Gideon's Torch
(Abortionist gets whacked)
Charles Colson
Ann went around to her side of the desk and scanned the opened appointment book. She sipped the hot coffee gratefully.
"Please sit down," she said to the girl, gesturing toward a metal folding chair in front of the desk. "I'm Doctor Sloan. I understand you were given a hard time this morning."
The girl perched nervously on the edge of the chair, hands still in her pockets, head down. "It was awful," she said softly. They said not to murder my baby. They said there was still time to change my mind. They had big bloody posters of tiny babies..."
Ann flushed, the familiar anger rising in her chest. It was one thing to harass the strong, she thought. It was a pain, but she could handle it. But here was this young girl, all alone, vulnerable.
It made Ann crazy. This was a medical procedure, for heaven's sake, perfectly legal, affordable, safe...and yet women across the country faced every obstacle these fanatics could think of to keep them from exercising their rights. It infuriated her every time she thought about her own daughter and the future she faced...all the advances feminists had fought for, and women still couldn't freely control their own bodies and lives. It was insane.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Sherry, the girl said, her head still down.
"Sherry, those people are living in the Dark Ages. They're just trying to impose their morality on you. They don't even care about you; all they care about is their own agenda. But this is still America. You have the right to make your own choices."
The girl looked up for the first time, and Ann was struck by how much she reminded her of Lindsay.
"They just made me feel so bad," Sherry said. "It's not like I'm so crazy about having this done. It's just that I don't know what else to do. I'm in school, I don't have much money, I don't have anyone to fall back on."
"I can understand if you're not happy about having an abortion right now," Ann said. "I've dealt with thousands of women over the years, and believe me, what you're feeling is normal. But you do have a right to make this decision. It's your choice - nobody else's. Probably now isn't the right time for you to continue a pregnancy. But it's up to you. Not a bunch of terrorists shoving posters in your face."
Sherry sighed. "You said you've dealt with lots of women, " she said hesitantly. "How many of these do you think you've done? Abortions, I mean.
Ann paused for a moment. She had left her gynecology practice during Lindsy's last year in elementary school. Now she served three clinics in three states - about six thousand procedures a year.
"I've done this about thirty thousand times," she said. "And I can't begin to tell you how many of those women told me that it was the best choice they ever made for themselves." She lowered her eyes as she took another big swallow of coffee.
THE GIRL SLID the gun from her pocket. The safety was off; the silencer was on. She kept it and her hands below the edge of the desk.
"Thirty thousand babies," she said slowly, taking a deep breath.
"Then your own lips have condemned you."
The doctor looked up, startled.
Both of her gloved hands on the gun, the girl stood, raised the barrel quickly, and aimed at the quarter-sized round of skin between the woman's dark eyebrows.
She gently squeezed the trigger, just as she had been taught.
There was a spitting sound and, simultaneously, the doctor's head exploded against the wall behind the desk. A pink mist hung in the air; the coffee cup dropped to the desk, spreading a brown stain across the appointment book. The doctor's body slid down in the chair and to the floor.
The girl turned, as she had practiced, slipped the pistol back in her pocket, and ran the few steps toward the door. She took the key hanging from the deadbolt, closed the office door behind her, and locked it. Hands back in her pockets, she moved quickly down the hall.
The woman who had escorted her into the clinic earlier looked at her questioningly.
"I'm sorry," the girl said. "I just can't go through with it. I've got to get out of her." She moved toward the doors.
The woman shrugged. Sometimes it happened; patients panicked. Well, that made one less on the schedule.
The girl burst through the front doors and pushed through the protesters. They were still trading insults with the woman who had brought the doctor her coffee. The cameras were rolling, and the woman kept talking, jabbing her finger at the pro-lifers.
The girl made her way through the crowd and around the corner.
The white van was waiting, its motor running. The side door slid open, she jumped inside, and the van pulled away from the curb, the Channel 4 logo on its side just a bit off-center.
Gideon's Torch.
(the book, Gideon's Torch, is not about the above; the above is the intro to the book which is a political intrigue.)
