reason to risk the health and reproductive potential of two women for the sake of doing something new simply because it is new.' The spectacled man gestured as he spoke to the jury. 'It would be like taking two people with healthy hearts and switching them in transplant operations. Well, you might say, they both got what they wanted-a healthy heart-but the surgical risk is incredible compared to the alternative of just leaving them alone.' He was pleased with the analogy. A few of the jurors smiled, won over by the man's quiet charm. Czernek felt the tide turning in his favor again.
'And what is the ethical status,' he said, 'of novelty opera-tions performed on human subjects?' Brunner spoke with emphatic sincerity. 'Completely im-moral. What Dr. Fletcher did was outrageous. She ignored every procedure designed to safeguard patients and protect the integrity of the hospital-'
'I object!' Johnson shot to his feet, missile-like. 'Dr. Fletcher endlessly requested peer review from a slothful bureaucracy more concerned with avoiding litigation than with saving hu-man li-' A gavel bang silenced him.
'You'll have your chance to grandstand, Mr. Johnson.' Lyang turned to Dr. Brunner. 'Please explain to the jury how she ignored procedures.'
Brunner nodded. 'Certainly. I understand that though she requested an ethics committee to approve the concept of such an operation years before and then again months before, she proceeded before any final decision had been made, thereby effectively evading the extremely important medical process of review and approval.'
Evelyn glared at him from her seat, fuming. She grasped a pencil with both hands, flexing at it. Terry patted her hand gently. 'I'll take care of him on the cross,' he whispered. He looked over his shoulder at the spectators to see Jane Burke and Avery Decker sitting nearly side by side. They both seemed to be having a good time. They should sell popcorn at these things, he thought.
'Dr. Brunner...' Ron looked his quizzical best as he framed his question. 'Does transoption totally solve the problem of abortion, as Dr. Fletcher implies? Is it the moral solution to abortion that the world has been searching for?'
Brunner mulled over the question for a moment. The jurors leaned forward as if to hear the answer a few microseconds sooner.
'In some very few, rare cases, it might be an answer. It is not the answer to infertility, because virtually any problem a woman has in that department can be handled by non-surgi-cal ovum transfer, a highly advanced, medically approved, and ethical treatment. There you have professional ovum donors inseminated by the husband's own sperm. We can take that ovum and determine its sex, examine its chromosomes for genetic flaws, use a library of what we call probes to check it for proclivities toward over two thousand different diseases, and implant it into the recipient mother without any compli-cated, dangerous surgical techniques. It fastens itself to the uterine wall naturally, and grows there naturally. And if the recipient wants a few extra eggs set aside just in case, the fer- tilized ova can be frozen cryogenically and stored. They'll be viable for up to ten thousand years.' Fletcher's fingers snapped the pencil in two. She looked around her as if awakening from a dream.
'With transoption,' Brunner continued, 'a woman whose, shall we say, significant other you know nothing about gives you an embryo she doesn't want. It's too far along in its devel-opment to use a lot of the probes and hence is an unknown quantity. Why use it when women today demand quality pregnancies?' He looked at Fletcher as if he had been delivering a lecture to her. His earnest desire that she understand him showed in the eyes that dwelt behind his glasses.
'And,' Czernek asked quietly, 'would transoption help the woman who seeks to terminate her pregnancy?'
The doctor shifted about in his seat as if wrestling with the question. 'Most women,' he said, 'do not think about the con-sequences of an abortion. Most women who get abortions are young, late teens, early twenties. They want to end their preg-nancies and get on with their lives. Many abortions are the result of a liaison the woman would prefer to expunge com-pletely, right down to the product of that relationship. To insist that such a woman undergo an operation that has just as much-if not more-risk as an abortion does of damaging her reproductive potential, simply to save an eight-week-old em-bryo that lacks a full bundle of human rights, is asking too much of most women and of the medical profession.'
'So,' Czernek said, 'transoption is no real cure for the prob-lem of abortion.'
'No, it is not.'
'Thank you, Dr. Brunner. I believe I have no further ques-tions.' Czernek turned to send a challenging glance at Johnson.
Terry looked down at his notes, thinking. There wasn't much he could nail the doctor on, but he decided to try. 'Defense wishes to cross-examine, Your Honor.'
Judge Lyang made a gesture to proceed.
He approached the witness stand slowly, assembling his thoughts and developing a tactic for handling the doctor. It was obvious that the jury was impressed with the man, so an outright assault would be useless.
'Dr. Brunner, you are a gynecologist and an obstetrician, the same as Dr. Fletcher, correct?'
'Yes.'
'So you see a lot of pregnant women every day. And women who want to be pregnant, and women who don't
