Solomon's Knife

by Victor Koman

  Czernek pointed to Karen. "The evidence will show that this woman-Karen Chandler-paid a surgeon several thousand dollars to `get pregnant.'" Ron made little quote marks with his fingers as he turned back to face the jury. "She got preg-nant, all right. With a fetus ripped out of Valerie Dalton's womb and stitched into Karen Chandler's in a clandestine medical experiment carried out in the dead of night last March."

  Valerie lowered her head, a vortex of conflicting emotions seeking to pull her down into despair. She looked to her side to see that everyone-everyone-was staring at her, including the unwavering glass eyes of video cameras. She thought her heart would seize up and never start again. And Ron, the only one there who could sit beside her to put an arm around her, paced around telling his tale, unable to comfort her. Watched by all, she had never felt more alone.

  "A medical experiment," Czernek continued, "that the facts will reveal had been performed on human beings without the approval of the hospital in which it took place. Without any basis in animal research or medical theory. In short"-he leaned over Dr. Fletcher-"an experiment that used Valerie Dalton as an unknowing guinea pig in a conspiracy to sell her stolen embryo to a woman willing and able to buy it!" Johnson sat quietly, gazing at his opponent with an unread-able expression. Inwardly, he burned with the desire to inter-ject his own statements. Just keep talking, he thought as he took notes without even glancing down at the paper. I'll tear you apart in my opener.

  Ron took a deep, emotional breath and let out a sigh. The courtroom smelled of air-conditioned humanity and stale au-tumn air. His face became a mask of hurt. "I can't pretend to maintain objectivity in this case. As Valerie Dalton's fiance and the father of her child, I am as much an injured party as she." He leaned on the jury box rail to gaze at each person there as he spoke. "Did Karen and David Chandler want a child to raise and love as their own? Then why didn't they adopt one? We shall show that this baby is as far removed from them geneti-cally as an adopted child. And Lord knows there are plenty of children rotting in orphanages who could use a little love and tenderness. No, their interests were not with the child itself." He stared coldly over at the Chandlers. Karen buried her face into David's chest. He comforted her and stared back at Czernek, wishing looks could not only kill but maim as well.

  "No," Ron said. "To them, the fetus they bought was simply an amusement. A way to play at being pregnant, at giving birth to a child. No matter to them that a woman had been invaded-raped, more accurately-to tear the living child from within. No matter that the true father and mother would never know their daughter, never even know that they had a daughter. No matter that the child could have died at any point in this out-rageous procedure. No, pregnancy at any price was the Chandler's goal, and they got it."

  He took a moment to calm his anger, flamed by his own well-rehearsed words. He faced the couple.

  "But what hap-pens when the novelty fades? They've had the fun part. The baby showers, the expectation, the approval of relatives, and the excitement of anticipation. They've shared the ecstatic joy of seeing a life come into this world-a joy denied to the true father and mother-and now what? Now begins the drudgery of child rearing. Will they maintain an interest in the little gad-get they'd bought? Or will they lose interest, shunt Renata off somewhere while they pursue other amusements? Will they regret their purchase?"

  David tried to suppress his anger, gazing up at Czernek. His head, held stiffly by his rage-clenched neck, began to tremble in an effort to remain still. Karen lowered her gaze to hide from the lawyer's eyes, convinced she had entered hell.

  Ron turned back toward the jury. "The evidence will show that-as we speak-the baby they call Renata lies in the infant intensive care unit of Bayside University Medical Center. She is deathly ill. Can Karen and David Chandler do anything to save her? No. She needed bone marrow from her nearest rela-tive. Is her nearest relative the woman who gave birth to her?" He pointed at Karen. "It is not. Her bone marrow would at best do nothing to save the baby's life. At worst it could kill her." Turning to Valerie, he said, "The only person in the entire world who can save that little baby is right here in this room. Valerie Dalton, the real mother of Renata Chandler."

  Dead silence in the courtroom, the absence of any mutter-ing, let Czernek know that he had everyone caught up in the web he spun.

  "You are here," he said to the jurors, "to make a simple choice. You are here to declare that a baby should not be cut away from its mother without her knowledge or consent. That brutal, unauthorized medical experiments have no place in civilized society." He stared at Fletcher. "And that Dr. Evelyn Fletcher should pay for the misdeeds she performed in full knowledge of their danger and impropriety." He gazed at each member of the jury, silent for a long mo-ment. Every one of them, he was certain, had listened to and appreciated his statement. No sleepers or blockheads on this jury.

  "Thank you." He walked sedately to his table to sit beside Valerie, who-having waited for him alone in the crowded courtroom-clasped his shoulders and placed her head against him. The cameras zoomed in.

  Judge Lyang avoided any show of emotion, though Czernek's arguments made sense to her. She wondered if Johnson had anything that might sound equally as compelling. It was not often that a judge usually stuck with family law cases had an opportunity to preside over a landmark suit. Yet this, she realized with a warm glow of satisfaction, is what she had entered the judiciary for.

  "Thank you, counselor," she said. "Counsel for the defense may make his opening statement." Johnson stepped in front of his table. "Thank you, Your Honor." He paused for a moment, seeming to gather his thoughts.

  God, that was good, he marveled in panic. How can I top that? He turned to face the jury and looked up at their inquisi-tive faces. He had watched their reactions at listening to Czernek. Hit them on the same points, I guess.

  "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," he said. "This is not a custody battle. This lawsuit is not the result of righteous in-dignation at discovery of some sort of evil crime. We are all here because of a nuisance suit brought by a money-hungry couple who are more interested in the thirty-million-dollar so-called

  `damages' than they are in the welfare of Renata Chandler."

  He looked down at the plaintiff. Czernek took notes, while Valerie stared at Terry in disbelief. He turned back to the jury box. "Mr. Czernek may indeed view himself and his live-in lover as the injured parties, but the tale he spins is one of purest fantasy. What he skillfully neglects to mention-and what the evidence will show-is that we are here today because Renata Chandler was rescued from death nearly eight months ago."

  Johnson's hands began to move as he spoke, weaving their spell. "Think back to a day in early March when Valerie Dalton discovers that she is pregnant. It's unplanned, a surprise. Well, Valerie's a modern woman. She has a job of her own, and she's just gotten a promotion. She's living pretty well in a Palos Verdes home overlooking the ocean. She has no need for the commitment of marriage to enjoy life with the moderately successful lawyer Ron Czernek, her lover of several years." Valerie, despite her best efforts, turned red with anger and embarrassment. She knew she had no reason to react to what everyone who mattered already knew. But strangers were hear-ing about it, here and on TV all around the country. People who had no way to judge her life except for the selective words uttered by a hostile attorney.

  "What's a modern woman to do?" Terry paced slowly about, looking as if he were thinking on his feet. "Giving birth to a baby would just be an intrusion on her life. How could she work effectively at her job? How could she take pleasant vaca-tions in Hawaii and Europe?"

  That bastard, Czernek thought, has done his homework.

  "How indeed?" Johnson gazed from juror to juror. "Some of you have children. You know what they can do to your lives. A baby changes you forever. Some of you are unmarried. I know a couple of you are career women. You know what I mean. You know what Valerie feared. Being tied down. Having to care for a defenseless, demanding infant. She wasn't ready for
it. Wasn't ready to commit the rest of her life to supporting and nurturing the child she and Ron Czernek had begotten." He smiled at the word, paused to scratch at his chin.

  "What's a modern woman to do? Well, she sought the vener-able solution of abortion, a convenience women have turned to for thousands of years." He paused to let them mull that over.

  "What is abortion? The word comes from Latin. Oriri means to rise, appear, be born. Ab, meaning off or away; it's a prefix that means `badly,' as in abnormal or abuse. So an abortion is a bad birth. The dictionary describes abortion as `the fatally premature expulsion of a fetus, whether natural or induced.'" He stopped in front of the plaintiff's table. "We're here today because Valerie Dalton and Ron Czernek sought to abort their child. Attempted to kill it. And it survived."

  This time, he managed to coax a murmur out of the specta-tors.

  Valerie tried to look straight ahead without emotion, but tears leaked from her eyes. As she dabbed at them with a tissue, Ron stopped taking notes to put his arm around her.

  Terry wandered over to the jury box. "You'll probably hear a lot of talk during this trial about a wicked medical experiment conducted in secrecy by a mad doctor." He waved a hand in Fletcher's general direction; she smiled imperceptibly at the description. "You'll hear a lot about a woman so desperate for a child that she paid for her pregnancy. I intend to demon-strate, however, that this was a far nobler act than that of the plaintiff, who paid to have a living being torn from the womb of its mother and disposed of like so much garbage. A living being actually rescued by Dr. Fletcher and Karen Chandler. If they had not done what they did, Renata Chandler would not be alive today to be reclaimed by the very people who eight months ago paid for her death." He looked at each member of the jury. "A killing that, I assure you, Dr. Evelyn Fletcher was fully certified to perform by the laws of the United States and the codes of the American Medical Association."

  He walked back to his table. "Had Dr. Fletcher not had a rare and amazing conscience coupled with an astounding medical insight, Renata Chandler would have been just one of millions of aborted fetuses tossed away every year. Instead, she is a beautiful, living baby girl who is the center of a con-troversy that is shocking to behold: her attempted killers de-manding custody on the specious argument that they would be better parents!"

  Terry Johnson shook his head and stepped to his seat be-tween Evelyn and Karen. "That's all I've got to say for now. Let's see what happens." With that, he sat down.

  The murmuring behind the bar grew louder. The judge rapped gently a couple of times to bring silence. "Mr. Czernek, you may call your first witness."

  Valerie looked at Ron with apprehension. He clasped her shoulders, looked her in the eyes, and whispered, "Just be brave and tell it the way it happened. Make eye contact with the jurors. Answer my questions and nothing more." He stood.

  "Your Honor, I'd like to call the plaintiff, Valerie Dalton, to the stand." Valerie approached the stand and was sworn in by a tall, aging Latino court clerk who spoke with a deep, solemn voice. She sat in the wooden chair, adjusted the drape of her dress, and tried to be calm. Czernek's first few questions were standard. She stated her name, her address, her age, her educational and business back-ground. The recitation of such simple facts soothed her. The sense of panic subsided.

  "Now tell us what happened on March third of this year."

  "Well, I had discovered that I was pregnant, so I made an appointment with Dr. Fletcher for an... an abortion."

  "Something," Czernek said, "that millions of Americans do every year with no complications." Valerie nodded. "You drove me out there and helped me fill out what I thought was an ordinary consent form for the op-eration."

  "What time was this?" he asked.

  "About seven in the evening."

  "Basically," he said, "after hours."

  "Yes."

  "Did the hospital appear fully staffed at that hour?"

  "I don't know. It seemed pretty empty there."

  "Go on."

  Valerie looked at the jurors. They appeared to be listening with interest and without prejudice. "I was led into an operat-ing room and got undressed."

  "Was this a big operating room?" Ron asked. "With several surgeons and lots of equipment and lights?"

  "No," she replied, events of the evening unfolding in her memory. "It was small, more like an examination room. Just the table and stirrups and some cabinets and a sink. The only equipment was the thing the nurse wheeled in." At Czernek's request, she described as much as she remembered of its white exterior, the video monitor and switches.

  "Did you know what this device was for?"

  Valerie looked at Evelyn. "Dr. Fletcher told me that it was for a suction abortion."

  "Objection!" Johnson stood forcefully and walked to the bench. "Your Honor," he whispered, "use of the word abortion to refer to transoption will be prejudicial to my clients' case." Judge Lyang looked down at the man. "Does this really have any bearing?"

  "Immense bearing, Your Honor."

  She shrugged. "Sustained."

  Czernek asked his question again. Valerie answered uneas-ily. "She told me that it was a suction device. I was given a local anesthetic, which didn't do much good. Then she turned the machine on, and it started to make these hissing and suck-ing sounds."

  Ron turned around as if in thought. "At any time," he asked, "were you aware that anything was out of the ordinary?"

  "Well..." She frowned. "I had never seen an abortion before, so I had nothing to compare it to. High school sex education classes and college women's studies both seemed to ignore the actual medical procedure-"

  "Please, just answer my question."

  She frowned again, this time at Ron. "I'd never seen an abor-tion, so, no, I didn't think anything was wrong. I figured I knew it might hurt, so when she inserted the tube, the pain was no real surprise, I guess."

  "Was there any talk between Dr. Fletcher and her nurse that might have aroused your suspicions?"

  "I can't remember any."

  "So as far as you were concerned," he said, facing the jury, "Dr. Fletcher had performed an abortion by medically approved means."

  "Yes."

  "Did you later find out that this was not the case?"

  "Yes," she said, rage at the memory of the day growing in her.

  "When?"

  "Twelve days ago when Dr. Fletcher called me to ask for a blood test. She said a sick baby needed a transfusion."

  Czernek nodded and stroked at his beard. "Did she tell you at this time that the baby was yours?"

  "No."

  Dr. Fletcher gazed steadily at Valerie, though she noted through peripheral vision that the jurors stared at her now, not the witness. She labored to avoid looking guilty at hearing her deception revealed.

  "Did you later discover this fact?"

  "Yes."

  He asked her when she found out.

  She replied with obvious bitterness. "The next day in the hospital. A lab technologist was interested in why my blood would be more useful to a baby than the blood of its own sup-posed mother. He left the room while I was donating the pint, and when he came back, he started asking me what I thought were crazy questions about whether I'd regretted having my abortion and what if my baby had lived."

  "What did you say?"

  "Nothing. Before he could finish, Dr. Fletcher walked in, and he stopped talking."

  "Did Dr. Fletcher tell you then that Renata was your child?"

  "No. First she asked if I would agree to a bone-marrow trans-plant. I said I wanted to see the baby. When I did, I had the feeling that she was mine. Then the technologist-"

  "Do you remember his name?" Ron asked.

  "Yes. Mark Landry. He told me his theory that Dr. Fletcher had invented some way to implant aborted fetuses into other women and that the child born to Karen and David Chandler was actually mine."

  "What happened then?"

  "I fainted. Mr. Landry brought me about with smelling s
alts. Then Dr. Fletcher walked in."

  "Did she tell you then?"

  "No. Only when I confronted her did she bother to tell me that my child had been given to someone else."

  Throughout the morning, Czernek questioned her on every minute detail with repetitive precision and through her an-swers painted a portrait of irresponsible medical experiments performed on an unsuspecting woman without benefit of in-formed consent. All the while, Dr. Fletcher watched with intense concentration.

  "Valerie," Czernek finally asked softly, "would you be a good mother for Renata?"

  "Yes," she said, barely audible.

  "Could you tell the court why?"

  Valerie thought about the question for a moment, though the time was mostly spent remembering what she and Ron had decided the night before. She turned to the jury. "My baby was born to another woman, who claims that makes her the child's mother. Yet when the baby fell ill, I was the only one who could save her. Dr. Fletcher would not have been forced to bring everything out in the open if there were anyone else who could help. That baby needs me. She needs her real mother in order to survive." Her voice was level, unemotional. "She needs her true parents to love her, not two strangers. Strangers who considered her a commodity to be purchased. And I hope that, along with returning my little girl to me, this court decides that no one else should ever have to suffer this deception again." Ron waited for her words to sink in, then asked, "Did you bring this lawsuit just to get money?"

  "No! What Dr. Fletcher did to me was wrong. She should be stopped. That's why I brought this lawsuit. To get my baby back and to prevent future abuses."

  He paused again. "Thank you, Ms. Dalton. No further ques-tions." Judge Lyang looked over to Johnson. "Would the defense care to cross-examine?" Terry rose. "Yes, Your Honor." He sidled out from behind the table to approach the witness stand. He put his hands in his pockets as if in deep thought. He looked up at the ceiling. "Ms. Dalton, when you discovered you were pregnant, what did you see as your options?"