit.”
For an instant, Tierney looked off balance. Glancing at his wife, he answered, “We arranged to park underground, and take the judge’s elevator. To protect our privacy as we thought you’d protect our daughter’s.”
“Well no such luck,” Sarah retorted. “Besides the usual harassment, there was a sign identifying the baby’s sex, and another showing a perfect twenty-four-week fetus, instead of one with a head the size of a bowling ball …”
“Stop,” Margaret Tierney cried out. Beside them, Sarah saw Fleming and Saunders, the Tierneys’ allies, look up from the counsel table.
“You stop,” Sarah snapped. “You invited these people from the Commitment. You’re so blinded by your own sanctity that you can’t see who they are.
“They don’t give a damn about you or her. Some of them don’t like Catholics either. They’re here to make a propaganda point, and keep their dollars flowing. Lord help them if they ever win—they won’t have anything left to do, like tormenting your daughter. Who you love almost, but not quite, as much as your unique relationship with God and his other representatives on earth.”
Tierney flushed; the venom in her words startled even Sarah. “Mary Ann’s here,” she said more evenly, “because she wants to take responsibility for her own actions. Now it’s your turn. You’ve got the power to call off the dogs—you’re their lawyer’s ticket to this morality play. If these pickets are still out there tomorrow, then I won’t owe you an apology.”
Tierney’s effort at self-control was painful to watch; the stained cheeks and fixed stare showed the cost of his forbearance. “Which I wouldn’t accept,” he answered. “But you can tell me how it affected her.”
“She was in tears, of course. But if she has to, she’ll go through it again tomorrow.”
Margaret Tierney touched his hand. In a low voice, Martin said, “I’ll talk to their General Counsel.”
Turning, Sarah walked to her table. As she sat beside Mary Ann, her mouth felt parched.
Anxious, Mary Ann asked, “What did they say?”
Sarah took a swallow of water. “That they love you, and that they’re sorry you’re here.”
Mary Ann focused on the table while Sarah watched the harbingers of Judge Leary’s arrival—a court reporter settling behind her machine, the lanky courtroom deputy with the John Wayne manner emerging from chambers. Across from them, Martin Tierney murmured to his wife; he took a seat at the conference table, while Margaret, hands tightly folded, sat in the first row. Two of the judge’s law clerks drifted into the jury box.
“All rise,” the deputy called out. “The United States District Court for the Northern District of California is now in session, the Honorable Judge Patrick J. Leary presiding. God
save the United States, and this honorable court.”
This somewhat baroque salutation, Sarah thought to herself, had fallen into disuse. But Leary insisted on it, and it had its effect—an awed silence marked his first appearance.
In black robes, Leary walked briskly to the bench and sat, looking from one party to another for a long silent moment, followed, Sarah thought, by a briefer glance at the cameras.
“Good morning,” he said. “Before we commence, I’ll reemphasize the rules for any media which wish to attend this trial.
“There will be no mention in the media of the minor’s name, or that of her family.
“There will be no one in this courtroom without press credentials except for counsel, the minor, and her family.”
Pausing, Leary spoke directly to the camera, as though admonishing CNN. “The live television broadcast will beep out the minor’s name, and obliterate her face. The same rules apply for her family. I will—I repeat will—balance the public’s interest in a landmark case against the minor’s interest in privacy.”
Bullshit, thought Sarah in disgust—the broadcast of the trial would inflame the issue in untold, uncontrollable ways, magnifying exponentially the chances that Mary Ann’s identity would be leaked, or betrayed by some biographical fact. Leary had rejected all her arguments; what he had omitted from his recitation then, as now, were the dictates of his own ego. But no doubt his sternness played well on television.
“Except for the minor and her family,” he continued, “all witnesses will be sequestered in the jury room until they’re called to testify.
“All witnesses, counsel, and the parties will refrain from making public statements until further notice.
“All transcripts of proceedings will use the plaintiff’s pseudonym, and any pages revealing her name and identity, or that of her family, will be sealed.
“Any member of the media who violates any of these rules will be barred from the courtroom.
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