Children of Hope

by Michael Fine

  “Royce! Royce! Are you listening to me?”

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Never mind. What are we planning to do about this bitch?”

  “Nothing. And that’s final. You understand me?”

  Kingsley didn’t understand, so he changed the topic. “And what are we planning to do about preventing women from getting abortions?”

  Carrington had been thinking deeply about what to do about the subject since that fateful day nine months earlier. Did Hope Hunter’s stunt with Brooks’ baby lamb change things? No, he decided.

  “Nothing. It’s time to move on to do something on the immigration front. Maybe something to fight against homosexuality, too.”

  Kingsley was angry. “I did what you asked years ago. I got Roe overturned. You wouldn’t believe the hate mail I get because of it. And I would have found a way to uphold the ‘Sanctity of Life’ law too. I don’t know how, but I would have done it. If nothing else, I think I can get a majority to overturn Vuitch, so we can probably throw a monkey in the wrench of most of the state abortion laws.” He was referring to the 1971 case in which Hugo Black wrote a five-four decision that a Washington D.C. statute prohibiting abortion unless necessary for the preservation for the mother’s life or health was unconstitutionally vague.

  “I’m not going to argue with you, Julian. I think you blew it when you resorted to a states’ rights argument to overturn Roe. Maybe you had to, I don’t know. But we’ll never know because the national anti-abortion legislation is dead. It will never be resurrected, at least as long as I’m a Senator.”

  “Is this because of what happened to Reverend Brooks?”

  “No, you idiot. It’s because of what happened to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was, for all intents and purposes, raped.” It was hard for Carrington, a man of power, to admit this. But he wanted Kingsley to understand. “In my case, I wanted to carry the baby to term. I actually believe the things I say and fight for in the Senate.” He wanted to say “unlike Porter” after witnessing the Reverend’s true nature at the hospital earlier in the day, but didn’t. “But I finally see an important point: I might not have wanted to go through with it. Hell, Porter didn’t want to. He never told me so, but I could tell. Let’s just say I’ve walked a mile in high heels and now I have a greater appreciation for a woman’s perspective.”

  Kingley didn’t know what to say. He needed the Senator as an ally in his efforts to punish the women who’d almost ruined his life.

  Carrington read Kingsley’s mind. “Julian, you have serious anger issues. This isn’t about the women that came forth and testified against you. This is about all women. And, maybe, someday soon, about all men too. Think about that.”

  If there ever was a man tortured by conflicting thoughts, it was Julian Kingsley. He was horrified at the thought of having what happened to Carrington and Brooks happen to him. Yet, one doesn’t just magically let go of years of holding a grudge.

  Carrington realized he would never really get Kingsley—or anyone else, in all likelihood—to fully understand what it felt like to be violated like he was. For someone used to a lifetime of power, it had been, until now, inconceivable to him how powerless he’d felt. Kingsley would likely never come to understand. He decided to push the conversation forward.

  “Look, this group exists to push a wide-ranging Christian agenda. We are not focussed on a single issue. Let’s switch gears. I think we need to find a test case somewhere, probably Arizona, under 8 U.S. Code § 1158.”

  “Asylum?” Kingsley asked. “What do you have in mind?” Kingsley was the courtroom equivalent of a “gym rat.” He memorized the U.S. Code for fun.

  “I was re-reading the statute. One of the exceptions under ‘Conditions for Granting Asylum’ is if the Attorney General determines that there are reasonable grounds for regarding the alien as a danger to the security of the United States.”

  “Sure. We’ve used that for years, at least in as many cases as we can.”

  “Right, but I’ve been thinking… What if we widened our definition of what constitutes a danger to the security of the United States?”

  Kingsley hated when Carrington tried to use the Socratic method on him. He’d hated it in law school and wanted no part of it now that he’d risen to a position on the nation’s highest court.

  “Disease. Infection. Pestilence. Contagion,” Kingsley said. He understood where Carrington was headed. It reminded him of stories from Ellis Island in the early 1900s.

  “Exactly. Use the fact that they haven’t been properly vaccinated and hence pose a grave threat to the security of the United States. All we have to do is find one case of bubonic plague or whatever. Or just let people think we have.”

  “I think we can make that work," Kingsley said, excited. “If it gets to us, I’ll be able to construct a strong legal argument supporting a ban based on this idea. Jennings v. Rodriguez from about ten or fifteen years ago comes to mind. I’m reluctant to count votes, especially since I never know what the chief is going to do, but I think we can make it work.”

  The two men ironed out the details. Carrington was good at this; he’d had decades of practice. He had a clear picture of what he wanted to have happen. They would find an unattractive, scary looking, illiterate young man from Mexico or South America and arrange for him to be denied asylum because he lacked the proper vaccinations. Then they would anonymously sponsor his defense by the ACLU or some liberal do-gooders who wouldn’t realize they were being used. When the case got to court, the poor sap would lose his case, but Carrington would achieve his goal. Along the way, they’d find someone in the press to run with a rumor that the man had some horrific disease. Causing a panic wasn’t that bad if it led to the outcome he wanted.

  An hour later, the plan had pretty much come into shape. Kingsley was still sore that he wouldn’t get to uphold the “Sanctity of Life” law, but he went along. The country was overrun by these disease-infested aliens, and he needed to help put a stop to it.

  “Let’s see what’s going on in the news,” Carrington said when they concluded their conversation. He clicked on the television which was already tuned to Fox News.

  Much to their displeasure, the lead story was that at least ten states were working on legislation to remove restrictions on abortion. The Senators and Congressmen interviewed, all of whom were men, were clearly spooked. The female reporter who was reporting from the steps of the Ohio state Capitol had a smirk on her face and concluded her remarks by saying, “Perhaps these moves have something to do with the fact that men can now get pregnant. I’m Anna Kissinger from Columbus, Ohio. Back to you Sean.”

  “I told you—” Kinsley started to say.

  “Can it. Hope Hunter won this round. Deal with it. We live to fight another day.” He made another mental note to call Faye Young and ensure she was hiring all the researchers and buying all the equipment she needed.

  Meanwhile…

  A snowy hill

  Somewhere in the United States

  As the sun set over the horizon, the temperature dropped, but the children sledding on the hill were having too much fun to notice.

  A boy wearing a lime green down jacket and a bright orange wool cap took off with a running start and went down on his stomach. He whooped and hollered as he slid down the hill, and almost crashed into a tree at the bottom. Another went down in a disc and flew off of it when he went over the makeshift ramp he’d made about half way down.

  A slight, sinewy girl, just a few months shy of her tenth birthday, climbed the last few feet to the top and carefully lined herself up for her run. From a very young age, she’d been like this, always carefully planning, always needing to control situations as much as possible. After visualizing the path she would take between the other kids climbing up the hill and the various tree branches and other rough patches, she pushed forward with both hands. Down she went.

  At the bottom of the hill, she lost control of he
r sled and crashed into a boy from her class at school. He saw it coming and was able to avoid the worst, but still ended up in a pile on top of her.

  “Whoa! You okay Isabelle?”

  She liked that he was concerned for her, despite the fact that she’d crashed into him.

  She grabbed his mittened hand in hers and said, “Come on! Let’s go down together!” And as she and the boy swung their arms and climbed back up the hill while holding hands, Isabelle’s adoptive parents watched with smiles on their faces.

  Afterword

  Imagine a technology, like the artificial womb described in this book, that is geared toward saving premature infants. Imagine that it is meant not for transplanting the unwanted fetuses into other people’s bodies, but rather into a medically safe environment where they could safely mature until “birth.” Aside from the fact that such technology is beyond our current medical capabilities, would such a device be “a good thing?” Should a woman be able to choose to have her fetus transferred out of her body?

  Would right-to-life activists approve? After all, such a technology could prevent or reduce abortions as, presumably, some number of women and young girls would choose to undergo this procedure instead of an abortion. Despite the rhetoric from the extreme right, nobody is “pro abortion.”

  Would pro-choice activists approve? A procedure like this would allow women to shorten their pregnancies without the need for abortion but might actually make it less likely that states with conservative populations and state governments would carve out abortion exceptions for rape and incest. They could argue that, with such an advancement, the burden to the woman is minimal, perhaps only as little as three months.

  How many women would choose to undergo such a procedure? How many of them would do it for reasons unrelated to concerns about their health or the health of their unborn babies? Would all or most women carry their pregnancies to term except for these concerns? Would it be morally acceptable for a woman to undergo such a procedure even if there were no health concerns?

  For victims of rape or incest, would such a procedure be helpful or hurtful? Most victims likely feel they want the whole experience erased, wiped from their memory, and want it to be as if they were never pregnant in the first place. Would a procedure that might lead to more births of babies conceived by rape or incest be fair to these women? To the babies born?

  The ethical questions here are no less complex than those around abortion.

  Thank You

  Thank you for reading Children of Hope. I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading it. As an independently published author, I rely on you, the reader, to spread the word. If you enjoyed the book, please tell your friends and family. And, if you’re willing, please leave a brief review on Amazon. Thanks in advance.

  I started writing when my first child was born. I wanted to "journal," but that didn’t seem to capture his incredible sense of joy. So instead I started writing short stories that chronicled my children’s lives. They are the light of my life, and being a father is the single best role I hold. This book is dedicated to them, especially my daughter. I hope she never has to live in a world like the one portrayed in my novel.

  —Mike

  Visit me on the web at blackfoxbooks.com or find me on Twitter at @michaelcfine.