'I mean that just as the abolition of slavery was opposed by slave owners and the rights of women were opposed by men in power, so the rights of unborn children are opposed-even by those who claim to defend them. And their opposition-which seems so logical to them right now-will be viewed by history as the outrageous ravings of vested interests.'
She sat up straighter in the wooden chair, looking from the jurors to Jane Burke, seated in the second row of the spectator area. 'I suggest, for instance, that Jane Burke overcome her hostility toward sex in order to examine history a bit more carefully. Contraception-invented, as she said, by men for their beasts of burden-was used secretly by women in defi-ance of their male oppressors. It was woman's first major vic-tory in reproductive rights.'
Burke shook her head pitifully, smiling the sort of disap-pointed smile that told everyone watching that the poor doc-tor was obviously gravely in error. She looked at her notepad to jot down another idea for an article.
'Adoption,' Fletcher continued, 'also began as a sexist male tool. It allowed a nobleman to acquire a male heir to inherit his land and fortune. It permitted a man to pretend that he had a son when in fact the boy bore no genetic relation to him. Girls weren't adopted. Infanticide was acceptable for elimi-nating them and still is in parts of the world. Yet because of the sexist invention of adoption, a few young boys were spared from early death or lives of poverty. Over the years, the origins of adoption were forgotten by most, until today people adopt children of both sexes and all races for reasons of love, not primogeniture. And because of that, infanticide is now con-sidered a foul crime in societies that revere human life and human rights. The invention of adoption did nothing to erode women's rights; it extended the concept of human rights to children. I am extending it to embryos.' A few seats down from Burke, Avery Decker and James Rosen sat together. Decker watched the feminist out of the corner of his eye, a half-victorious smirk curling at his lips. Rosen, though, focused all his attention on Fletcher. The younger man had never heard such an argument before. He concentrated on her words to the point of waving away a poke in the ribs from Decker.
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.
