Deadline (40 page)

“Well, you can send me a list, of course, but I have to honestly tell you I’m very busy, and I trust my sources on these centers, even if you don’t.”

“Surely you know Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in this country. They make huge amounts of money from performing abortions. Obviously, they’re not going to be objective about other groups. The Crisis Pregnancy Centers offer counseling, classes, financial support, blankets and cribs, adoption information. The unborn are the poorest, weakest, and most vulnerable people in society. I don’t understand how anyone with a conscience could oppose women being offered the choice of bringing those children into the world.”

“I would remind you, ma’am, that my party has always stood for the rights of the poor and needy, and—”

“And I would remind you, sir, that your party was the party of slavery. It patronized the poor and said the slaves were better off in bondage. And now you make it sound like unborn children are better off dead. You’ve got two million families wanting to adopt, and yet you want children eliminated, and then you turn around and pretend you’re being virtuous and compassionate.”

Whew
! It was vintage Sue.

“Planned Parenthood’s motto is my motto—‘Every child a wanted child.’”

“Oh, I agree. Every child a wanted child. Now how would you finish the sentence?”

“Excuse me?”

“Every child a wanted child…so what?”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Okay, here’s how I finish the sentence. ‘Every child a wanted child, so let’s learn to want children more. And let’s work to promote adoption and cut through the red tape so we can get children into the hands of all the people wanting to adopt, people who very much want these children. Now, how do you finish the sentence?”

“Well, I’m not sure that I…”

“All right, then I’ll finish it for you. ‘Every child a wanted child, so let’s identify those who may not be wanted and kill them before they’re born.’ If you were honest, Senator, your slogan really means, ‘Every unwanted child a dead child.’”

Jake looked at Sue, not sure whether this was audacity or raw courage. She reminded him so much of Finney in his confrontations with Doc.

“I’ve never said any such thing.”

“Of course, you don’t say it. You use nice-sounding words, but it doesn’t change the reality. For instance, I’ve heard you say you want abortion to be rare, that abortion is a heart-wrenching decision. My question is, why? What’s wrong with abortion?”

The senator looked surprised, as though he’d never been asked that question. “Well, it’s…it’s not a pleasant thing, and it’s a difficult decision for a woman to have to make.”

“What’s so unpleasant about it, Senator? If it’s just a blob of tissue, like a cancer or something, a woman should be glad to get rid of it. Why is it such a difficult decision? I mean, if your appendix or a kidney stone or something is making your life miserable, you just have it removed, get rid of it. It’s not a difficult decision at all.”

“Well, it’s not the same thing really.”

“What’s different about it?”

“Well, when it’s your own child…” The moment the senator said it, Jake could tell he wished he hadn’t.

“Exactly, Senator. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? The truth is, what makes abortion so difficult is it takes an innocent human life. The only good reason I can think of for abortion being a heart-wrenching decision, for wanting it to be rare, is exactly the same reason why any one with a conscience should oppose anyone having an abortion—it kills an innocent child.”

“Well, that’s how you see it, but—”

“Senator, think about it. Listen to yourself. You know it’s true. You’re the one who said it’s different, that it’s a woman’s own child.”

“Perhaps I said it wrong.”

“No, you said it right. That’s what I don’t understand. You sit on the senate ethics committee, yet you stand on the wrong side of the greatest ethical issue of our time.”

The senator bristled. “You’re not being rational here. I think it’s clear we’re getting nowhere. I don’t think you’d be so self-righteous and judgmental if you’d been raped or forced to give birth to some deformed child who’d be better off never coming into the world.”

“You mean, like a Down’s Syndrome child?”

“Yes, exactly. It’s easy for people who haven’t been there to impose their value judgments on everyone else.”

Colby, you’re a dead man
, Jake thought, with a certain amount of pleasure.

“I do have a Down’s Syndrome child, Senator. I wish he was here so you could meet him. He and his friends are precious and delighted to be alive. It’s not easy raising a handicapped child. He requires extra attention and effort. When he was born the doctor said, ‘I’m sorry,’ like we hadn’t had a real baby or something. It was hard on us, I don’t deny it, but when they wrapped him in the blanket and handed him to my husband, he looked in our baby’s eyes and smiled ear to ear, and he put him up close to me. And do you know what my husband said to me, Senator? He said, ‘This one will need our love even more than the others.’” Sue choked a little as she said it.

Jake remembered Finn’s birth and how touched he’d been at Finney and Sue’s response to what to him had seemed such a tragedy.

“We believed that not only were we what our son needed, he was just what we needed, and God had a reason for bringing us together. We’ve met many families who’ve drawn together and found joy and strength in having a child with mental and physical handicaps. I’ve checked around, and you might be interested in knowing there’s not a single organization of parents of mentally retarded children that has ever endorsed abortion.”

“Well, that might be, but you still need to understand that—”

“What you need to understand is that a handicapped child is still a child. Look at the telethons, the March of Dimes, the United Way ads. We sponsor the Special Olympics and cheer on the Down’s Syndrome competitors. We talk about the joy and inspiration they bring us. Then what do we do when we hear a woman is carrying one of these very children? We say ‘kill it before it’s born.’ Most people think there’s something wrong with my son. Well, I don’t expect you to understand this, but I can tell you there’s something very right about him. The truth is, something is wrong with us, Senator. Badly wrong.”

“Well, I can see we’re not going to resolve this issue on the plane.” The senator started to turn back around, when his assistant popped her head over the padded headrest.

“Look, the senator is a widely respected women’s rights advocate, and he deserves your thanks, not your accusations.”

“A women’s rights advocate? I’ve noticed how he looks at you, how he leers at the stewardess, how he flirts with women.”

Shut up, Sue.

“I wonder what kind of respect that shows for his wife? You do remember your wife, Senator, the mother of your children? The one you pose with in the campaign pictures?”

The senator turned red, then pale, and suddenly noticed that every person in first class had put down his reading material. Even the flight attendants were watching and listening to every word.

“Let me tell you both something. My husband died six weeks ago. He was one of those prolife men you’d accuse of being anti-women. Well, he treated me and every other woman he knew with dignity and respect. And he gave his time and his money to help them, to give them other choices besides killing their babies. He didn’t flirt with them, sleep around with them, then give them three hundred dollars for an abortion like you probably would, Senator. And you have the audacity to sit there and say he didn’t respect women and you do? Well, you may be fooling yourself and your aid and a lot of the voters and the
Tribune
and everybody else, but you’re not fooling me!”

Sue grabbed the in-flight magazine and glared at it, like Supergirl using her x-ray vision. Hot tears flowed down her cheeks.

All of first class sat stunned and silent.

Almost a minute went by before Jake dared to look over at Sue. A few seconds later he leaned over and whispered gently, “Your magazine’s upside down.”

Sue looked, and sure enough it was. With an embarrassed giggle, she turned it right side up.

“Sorry, Jake. I lost my temper.”

“I noticed.”

“Why are we whispering?”

“Let’s keep whispering, Sue.” Jake was barely audible. “I think it will make a more pleasant trip for everyone.”

“I really am sorry, Jake. Here you get me in first class and I pick a fight with a senator. Please forgive me.”

“Don’t apologize. I don’t ever remember seeing the senator foam at the mouth and wet his pants in the same conversation.” Jake chuckled, and Sue turned various shades of red.

The flight attendant, the one the senator had made the suggestive comment to, came over to Sue.

“Can I get you anything ma’am? Here’s some extra peanuts, a champagne, a few chocolates.”

She’d gone through the store of goodies and brought one of everything to Sue. Without asking, she filled a champagne glass and gave it to Sue, who accepted it with thanks.

“Anything you want, ma’am. Really,” the flight attendant continued, in a whisper. “We all appreciate what you just did. He’s a jerk. Besides,” she winked at her, “it was a lot better than any in-flight movie we’ve ever had.”

Zyor led Finney into a great hall that opened into an expansive meadow. It was disorienting, because the hall, gigantic as it had appeared on the outside, was only a fraction the size of the meadow within. And before he had entered, behind the hall he’d seen a landscape much different than what he saw now. Like many of heaven’s doors, it seemed to lead to a world of its own, a world within a world.

Thousands were gathering here, looking toward someone who was speaking. Whenever he paused in his speech, as if for a translation, little discussions broke out everywhere. Those of Michael’s race answered the questions of heaven’s students, Finney among them. Finney noticed many in the crowd were heaven’s young children, like himself. Once explanations were made, attention went back to the one up front like iron filings drawn to a magnet, and he resumed speaking as if there had been no interruption.

There was no rudeness to these midcourse discussions. On the contrary, it was the intense interest in every word of the speaker that prompted them. Finney remembered the two distinctly different kinds of whispers in school classes. One kind was born of boredom and disinterest, where students sought escape from what the instructor was saying. But the other was born of profound interest, which compelled a student to comment to his fellow students or to ask clarifying questions.

Here no one asked the dutiful question, “Will this be on the quiz?” Everyone listened because he wanted to learn. What flowed from the speaker was fresh water to a thirsty mind. Finney was again exhilarated by his vastly improved ability to retain, yet challenged that every new thing in this lecture seemed eminently significant and worthy of retaining.

Finney was engrossed in the speaker’s words, which seemed a direct extension of his life. This one had the wisdom of a thousand mentors. Finney was inexplicably drawn to him and kept asking himself who he was. His face seemed almost a hybrid of child’s face and angel’s face. Why was this face so familiar? Finney gasped. He knew this face! It was the face of Little Finn! But Finn was still back on earth. And yet…

Of course, Finney thought. It was his face, the pure delighted face of what was called on earth the Down’s Syndrome child. This professor around whom gathered the students of heaven, some of them once professors on earth, was a Down’s child, rather a man with the enduring qualities of a child. How had he obtained such wisdom and eloquence? Was it from his long residence here in Elyon’s world? From an intimate acquaintance with Elyon that preceded his entrance to this world? Finney theorized he might even be part of a unique order of being, a special strain of Adam’s race. Not a genetic accident, inferior to the norm, but one challenged in some conventional senses yet in profound and invisible ways superior to the norm.

He listened as the man, this eternally young man, spoke. Even the texture of his voice reminded him of Little Finn, and Finney marveled at his words:

“When our Lord Christ walked in the dark world, we are told ‘People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’

“Again, Christ said, ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.’

“On another occasion, we are told, ‘He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all—he is the greatest.’

“To those who wanted to silence the praise of children, Jesus responded, ‘Have you never read, “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise”?’ Again, Jesus said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.’”

The young man surveyed the audience and seemed to achieve the impossible by establishing eye contact with all the thousands at once.

“I who stand before you today, and all those of my kind, are testimonies to the truth written in still another place: ‘But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.’”