Mindscan

32

Karen was still shaking from having had to talk about her long-dead daughter. I held her for a while, out in the court-house corridor. The jury, of course, had been removed to their waiting room during the recess, so they didn’t get to see this—which was fine; it wasn’t for public consumption anyway. I found myself stroking Karen’s artificial hair, with my artificial hand, hoping somehow that the gesture was giving her comfort. Karen calmed down somewhat by the end of the recess. We went back into the courtroom. I took my seat in the gallery; Malcolm Draper was already there, and Deshawn was already back at his desk. I watched as Maria Lopez came in. She looked … I’m not sure exactly how to describe it. Frustrated, maybe. Or defiant. Things hadn’t gone the way she’d planned a few minutes ago. I wondered what she’d really expected to happen.

The door to Judge Herrington’s chambers opened. “All rise!” called the clerk, and everyone did so. Herrington took his place at the bench, rapped his gavel, and said, “On the record again in Bessarian v. Horowitz. Ms. Lopez, you may continue your direct examination of Ms. Bessarian.”

Lopez rose, and I could see her take a deep breath, still unsure of herself. “Thank you, your honor.” But she said nothing more.

“Well?” demanded Herrington after about fifteen seconds.

“My apologies, your honor,” said Lopez. She looked at Karen—or perhaps looked beyond Karen, and to the right a bit as if she were focussing on the Michigan flag rather than the witness. “Ms. Bessarian, let me rephrase my earlier question. Have you ever had an abortion?”

Deshawn was instantly on his feet. “Objection! Irrelevant!”

“There better be a point to this, Ms. Lopez,” said Herrington, sounding angry.

“There most certainly is,” said Lopez, some fire starting to come back into her, “if you’ll permit me a little latitude.”

“A little latitude is all your going to get—like from here to Warren; don’t take us clear across the globe.”

Lopez did her trademark bow. “But of course, your honor.” She repeated the question, giving herself another chance to make the jury hear the loaded word at its end. “Ms. Bessarian, have you ever had an abortion?”

Karen’s voice was small. “Yes.”

There was chatter in the courtroom. Judge Herrington frowned his small frown and banged his gavel.

“Now, we don’t want to portray you as a criminal here, Ms. Bessarian,” said Lopez. “We wouldn’t want the jury to think you had committed that act recently, would we? Will you tell the court when you terminated the life of a fetus?”

“In, um … it was 1988.”

“Nineteen Eighty-Eight. That would be—what?—fifty-seven years ago, no?”

“That’s correct.”

“So if you had not terminated that fetus, you would have another child—a son or a daughter—some fifty-six years old.”

“I—perhaps.”

“Perhaps?” said Lopez. “I think the answer is yes.”

Karen was looking down. “Yes, I suppose.”

“Fifty-six years old. A mature man or woman, quite likely with children of his or her own.”

“Objection, your honor,” said Deshawn. “Relevance!”

“Move it along, Ms. Lopez.”

She nodded. “The real point is that the abortion was executed in 1988.” She put a special emphasis on the verb executed. “And that was … let me see now … forty years before Roe v. Wade was overturned by Littler v. Carvey.”

“If you say so.”

“And Roe v. Wade was the case that temporarily legalized a woman’s ability to terminate the life she was carrying, isn’t that so?”

“It was not intended to be a temporary measure,” said Karen.

“Forgive me,” said Lopez. “My only point was to assure the court that you had terminated a fetus when it was in fact legal to do so in these United States, correct?”

“Yes. It was a legal procedure. Carried out in a public hospital.”

“Oh, indeed. Indeed. We don’t want to put a picture of back alleys and bent coat hangers into the jury’s mind.”

“You just did,” said Karen, defiantly. “This was a legal, moral, and common procedure.”

“Common!” said Lopez, with relish. “Common, yes. The very word.”

“Objection!” said Deshawn, spreading his arms. “If Ms. Lopez has a question for the witness—”

“Oh, but I do. I do. Ms. Bessarian, why did you have this abortion?”

Deshawn was getting angry; his face was still calm, but his voice wasn’t. “Objection!

Relevance.”

“Ms. Lopez, please get to the point,” said Herrington, a hand supporting his shoehorn jaw.

“Just a few more minutes, your honor. Ms. Bessarian, why did you have this abortion?”

“I did not wish to have a child at that time.”

“So the abortion was indeed a matter of personal convenience?”

“It was a matter of economic necessity. My husband and I were just starting out.”

“Ah, you did this for the good of the child, then.”

Deshawn spread his arms. “Objection! Your honor, please!”

“Withdrawn,” said Lopez. “Ms. Bessarian, when you had this abortion, you didn’t think you were committing murder, did you?”

“Of course not. It was a fully legal procedure back then.”

“Indeed, indeed. The period sometimes referred to as the Dark Ages.”

“Not by me.”

“No, I’m sure. Tell us, please: why was it not murder to terminate your pregnancy?”

“Because … because it wasn’t. Because the Supreme Court of the United States had ruled that it was a legal procedure.”

“Yes, yes, yes, I understand what the law said back then. What I’m asking about is your own personal moral code. Why was it not murder to terminate that pregnancy?”

“Because it wasn’t a person—not in my eyes, or the eyes of the law.”

“Today, of course, the law would disagree.”

“But I would not.”

I cringed. Karen was being too feisty for her own good. And Lopez seized upon it.

“Are you saying your standards are higher than those of the law?”

“My standards aren’t subject to pressure groups or political whim, if that’s what you mean.”

“And so you still maintain that that fetus was not a person?”

Karen said nothing.

“An answer, please, Ms. Bessarian.”

“Yes.”

More chatter; another tap of the gavel.

“You’re saying, yes, that fetus was not a person?” asked Lopez.

“Yes.”

“That fetus, which was created by the physical expression of love between you and your late first husband, may God rest his soul. That fetus, which had forty-six chromosomes, mixing uniquely your husband’s traits and yours.”

Karen said nothing.

“That fetus was not a person, correct?”

Karen was quiet a moment, then: “Correct.”

“How far into your pregnancy were you when you terminated it?”

“Nine … no, ten weeks.”

“You’re not sure?”

“It was an awfully long time ago,” said Karen.

“Indeed. Why did you wait that long? Had you been unaware up to that point that you were pregnant?”

“I became aware within four weeks of conception.”

“Then why the delay?”

“I wanted time to think.” Karen couldn’t resist the soap-box, damn it all. “Something the fifteen-day stricture of Letter v. Carvey doesn’t give women, does it? Has it ever occurred to you, Ms. Lopez, that by placing the limit when abortions can legally be performed so early in pregnancy that women are forced to hastily make a decision that, if given more time to come to terms with their feelings, they might not have made?”

“I’ll ask the questions, Ms. Bessarian, if you don’t mind. And, indeed, suppose you had again become pregnant at an inconvenient time, and that this pregnancy had occurred after Littler v. Carvey. Would you have allowed the date specified in the law to force you to make a decision that early?”

“It is the law.”

“Yes. But you are a woman of means, Ms. Bessarian. You could have found a way to have a safe—for you—abortion after the fifteen-day limit had passed. Ferry ’cross the Mersey, and all that.”

“I suppose.”

“And would you have been comfortable with your decision? Gerrymandering the line between person and nonperson in whatever way was most convenient for you?”

Karen said nothing.

“Answer the question, please. Would you have the line between personhood and nonpersonhood moved for your own personal convenience?”

Karen was still silent.

“Your honor, would you kindly direct the witness to answer?”

“Ms. Bessarian?” said Judge Herrington. Karen nodded, then tilted her head to one side. She looked at Deshawn, then out at me, then over at the jury box, then back at Lopez.

“Yes,” she said at last. “I suppose I would.”

“I see,” said Lopez. She, too, looked at the jury box. “We see.” Whatever discomfort Lopez had felt earlier was long since gone. “Now, Ms. Bessarian, again, what was it that that poor fetus, conceived of man and woman, lacked, making it not a person, which you, an artificial construct, possess, thus making you a person?”

“I … ah…”

“Come now, Ms. Bessarian! At a loss for words? And, you, a professional writer!”

“It’s … ah…”

“The question is simple: there must be something that your terminated fetus lacked that you yourself possess. Otherwise, both would be persons—in your own moral code, if not in the eyes of the law, no?”

“I possess experience.”

“Not of your own, though. I mean, not experience that this … this contraption in front of us has directly had. What experience you have was copied from the late, real Karen Bessarian, no?”

“It was transferred from that earlier version of me, with that version’s full, expressed consent and desire.”

“We’ll have to take your word for that, won’t we? I mean—forgive me—but the real Karen Bessarian is dead, isn’t she?’

“I knew that my body was wearing out; that’s why I arranged to transfer into this more durable one.”

“But not everything was transferred, was it?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, Ms. Bessarian’s memories were transferred, but trivial things, like, say, the contents of her stomach at at time of transference, were not duplicated in the copy.”

“Well, no.”

“Of course not That’s inconsequential, after all. As say, the wrinkles on the original’s face.”

“I have opted for a younger visage,” said Karen, defiantly.

“Your honor, defendant’s twelve—a photo of Karen Bessarian taken last year.”

Karen’s face appeared on the wall screen. I’d forgotten just how incredibly old she’d looked before: white hair, deeply lined face, translucent skin, eyes that seemed too small for their sockets, that lopsided stroke-victim’s smile. I found myself looking away.

“That is you, isn’t?” asked Lopez. “The original you?”

Karen nodded. “Yes.”

“The real you, the you that was—”

“Objection!” called Deshawn. “Asked and answered.”

“Sustained,” said Herrington.

Lopez bowed her head briefly. “Very well. Forgive me for being blunt, Ms. Bessarian, but you obviously chose not to have cosmetic procedures performed.”

“I am not a particularly vain person.”

“Admirable. Still, clearly you only identify some parts of you as being the real you, no? So, again, which part of the real you do you think you possessed and your terminated fetus lacked?”

“A mind,” said Karen. “If it were a copy of a fetus’s neural connections sitting here in front of you, I’d not expect you to accord it any special status.”

“So it’s the intellect that makes one a person?” Lopez, raising her eyebrows.

“Well, yes.”

“And therefore a fetus is not a person.”

“Yes.” That’s my Karen: in for a penny, in for a pound. There was a sharp intake of breath from some of those in the courtroom. “I mean,” continued Karen, “they are now, under the current law, but…”

“But it’s not a law you agree with, is it?”

“Women fought long and hard for the right to control their own bodies, Ms. Lopez. I grant that things have shifted to the right since I was young, but…”

“No, no, no, Ms. Bessarian. You can’t accuse contemporary society of narrow-mindedness: we’ve expanded the definition of what qualifies as human since your day. We’ve broadened the definition to include fetuses.”

“Yes, but…”

“Oh, granted, the broadening has not been in the direction you seem to wish. We protect innocent newborns; you’d take that away, and instead let people hold on to some ersatz life at the other end, isn’t that so? The first nine months are too much to ask, but nine additional decades, or even centuries, tacked on at the end, in synthetic form, is reasonable. Is that your position, Ms. Bessarian?”

“My position, since you ask, is that once the law has granted the right of personhood to someone, that right is inalienable.”

Lopez apparently had been waiting for Karen to say this. She practically leapt back to her desk and picked up a datapad. “Defendant’s thirteen, your honor,” she declared, holding up the device. She crossed the well and handed it to Karen. “Ms. Bessarian, would you please tap the ‘Book Info’ icon and tell the court what book is currently being displayed?”

Karen did so. ” The American Heritage English Dictionary, Ninth Edition, Unabridged.”

“Very good,” said Lopez. “Now will you please clear that notification, and read the text on the underlying screen?”

Karen touched some controls, then: “It’s the definition of the word ‘inalienable,’ ” she said.

“Indeed. And will you please read the definition?”

“ ‘That cannot be transferred to another or others: inalienable rights.’ ”

“ ‘That cannot be transferred,’ ” repeated Lopez. “Would you agree with that definition?”

“Um, well, I’m sure to most people ‘inalienable’ means: that it cannot be taken away from you.”

“Really, now? Would you care to try a few other dictionaries? Merriam-Webster’s, perhaps? Encarta? The Oxford English Dictionary? All of them are loaded onto that datapad. Ms. Bessarian, and I assure you they all give the same meaning: something that cannot be transferred. And yet you’ve just said that your own position is that rights of personhood are inalienable.”

Deshawn spread his arms. “Your honor, objection—relevance. You took me to task on our first day for making picayune semantic distinctions, and—”

“Sorry, Mr. Draper,” said Herrington. “Overruled. The point Ms. Lopez is making is bang on target.”

Lopez nodded at the bench. “Thank you, your honor.” She then turned back to Karen. “So which is it? Or are we in Wonderland now, and a word means whatever you want it to mean?”

“Don’t push your luck,” said Herrington, gently.

“Of course not, your honor,” Lopez replied. “Which is it Ms. Bessarian? Should rights of personhood be transferable, or are they, as you yourself said, inalienable?”

Karen opened her mouth, but then closed it.

“That’s all right, Ms. Bessarian,” said Lopez. “That’s just fine. I’m content to leave it as a rhetorical question. I’m sure the good men and women of the jury will know how to answer it for us.” She turned to face the bench. “Your honor, the defendant rests.”