Protect and Defend (24 page)

“Your Honor
,” Saunders’s voice rose in protest. “I object to this calumny in our motives …”

“You were quick enough to denigrate Mrs. Ryan’s motives,” the judge retorted. “Sit down, and take whatever’s coming.”

To Sarah, Leary’s lightning changes of mood were impossible to predict. Swiftly, she moved to exploit this one. “
Were
there consequences to your family?”

“Several,” Ryan answered with quiet composure. “The Christian Commitment picketed my daughter’s first Communion. Then they published a photograph of our son’s grave site on their Web page, with an attack on my truthfulness before the Senate …”

“What did they say?”

“That I’d exaggerated our son’s medical problems, and my own, to promote abortion rights. And that my son’s murder represented the reason they needed more donations to protect the lives of other children.” Ryan’s tone was cold, and she looked directly at Saunders. “I don’t know how much money they raised by exploiting our son. What I do know is that Mike and I received hate mail, and threatening phone calls, and that a couple of my daughter’s second-grade classmates told her we were murderers …”

“Your Honor …”

Facing Tierney, the witness ignored Saunders. “I share almost all of your convictions, Mr. Tierney, and I don’t doubt your sincerity. But these people don’t care about your family, or mine. We’re just another opportunity for propaganda, and to raise money—”

Leary’s gavel cracked abruptly. Facing Sarah, his air of sternness was leavened by a hint of humor around the eyes, suggesting an Irishman’s amusement at a mordant joke. “I
think you’ve made your point, Ms. Dash. We’ll take a fifteen-minute break, and then the defense can have their turn.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

As Leary left the bench, Mary Ann Tierney gazed at her mother, and then Martin Tierney took Saunders aside. He spoke in a low voice, his eyes cold; Saunders listened.

A few minutes later, when Sarah stepped outside for fresh air, the pickets were gone.

W
HEN
M
ARTIN
T
IERNEY
, not Barry Saunders, cross-examined on behalf of the fetus, Sarah was not surprised: one of the emerging, critical aspects of the trial was who would speak for the pro-life cause. Martin Tierney, Sarah had concluded, was the more principled of the two, and also the more subtle and dangerous. Beside her, Mary Ann watched her father with mixed love and resentment, while Siobhan Ryan gazed at him from the witness stand with a sympathy she did not feel for Saunders. Tierney kept a distance from the witness; combined with his mildness of voice and manner, he conveyed that this circumstance was painful for them both.

“From the moment of conception,” he began, “you believe that a fetus is a life.”

Ryan nodded. “Yes. I do.”

“And so, whatever her justification, my daughter proposes to take the life of her son.”

Ryan looked down for an instant, then met Tierney’s eyes again. “Yes.”

“Do you believe that your situation was the same as Mary Ann’s?”

Ryan looked at him with caution. “In its details, or in general? We both faced a classical C-section.”

Tierney moved closer. “But you also had excessive amniotic fluid. Didn’t that endanger your health still further?”

Ryan nodded. “At the end. I couldn’t move or walk, and the fluid compressed my lungs. Because it was hard to breathe, I was afraid to sleep.”

“In other words, your condition was potentially life threatening?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not suggesting, are you, that—had you been a minor—the Protection of Life Act would have made
your
choice illegal.”

It was a delicate point. “I have no idea,” Ryan answered. “All I know is that my parents would have forced me to find out.”

Folding his arms, Tierney paused, gazing at the floor. It was a small, human moment; rather than a relentless cross-examiner, Tierney appeared to be a deeply concerned father, trying to resolve a difference with a woman of goodwill. “Let me ask you to imagine,” he continued, “that
your
oldest daughter is now fifteen, and pregnant. You would want to know, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. To help Theresa through it.”

A small change of demeanor, the use of her daughter’s name, hinted at a parental empathy between Ryan and Tierney to which Sarah felt an outsider. “Suppose Theresa wanted to abort her child,” Tierney asked. “Were it in your power, would you stop her?”

“I would try to.”

“For what reason?”

“Because I believe abortion on demand to be a sin. I also believe that a sin wounds any person who commits it.”

“And were
we
, as parents, to act under
those
circumstances, you’d believe that we were right to do so?”

“Believing as you do,” Ryan said carefully, “and knowing your own daughter—yes.”

“And so your testimony in Mary Ann’s favor is based solely on your perception that her pregnancy poses medical risks?”

“Yes.”

“What about the moral and emotional risks? Are
they
different for your daughter than for mine?”

Looking down, Ryan twisted her wedding ring. “Every child is different,” she said at length. “But, no, I believe the principles are the same. As well as the potential for psychological damage.”

The witness and Tierney had fallen into a rhythm. Grimly, Sarah imagined the impact of this on the millions watching and, more crucial, on Leary. The judge was silent, watching the exchange between his fellow Catholics with respectful interest.

“You’ve mentioned meeting a number of women,” Tierney noted, “who faced late-term abortions. Were there any with whose decisions you disagreed?”

Ryan folded her arms. “One,” she finally answered. “Although I like her very much. Her fetus had serious heart problems which made him unlikely to live. She decided that she couldn’t bear to watch her newborn baby die.”

For Sarah, it was the worst possible answer; she could see too clearly where it led. “And so she took his life in the womb,” Tierney said, “to spare herself emotional hardship.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t think that’s justified.”

“Not according to my moral beliefs. I think that to pursue perfection, and eliminate the challenges God gives us, is never more wrong than when applied to unborn children. Nor, to me, is the pain easier to bear—quite the contrary. One is God’s doing; the other, your own.”

“And you would want to spare your daughter, a minor, that same pain.”

“If possible. Yes.”

Tierney paused. “Suppose, then, that she faced a cesarean section that one doctor, a pro-abortionist, estimated could create a five percent risk of infertility, but conceded might be less. Knowing the trauma of abortion, and believing it the taking of a life, would your decision as a parent be difficult?”

“Extremely.” Ryan paused, then added quietly, “I sympathize with all of you.”

“Then how can you be certain that, with
our
daughter, you wouldn’t decide as we have?”

Sarah started to object, then realized that it would be fruitless. Arms resting on the bench, Leary looked absorbed, his self-regard forgotten. “I couldn’t,” Ryan said. “But I believe,
where a baby has so little chance and future children may be at risk, that a mother’s wishes are entitled to great weight. And that for you to override them, and face your daughter in court, has risks all its own.”

Ryan paused to fortify herself, then concluded, “I love my mother and father, Professor Tierney, very much. But we fell out in private, and still our relationship has never been the same. I worry much more for yours.”

The sad, measured admonition caught Martin Tierney short, accenting the deep silence in the courtroom. From the defense table, Fleming and Saunders stared at him. Tierney had gone from an anguished father to a lawyer with a classic dilemma—overconfident in his rapport with the witness, he had asked one question too many.

Tierney did what Sarah would have done; he sat down.

Allie Palmer leaned back, resting her head on Chad’s shoulder. But as Sarah Dash’s image crossed their screen, Chad felt in Allie’s stillness the slightest withdrawal from him, though she had not moved at all.

“Why
did
you vote for it?” Allie asked.

The question carried the hint of long-ago discord—no longer confronted, and never quite buried.

“Because I believe abortion’s murder,” he said evenly. “That you and I disagree is the oldest news in our marriage, and the tiredest. I’ve tried to let it go.

“As I’m sure you understand, I feel some sympathy for this girl’s father. I also want to be President, and I’ve already antagonized half my party over campaign finance reform. Even if I agreed with you—which I don’t—voting against this bill would have been as reckless as Mac Gage thinks I am.”

Allie laughed mirthlessly. “Big boys, playing big games. What does a teenage girl matter?”

Gently disengaging, Chad stood and left the room.

S
ARAH SAT
at the desk in her bedroom, reviewing her notes for tomorrow’s first witness, Dr. Jessica Blake.

It was ten at night and beneath the window of her second-floor apartment, the streets, slick with a chill winter rain, were subdued—scattered voices; the sound of tires spattering water; gusts of wind rattling the glass through which, every so often, appeared the mechanical arms of an electric streetcar run by overhead cables. This respite from the hermetic tension of the courtroom was a relief, as was, strangely, the presence of Mary Ann Tierney, reading textbooks in the guest room after a dinner with her parents which she had described as “silent stress.” If she worked hard enough, Sarah told herself, and kept anticipating Tierney and Barry Saunders, her inexperience would not be fatal; so far, her witnesses had been well prepared, and she had made no real mistakes. But fear of tomorrow’s errors would keep her working well past midnight.

From beside the desk came the low drone of her television, a cable news reprise of the trial. On occasion, with fascination and disbelief, Sarah would turn to watch herself or Martin Tierney—his face obscured by a screen of electronic blocks, his name deleted by a low buzz. She hit the remote, banishing her image from the screen: the idea that she was becoming famous, or notorious, was both a distraction and too much to absorb.

The telephone on her desk rang. Hastily, she picked it up.

“Sarah Dash?” a man asked.

Sarah hesitated. “Who is this?”

“Bill Rodriguez, of the
San Francisco Chronicle
.” The voice was quick, edgy. “We’d like your comment on a report
on the
Internet Frontier
identifying the Tierney family by name, and describing their involvement in the pro-life movement.”

Startled, Sarah took a moment to answer. “I don’t have any comment. This is like rape and molestation cases, where your newspaper has been careful to protect minors. Any report on
this
case violates my client’s privacy—”

“That’s already happened,” Rodriguez interrupted, “and the
Frontier
claims that the Tierneys’ identity and background is too important not to print. Millions of people are already watching on television—if we can’t report this, we’re at a disadvantage.”

Surprise yielded to anger; were Mary Ann’s name and face exposed, the burden could be crushing. “So the
Frontier
’
s
your evil twin?” Sarah answered. “If they do the slimy things you’d like to do, you get to do them, too?”

“If your client’s old enough for this abortion,” the reporter said curtly, “isn’t she old enough to speak for herself? Put her on the phone, Ms. Dash. We know she’s there.”

Sarah fought to control her voice. “So you want a comment?”

“It’s a start.”

“All right—go fuck yourself.” Heart racing, Sarah hung up.

Sitting, she tried to compose herself.

She’d lost it—outrage was no excuse for acting unprofessional, and readiness in court no substitute for diplomacy outside it. The strain was worse than she’d admitted to herself; now the only question was whom she owed the first warning— Mary Ann, Martin Tierney, or the chairman of her firm.

After a moment, she picked up the phone again.

Martin Tierney sounded weary. “Professor Tierney,” she said, “this is Sarah Dash. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Wake me?” His laugh was brief and bitter. “After hearing from the
Chronicle?
But you’re very kind to worry.”

So he already knew. “Other than Barry Saunders,” Sarah asked, “who knew that she was here?”

There was silence. “The Commitment’s selling you out,” Sarah told him. “You called off the demonstrators, and it worried them. They want you committed, and as much publicity as they can get. What happens to Mary Ann doesn’t matter—”

“Stop casting blame,” Tierney interrupted wearily, “and
face up to your own responsibilities. Beginning with what we do tomorrow, when Efrem Rabinsky returns to court.”

As Tierney had predicted, the lawyer for Allied Media awaited them, his air of calm self-satisfaction suggesting that he was armored in the people’s right to know. When Leary seated them around his conference table, it was Rabinsky who spoke first.

“We all know the situation,” he began. “The Tierneys’ identity is now widely disseminated on the Internet—regrettable, but a fact. So let me quote the editorial which accompanied
the Internet Frontier’s
story.”

Fishing out his reading glasses, Rabinsky read from a computer printout. “
‘The heart of the controversy,’
” he quoted, “
‘is more than the rights of the unborn, or even who speaks for them. Nor does it lie in case law or expert testimony
.

“
‘The single most compelling question is whether a leading intellectual proponent of the pro-life view, who shares with his wife a long history of principled opposition to everything from the war in Vietnam to the death penalty, is entitled to invoke these principles in the case of his fifteen-year-old daughter. For if these parents are not so entitled, parental consent—so popular with Americans at large—will cease to be an element in how we regulate abortion.’
”