excerpt from the abortion doctor's wife

Dr. Egush-Patel heard a scream as he forced his forceps into the vagina of 15 year old LaUniqueshwa Scott.  The scream did not come from LaUniqueshwa – she was out cold – nor did it come from either of Egush's two nurse aids who were there to assist him with the procedure.  It was a ghost scream.  Egush-Patel motioned toward his nurse to wipe his brow as a single drop of sweat spilled from his hairline onto his eyelid.  Two feet above him, a large, bright overhead lamp beamed stale heat directly onto his scalp. The lamp was to aid Egush's vision but as he looked at the nurses faces, the white light saturated their features into egg-yoke blobs.  He blinked.  He drew a breath, and continued his work with the forceps.  He was beginning a dismemberment abortion, or what was called a Second Trimester D&E Abortion.

Egush-Patel had performed hundreds of dismemberment abortions during the three years he held his practice at the Woman's Advocate Health Clinic.  The procedure was second nature to him.  So when he positioned the forceps onto the mid section of the tiny unborn human inside of L'Uniqshwa, he wasn't surprised by the unborn baby's response.  The touch of the steely cold forceps caused the baby to move.  Instinctively Egush-Patel noticed the cohesiveness of the skin tissue.  He found the flesh easy to grip.  This meant the body would be relatively easy to dismember.  Egush-Patel also gauged that the unborn body's pelvis was at least 5 centimeters in width.  He made this mental note, then moved the forceps deeper into the vagina until the icy metallic grips found the human head.  He would have to crush the head by squeezing it between the ends of the forceps.  That often took a great deal of strength involving the wrist and forearms.  Most doctors who performed dismemberment abortions were men.  There was a certain gruesomeness in collapsing the skull – it was accompanied by a gut-dropping "snap" and a certain feeling of "give" that was similar to the sensation someone feels when they crush a walnut inside a nutcracker.  Most people didn't have the stomach for this - but he did.  He had the stomach for it and he had the hands for it.  His hands, wrists and forearms were strong enough to perform such a maneuver in a very slow, deliberate manner.  And each time he did, he had the same realization - the realization that he was ending a life.  During his training the unborn baby was always referred to as a fetus.  But there was no doubt to him that it was a living human being.  He was as fully conscious of the fact that he was ending a life as a clear-eyed serial killer is conscious of the fact that they are ending a life.  His forceps probed deeper toward the skull.  Crushing the skull would come at the end of the procedure, it was the finale.  

As Egush-Patel moved the forcepts with one hand, he gripped the long curved Mayo scissors that he would use to cut the pelvis and dismember the rest of the unborn baby with his other hand.  And it was at that moment that he realized that the scream he heard wasn't real.  It was some kind of ghost scream – a mental flashback to a scream of an unborn child he aborted several weeks prior.  That unborn had been from another teen mother.  That fetus, that unborn baby screamed - and it had been unmistakable.  He heard it, his aids heard it.  They were startled.  It sent shivers down their spines.  Egush-Patel believed he had already crushed that unborn's skull but in fact, he had only smashed its face in.  When he pulled the disfigured baby from its mother's vagina it cried out.  There was no mistaking in.  

But, Egush-Patel didn't let that scream stop him.  He simply turned to his nurse and handed her the remains to dispose of.  Then he put that scream, the scream, out of his mind.  Instantaneously forgetting about it - he thought.  But it was still there, somewhere in the back of his mind.  He could still hear it.  Even now as he gripped onto a meaty piece of flesh from the unborn body inside of LaUniqushwa, even as he pulled it toward him, through LaUniqushwa's cervix—the scream was still there.  Egush-Patel tugged harder.  There was a steadily increasing resistance.  He was accustomed to this friction that came with pulling body parts through the cervix.  That friction helped tear the body apart.  It always reminded Egush-Patel of the way chicken meat is pulled apart from a succulent, well-baked chicken.  He was ashamed of this thought the first time it occurred to him, but now it just causes a caustic, cold sigh to himself.  He pulled with a bit more torque until a liquidy, bloodied dismembered piece of flesh was ripped off the tiny human body.  As he pulled it out of L'Uniqushwa's vagina, that human body inside her thrashed and kicked.  The piece of flesh he pulled out of her was the left foot and ankle which he had just ripped apart from the left leg.  Egush-Patel discarded this piece of flesh then positioned his forceps into the vagina to grab the rest of the leg.  There was more resistance as he pulled it through the cervix, until the leg ripped apart just above the knee.   The body thrashed about more.  Egush-Patel pulled this leg part out and flung it into a cold steel container at his side.  After removing the foot and then the leg, up to the knee, Egush-Patel felt the tiny human body inside of L'Uniqshwa still violently thrusting about, almost to the point of delirium.  He did not need to look at the ultrasound equipment.  There was obviously still a heartbeat. 

---

“What is life?” Brock Sproles addressed the group of high school seniors.  “When did your life start?"  
He looked around at the class. The class was typical of the high school groups he often spoke to.  Fifteen years removed from high school himself, Brock surmised that this class wasn't very different from the classes he attended when he was a high school student.  He spotted the drama queen, the prom queen, the stoner, the jock, the music geek, the computer geek, the wall flower, the shoe gazer, the art chick, the class clown.  Brock himself had always been bored in high school, completely bored.  Now, as an activist, boredom was the one sin he refused to commit.  

“Does anyone want to take a stab at that question?” he asked.  “When did your life start?”

A dark-haired boy up front declared, “Your life began when you were born.  Duh.”  

A few half-suppressed chuckles spread around the classroom.

“So what were you before you were born?” Brock asked.  “When you were in your mother's stomach?  Weren't you a life then also?”  Brock knew this was the kind of question that most kids their age hadn't ever given much thought.  He searched their eyes for cues.  Were any of them mulling over possible answers?  

Ms. Witherspoon, their Health Sciences teacher stood toward the back of the class.  Brock's attendance there wasn't her idea.  Brock petitioned the school board, filed the red sea of red tape and schmoozed the school's administrators for several months before convincing them to allow him into the classroom to talk to the seniors during Sex Education week.  

Finally one female senior with bookish glasses and the look of a junior librarian raised her hand.  “My pastor says life begins at conception.”

Brock had a ready-built “recourse of conversation” for any path that any student response would take.  The religion angle was one he had to tread lightly around, one that he wanted to avoid actually.  Truth be told, he was actually an agnostic.  He believed that human life had a "soul" but not in the sense that religions defined it.  He believed in a "soul" as in how the Ancient Greeks first defined it: that invisible force within a human life that keeps it moving through time and space.  And he believed that an unique individual soul was created each time there was a conception. 

“Okay, conception – does everyone know what that term means?”

There was a few guffaws, a few giggles before Ms. Witherspoon spoke up, “On Monday, we watched the documentary you recommended, The Miracle of Life, which explained the process in detail.”

Brock had made a quick effort to size up Trisha Witherspoon earlier, when the vice-principle introduced them to each other.  She had shoulder-length black hair, a thin figure that was draped with traditional progressive attire, brown leggings and a sleeveless blouse.  She was a few years younger than he was, her facial features were sharp, precise, but her expressions were somewhat suppressed, as if she were constantly straining to hold her emotions in check.

“Okay, good,” Brock continued.  “So you understand that prior to conception there is a sperm and an egg, which are parts of two different human lives—one part from the man and one part from the woman—but separately the sperm and the egg do not constitute a human being.  It is not until these two entities join—when the sperm fertilizes the egg—that an entire new human life is created.”

Ms. Witherspoon stared at Brock.  There was something mischievous about him.  Here he was, dressed respectfully in a suit and tie, with his clean, even jawline, and his hair just one quick head-turn away from being unkempt, speaking in a professional manner, with a politically correct confidence to his cadence - yet there was something troublesome about him.  His aura was that of a man on a mission of some sort, a mission beyond just educating high school students about the moral questions that arise from the Abortion debate.  

“So technically, biologically speaking, that point is when your life began.  Conception.  If that moment of conception had not occurred, the rest of your life never would have happened.”   Brock paused to let that idea resonate.  Trisha Witherspoon found that her pulse was starting to increase.

“So, I'm here to talk to you today about abortion...” he said, taking in the student's faces once again then nearly grinning at Trisha Witherspoon, who now had her arms crossed tightly around her chest. “...And some of the questions that arise when someone is thinking about abortion.”    

“What is this guy up to?” She wondered.

“In 1973 the Supreme Court ruled that a woman has a right to choose to abort the life that has been conceived inside of her. Since that time, there have been over 50 million human lives aborted in America," Brock declared, letting that large number sink in, knowing that most kids had no idea there had been that many legal abortions.  Then he added, "Nearly half of those have been African-American lives.”

Now why on Earth did he have to mention that?!? Witherspoon questioned to herself, What does that have to do with anything?  But then she contemplated that statistic.   That can't be true, she told herself.

“I'm not here to give you a history lesson or bombard you with a lot of statistics, but just let me share one more bit of information with you,” Brock continued. “It is a statistical fact that only one out of every one million Americans choose to kill themselves.  One out of a million.  Remember that number - that is the percentage of Americans who choose suicide.”  

Trisha Witherspoon was glaring at him now.

“So that means that out of those 50 million aborted lives since 1973, only 50 of them – fifty out of 50 million – would have chosen to abort themselves.  All of those other 50 million are innocent Americans whose lives have been taken against their will.”

Trisha's jaw nearly dropped to the ground.  What the fuck is this?!?  

“So the question you might be asking yourself,” Brock continued, “is why were these millions upon millions of American lives denied the miracle of life?  Why weren't they allowed to choose life?  Why were their mothers allowed to decide life or death for them?”

Trisha couldn't contain herself a minute longer, “Excuse me, Mr. Sproles – but how do you propose that a zygote express its decision to live?”

Finally, Mrs. Witherspoon gave herself away.  It was usually about half and half when it came to health education teachers.  Half were pro-life, generally of the Holy Roller variety.  While the other half were pro-choice, generally of the woman's rights variety.  Witherspoon looked like she could have belonged in either camp though.  Yet she also did not look like someone who had no opinion, she didn't look like someone who was neutral.  And now as she cocked her eyebrow at him, Brock knew which way she bent, and he couldn't help but admit that he was attracted to her now.  Oddly enough, he was attracted exclusively to women who were pro-choice.  Something about the challenge of converting them made them much more interesting.  He was once pro-choice himself, after all he was a Democrat.  But, similar to how a born-again Christian yearns to spread the word of the Lord and convert everyone he meets, Brock had undergone his own born-again experience and he yearned to spread his message.  Only his message didn't involve the Lord.  No, his message was that life is a miracle - and it should not be destroyed under any circumstances.  And he wanted to share this belief and convert everyone he met, especially hard-boiled, somewhat uptight Health Science teachers with perky breasts.  So when Ms. Witherspoon posed her question about how is a zygote supposed to express its decision to live, Brock knew...it was "go" time.

“How does anyone express their decision to live?” he stated, pointing to a slacker sitting toward the back of the classroom.  

“You there, how do you express your decision to live?  Did you wake up this morning, throw open the shutters to your bedroom window and decree to the world outside that 'Today, I choose to live!'”

This line got the predictable laugh from the class.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” the slacker joked.

There were some more laughs as Brock smiled at him and said, “We express our decision to live by actually living.  By partaking in this merry-go-round miracle of life and by moving forward, evolving, learning, loving, living... our cells growing, our bodies moving, our blood pumping.  Just like the zygotes in The Miracle of Life did.”

Oh for fuck's sake, I have to stop this guy, Trisha Witherspoon decreed to herself before speaking up, “Mr. Brock, with all due respect, everyone in this room is conscious.  We are all sentient beings.  We can choose to live or we can choose to end our life – but a zygote is not sentient.  A zygote cannot even exist outside the womb.  It is totally reliant on their mother for their survival.  Technically speaking, a zygote is actually just a clump of cells, like the skin cells that come off your body while washing your face.”

“Well, a clump of cells that came off my face never became an Abe Lincoln, or a John Lennon or a Martin Luther King or a Ms. Witherspoon.  No, a zygote is not just a clump of cells.”  Brock knew he had sparked the fire.  That fire and passion that the abortion topic always ignites - and that was never boring.  

“Look at this way,” he continued, “technically speaking, the word zygote is just a name that mankind has assigned to a certain stage of development in a human's life.  It is no different from the other names that we use to describe other stages of human development like 'teenager', or 'baby', or 'adult', or 'elderly'  or 'middle-aged'.  The only difference is the stage of life a person is in.”

“Except that a zygote is not sentient, Mr. Brock.  And a zygote cannot exist without its mother.”

“The same could be said about my cousin Mortie,” Brock joked.  “But does that give his mother the right to kill him?”

Again the class laughed.

“You know what I mean, Mr. Brock,” Trisha patronized.

“I do know what you mean, Ms. Witherspoon,” Brock smiled at her.  His grin was inviting, instead of being a look of confrontation, it was a look of inclusion that welcomed all comers.... yet that mischievous glint in his eye, it had a strange effect on her – it made her fearful, fearful to step deeper into this conversation, where the promise of dangerous and challenging ideas lurked - ideas that Mr. Brock Sproles had already navigated astutely over and over again.

“And I'm glad you bring up the notion of sentience, Mrs. Witherspoon,” Brock continued.  “Sentience is a very crucial part of the equation when it comes to a decision on Abortion.”  He paused a moment.  Trisha had her eyes glued to him.  And he had his eyes glued to her.

"You see, if your argument is that any human life that is not sentient has no right to life then that means that you believe that someone who is knocked out, or someone who is sleeping or in a coma, has no right to life.  So from that point of view, if a human being is in a temporary state of not being sentient, well that's just tough luck because mankind has no obligation to helping those human beings out.  But a question I ask to this class is: Just because a human is unconscious at a certain moment, does that make them any less human!?!"

Ms. Witherspoon's fists were actually clenched now.  Her face was blush.  She wanted to say something, but she held back, trying to bite her tongue when she blurted out, "Mr. Sproles, are you trying to say that abortion is equal to killing a person?  Because killing a person is illegal.  Abortion is not."

"Actually killing a person in not illegal if it is done in self-defense or in an act of war," he shot back, sensing she was coming unhinged.  And she was sensing this too.  In fact she realized that if she didn't excuse herself from the classroom at that very moment, she would... she would do something that she didn't want to do.  And without another word she stormed out of the classroom, into the hallway where she stood motionless, fist still clenched, staring at the floor.  Trisha Witherspoon took a deep breath.  

To her surprise, upon looking up, she noticed a young lady sitting on a wooden chair beside the door to her classroom.  This young lady had Down Syndrome.

"What are you doing here?" Trisha asked the girl.

"I'm waiting for my uncle Brock," the girl explained.  "He's giving a speech," and the young girl looked toward Trisha then toward the classroom.

Trisha nodded slowly, as if she understood, yet she was actually completely confused.  She was light-headed now, as though she might black out.  She began walking slowly, not sure where she was headed, dragging her feet until by instinct, she found herself at the drinking fountain down the hall.  She bent over, took a drink then stood back up and stared at a flyer for a Band Recital that was pinned to a bulletin board.  After reading it thoroughly for several minutes, she slowly composed herself.  She sighed heavily then headed back to her classroom.  As she re-entered Mitzi, a girl who wore too much lip-gloss was speaking.

"But what kind of life would that baby have?"  Mitzi asked, "It wouldn't have the economic opportunities that most kids have, that baby wouldn't be as loved as kids who are wanted.  They would probably get hooked on drugs and get involved in crime.  I mean, they could become little Adolph Hitlers and Charlie Mansons."

The class laughed at this, and another dark-skinned kid chimed in, "Yeah, that baby would probably grow up so unhappy and miserable that they would just want to end up killing themselves anyway - So why not just do it for them before they are even born?  Save them all the heartache."

Brock had this class engaged in a manner that Ms. Witherspoon hadn't been able to achieve the entire semester - hell her entire teaching career.

"Well, now you are getting into the area of Social Engineering.  Who decides if poor children's lives are worth living?  Who decides if their lives have value?  That's social Engineering - which, if you've read your history books, you'll know, that is what Hitler was doing in regard to the Jews in Nazi Germany.  And we all know that that was wrong.  Don't we?  Don't we all know that the decision to live or die must be up to each individual human - not some government officials?"

Ms. Witherspoon immediately regretted that she had re-entered the classroom.

"So remember that statistic I gave you earlier," Brock continued, smiling at Ms. Witherspoon as she re-entered.  "Only one in a million Americans choose to kill themselves.  The overwhelming majority of people choose to live rather than to die?"

Trisha Witherspoon turned and headed straight for the back of the classroom where she leaned herself against the back wall.  She still felt light-headed.

"Now, I know there are a lot of jerks in this world." Brock continued." A lot of total A-holes, but I also know that in my 30 plus years of life that most people I meet actually have more good in their hearts than they have bad.  Most people have hope, most people, if you treat them nice, are going to be kind."  

Still looking at Mrs. Witherspoon Brock asked, "Would you agree with that Mrs. Witherspoon?"

"I'm not sure what this has to do with the choice of abortion," Mrs. Witherspoon replied.

"Ah, but it has everything to do with abortion," Brock continued.  "In its most basic essence, the question of abortion comes down to this one simply question: is it best to have a glass half-full view of life, or a glass half-empty?  The highest form of existence, the highest level of decision making, comes when every decision you make and every action you take is in consideration of what is best for humanity.  ALL of humanity.  Not just yourself, but the overall evolution of mankind.  Now, certainly if someone is elderly and has lived a long life, but is in constant physical pain, it is reasonable to think that they might want to kill themselves and be put out of their misery.  But most folks, young folks, physically healthy folks choose to live.  Most folks choose to learn and love and create and celebrate life...  So I'd like you to each ask yourselves one simple question."  
Brock walked over to his duffel bag, pulled out a bottle of water and a small drinking glass.  He sat the glass on Ms. Witherspoon's desk and poured the water into it until it reached the halfway mark.  

"Is the glass half-full or is it half-empty?"

Witherspoon took a glance at Brock, making eye contact. What a fucking ass-clown, she thought.

"Is life a good thing?  Is it something we should rejoice in and celebrate?  Or is it a cruel, terrible thing?  Something we should destroy?"

Brock looked at Trisha, "How about you Mrs Witherspoon?" he asked smiling invitingly.  "Is this glass half-empty or half full?"

"My personal opinion is not relevant to the abortion issue in regards to this class, Mr. Sproles.  And I don't think yours should be either," she replied coldly.

Brock cocked his head, "But isn't much of the goal of education to help and inspire kids to develop and obtain skills that allow them to reach the highest levels of critical thinking?  And doesn't the highest level of thought development involve making decisions that extend beyond how your decision is simply going to affect yourself?  Doesn't the highest level of decision making concern how your decisions affect others?  In fact doesn't the very highest level of decision making involve taking into consideration how your decisions not only effect you and those around you, but how they may affect all of mankind?  And all of history?"

Trisha Witherspoon did not respond.

"So if you have faith in humanity, if you believe that there is more good in the universe than there is bad, then you have to believe that every human life is more likely to want to live than die.  Even the weakest, poorest, ugliest, smelliest specimen on Earth has more potential to be happy if they are alive than if they are dead."

It was time for Brock to pull out his secret weapon.

“As you all think about your obligation to mankind and, in turn, mankind's obligation to the weakest members of our species," Brock continued, "I'd like to introduce you all to my very good friend Jenny...”

Brock then walked to the door, opened it and Jenny, the girl with Down Syndrome who had been sitting obediently in a chair outside, walked in.  She followed Brock to the front of the classroom, standing by his side.

“Hello," she said, "My name is Jenny Smart.  Some of you may recognize I have Down Syndrome.”  The slacker kid rolled his eyes and the kid next to him looked as if he was about to laugh.

“When my mother was about your age she was raped and she became pregnant.  Before I was born, the doctors told my mother that I would have a defect.  They told her that it was very expensive and very difficult and even dangerous to have a baby like me.  They told her about abortion, but she said she did not want one.”  

Jenny's gaze had gradually drifted downward as she spoke, until her head was tilted toward the floor.  But then she remembered what Brock had told her though.  She had to keep looking up, find someone in the back of the room and speak as though you are speaking directly to them.  So she raised her head again and saw Trisha Witherspoon, standing in the back with her arms crossed.

“It was hard to raise a baby like me,” Jenny continued.  “My mom did not know it was going to be so hard, but she did a good job.”  Jenny looked to Brock, who nodded at her with his smile.  

“When I was in school I used to get teased,” Jenny told them.  “One mean boy called me Jenny 'Not So' Smart.  Every day he said this and he made ugly faces and noises.  But today I have my own job and my own apartment and three cats that I take care of by myself.”  When she mentioned her cats, Jenny's face lit up into a huge smile.  “I am pro-life because every human life has value.”

Brock then hugged her as the classroom watched.  And with that Brock said, "When you go home after school today, I would like each and every one of you here to walk up to your mother, give her a big hug and say 'Thank you for choosing life and bringing me into this world.'  Life is a good thing.  Life is something to celebrate - not something to destroy."

---

A pile of memories sat in Mrs. Donna Egush-Patel's mind, like rocks in a pile or suds in a bubble bath.  The ones at the top were more accessible, mostly because they were more recent.  Some of the memories were older though, many years older, but they were still on top because of the impact they had on her emotions – the unexpected, the out of the ordinary.  Sometimes old, mysterious memories were connected to newer ones.  Like the memory of her abortion.  She had been 18 years old.  She remembered the young man who impregnated her, she remembered knowing that she should have known better.  She remembered the headache that ran from the front of her skull, straight down to the bottom of her jaw that lasted for days.  But mostly she remembered the ten-year-old boy she saw when she left the clinic that day.  She stood outside the clinic, dazed when, there he was. Walking down the sidewalk, by himself, eating an ice cream cone, with chocolate ice cream all around his mouth.  He looked so content, so happy.  When he stopped a few feet from her, he looked into her eyes.  She remembered those eyes.  She remembered the panic that swept over her... she remembered thinking that he knew what she had just done.    

Donna met Egush-Patel a couple years later.  She just called him Egush.  He reminded her of a Pakistani version of Jimmy Stewart.  He was tall, slim, well-mannered, humble, shy... yet when he asked her out on a date, she hesitated.  Something about Egush made her think about that boy again.  So when Egush asked her to dinner, she said "How about lunch instead?"  Their first official fight was over who should pay the check.  Egush insisted on paying for the lunch, after all he had asked her out.  But she argued that she was a modern woman and she insisted on splitting the bill.  Then Egush surprised her, and himself, when he said he would let her pay the entire check - but only if she would allow him to take her to dinner the following night.  They glared at each other, then broke into a laugh.  It was the first time she had ever seen him laugh.  Egush rarely laughed, in fact.  Always so serious.  

After that they began dating regularly.  He was always very direct, very pragmatic, very to the point.  He made her feel safe, but after six months of dating exclusively, she decided to call it quits.  She suggested they date other people.  Egush pressed her for a reason and she admitted that she could never marry someone who was not a Christian.  She felt as though they were wasting their time by dating each other.  She was unsure of Egush's religion - some "bizarre Hindu religion" that worshiped some "weird 8 armed, blue-skinned humanoid with an eyeball on its forehead" or something like that, she thought.  But again Egush surprised himself and he told her that he would convert to Christianity. 

A year and a half later they were engaged.  As many brides-to-be are, Donna was nervous on the days leading up to the wedding.  She couldn't eat, she couldn't sleep.  She obsessively combed her hair - a bad habit she hadn't partaken in since she had been a teenager.  But now that habit had come back.  And she couldn't seem to concentrate or think straight.  She left her keys in her car one day, with her car door wide open as she went into a movie theater.  She watched the entire movie, went shopping, had lunch then came back out to find that her door was still wide open with her keys still in the ignition.  This wasn't like her... and, she also kept dropping things; drinking cups, her toothbrush, she dropped her change purse right into the toilet one day.  Finally on the night before the wedding, she was at dinner with both of their families, when she excused herself to use the restroom.  Instead of going to the restroom, she slipped out the back door and stood alone staring at the parking lot for several minutes.  It was then that she saw a young boy walking alone, across the parking lot.  It was dark, but she swore it was that same boy - the boy she had seen years earlier, right after her abortion.  The exact same boy with the exact same eyes... 

And now, five years later, on a sunny spring afternoon, in which birds were singing and tulips were sprouting, Donna sat in her car, in the parking lot outside of the Women's Advocate Health Clinic, thinking about that boy.  It had been years ago.  That boy would be twenty by now.  Would she still recognize him if she saw him?  She let out a long sigh.  I have to do this, she convinced herself, opening her car door and stepping out.  It was rare for her to visit Egush's place of work.  She came only two or three times a year.  The last time had been for the Christmas party last December.  But now she came to tell Egush the news.  She was not alone.  Inside her, there was a tiny human being growing.

Inside the clinic, Egush's workday was about to end.  He walked from the operating room, straight past the metal bin containing the day's pile of dismembered body parts.  These body parts had to be properly disposed of.  A couple years earlier, when Egush opened the clinic, he did a cost analysis between having the body parts disposed of on site - a process that would have entailed purchasing special equipment, paying more licensing fees and other training costs - versus the option of paying a professional contractor (who specialized in biological disposals) to come in and take the discarded baby parts to a pathology lab.  Egush decided to train his staff on the "clean up" aspect of post-abortion, but then pay a professional contractor for disposal.  He was aware of a number of abortion clinics that merely wrapped the body parts in heavy bags and dumped them, but Egush would never risk something like that.  He could lose his practice, lose his license and be disgraced.  So he decided to contract out the Sanitize-O disposal agency.  But there was one more option to consider.  The option that no one spoke of... the black market.  He found out about it one day when Hamilton Standish, the friendly handler/driver for Sanitize-O, came in for a pick-up and rather casually mentioned the black market to Egush.  Standish, a blond-haired, middle-aged guy who looked as though he exercised regularly, told Egush that "Not all of the body parts we cart away make it to the pathology labs."

"What do you mean?" Egush asked.

"You know, a lot of the body parts actually make their way to an underground agency and end up being sold on the international market."  

Egush did not respond to Standish's not-so-subtle come-on.  Yet the idea of making money on these body parts instead of spending money on them certainly began wiggling around in his mind until, one day, three months later, Egush asked Standish to step into his office.  Although he had a part-time bookkeeper who came in at least once a week, Egush was highly aware of the day-to-day financial transactions of his business.  So, his first question to Standish was, "How do these abortion clinics that sell body parts to the black market, keep the transactions off their books?"

Standish shrugged, "That's really not something they discuss with me."

"Do you know of any clinics that have been caught?"

Standish had dealt with "amateurs" before and had an entire rap ready to feed Egush.  "No, not a single one.  How it works is like this: I continue making pick-ups here each week, only now I take two bins.  One bin has a few less valuable parts in it, while the other has the bulk of the body parts.  I call my contact, drop off the valuable bin to them, they pay me in cash, which I split with you, then I take the smaller bin to the pathology lab.  

"Won't the lab notice the bins are less full?"

"No," Standish thought of how asinine the question was, then added, "No one there cares."

"Do they have inspectors?  Auditors?"

Standish laughed, "Believe me, no one cares and no one will notice."

"So what happens to the body parts after they go on the black market?" Egush asked.  

Standish raised an eyebrow, as if to ask "Do you really want to know?" then let out a sigh.  "Well, all I know is that there is a number of Asian, African and Middle Eastern networks that provide aborted babies for experiments, medical research, you know.  They even provide babies from 'botched' abortions, that is, babies who are still alive.  These networks sell the eyes, organs, limbs, tissue.  Then also, like in Japan, there are companies that use the fetal tissue from abortions to make facial creams. 

"What?" Egush questioned.

"Beauty creams," Standish continued.  "The parts are listed as 'human collagen' on the labels.  If you ever see 'human collogen' on a face cream label that means there is material in it that is either from child's tissue or from the placenta.  This is forbidden in the United States however."  

Egush had one last question, "How much money are we talking here?"

Standish was still holding the invoice for that day's pick-up in his hand.  "Let me put it this way, one bin would cover your entire yearly fee for disposals."

A month later Egush split his weekly supply of body parts into two bins and gave them to Standish. 

"I am only interested in doing this one time each year," he explained.  Standish didn't object.  But eventually it became twice a year, then five times, and soon enough it became old hat, routine, no risk.  And eventually with each payment that Standish dished over, Egush would contemplate a new spin on his cost analysis.  What if he cut out the middle man?  What if he cut out Standish and took the parts to Standish's contact himself?  Or even hire someone, for 50 bucks, to do it?  The idea sounded preposterous to Egush, yet one afternoon after Standish picked up two bins of body parts, Egush tailed Standish.  Standish nearly lost him twice, and nearly spotted him once, but he finally lead Egush right to the location of his black market connection.  It was a large warehouse on the Westside in a predictably shady neighborhood.  Egush wrote down the address then drove away.  

He kept the address in his wallet, but it wasn't until this day, as he passed the pile of body parts, that he decided to test the waters for himself.  In his mind he could not help but calculate the price tag that such a pile would bring.  He had gotten to know Standish well enough to believe that Standish was low-balling him.  And today was the day to find out.  He just had to figure out how to get the bin out of his office without raising any suspicions.  Just then his head assistant came down the hall.  

"Your wife is here," she told him.

Egush thought he was hearing things.

"Who?"

"Your wife."

---

Brock gazed at the large bright red banner that hung from his office window: “On an average day in America there are 1,876 black babies aborted. Since 1973 there have been 50 million abortions in the U.S. African-American women have accounted for 40% of these abortions even though African-American women only make up 6% of the population in the U.S.  This means African-American women are nearly 7 times as likely as white women to have an abortion.  Over 80% of all abortion clinics are located in predominantly black neighborhoods.”

His organization, DOA (Democrats Opposing Abortion) had rented the office space in the plaza that shared a parking lot with the Woman's Advocate Health clinic.  From their second floor window they had a bird's eye view of the entrance to Egush-Patel's abortion clinic.  Brock and his team hung their banner so that anyone who walked in that parking lot (which meant anyone who exited the abortion clinic) would certainly see their banner.  It was prominent enough that hundreds of people would read it each day.

Brock was flanked by his two partners-in-crime, Charles Chabley and Deronda Butler.  The Glee-some Three-some, they called themselves.  They each wore a tiny, yellow pro-life button on their jackets, the one with a smiley face that had the phrase “smile, your mother chose life” encircling it.

“And so it begins,” Deronda joked.  

The Glee-some Three-some had been DOA's most effective unit in Chicago.  They had closed down three abortion clinics in the last 18 months.  The last one had taken less than 60 days.  As a team they had grown into a cohesive unit that could finish each other's sentences, know what the other was thinking, anticipate each other's moves.  Charles, who relished the role of the bad cop, also had a knack for grant writing and finding off-the-beaten-path sources for donations.  Deronda, who wore her heart on her sleeve, was deeply Christian and had a down-home, honest nature that always shone through.  She spoke with a matter-of-fact truthfulness that gave her an air of having been through it all and seen it all.  Low-income girls, especially black girls, connected with her immediately.  She was like a mother figure, like their own personal Oprah Winfrey.  She was dedicated to the cause, she put in the longest hours, did all the dirty work, filed papers, answered phones and she and was HIV positive.     

A fourth “unofficial” member of their unit was Paul, the "kid in the bowler hat".  Paul looked down from the upper window, ready to adjust the sign if Brock directed him to do so.  Brock waved to him, then gave him a "thumbs up".  Paul, who always wore a bowler hat, was a college student who joined the unit as an intern.  He was a video production whiz and Brock knew there was a very large chance that he would move past DOA and onto one of the high-salaried positions offered by some corporate suiter just as soon as his internship ended.  Brock's only chance to keep him was to convince him that his job was the most fun and most important thing in the world.  To do so, he gave Paul free reign.  Paul was producing a series of videos that would be shown on public access channels in over 30 major cities nation wide.  The videos documented the various conflicts with pro-choice folks that the Glee-some Three-some sought out.  The only rule Brock gave him was that he had to make the pro-choicers look like idiots - which given the tactics that the Glee-some Threesome developed was not very hard to do.  Ideally he wanted the pro-choicers to get so mad at him that they physically attacked him.  He wanted the camera to capture their rage and hatred.  He wanted to portray them as irrational kooks.

Two young black women exited the clinic, one was holding a baby.  A small child was trailing behind them.  As predicted the two women saw the three-some looking up at the banner and they slowed to glare at it.  Brock handed them a flyer announcing a meeting for 7 pm that evening.

"Well, I won't be attending that," the first woman declared.  "My views on abortion are not political; they're personal and as far as I'm concerned your views on abortion are null and void, because you do not have a uterus. Are we clear, sir?"

"I'm familiar with your argument, miss..."

The woman stared at him.  If Brock hadn't flashed her that slick smile of his, she probably would have slapped him.  Instead she conceded.  "My name is Holmita."

"Yes, this argument Holmita, that 'What a woman does with her own body is her business and hers alone' doesn't hold up, because by that same logic you could argue that if woman wants to blow her body up next to a school bus full of children, then that's okay, because its HER body. The thing with abortion is that it is not just her body she is affecting. It is that unborn baby, that living soul she is destroying.  

Holmita, had heard enough, "Look Jack, if you oppose abortion, then don't have one!"

"But that's like saying if you don't support killing people, then don't kill someone.  We have to do better than that."  Deronda could have stepped in at this point, she could always defend Brock's flank - but it thrilled her a bit to see the way Brock countered every aggressive attack with his unflappable certainty.  He was stone, he wasn't budging.  He could insult people right to their face, call them murders basically, but in such a cool, calm and confident manner that sometimes it was just better to sit back and admire.  

"We have laws that prevent people from killing other people Holmita," Brock continued.  "If we want to thrive and evolve as a race, that is something we must do.  We must protect the weak and we must celebrate life - not destroy it."

Holmita was steaming.  Boiling.  Brock could almost see the smoke blowing from her ears.  She had been played.  She grabbed the small child at her side, nearly jerking his hand off.  "You don't have to bring race into it, Asshole!" She yelled as she marched off.

Brock looked up at the banner again.  There was Paul, the boy in the bowler hat.  He had grabbed his video camera the second Brock handed Holmita the flyer.  He was too far away from Brock to have gotten much of a sound recording, but the confrontation and the gestures of Holmita were worth something.  The boy in the bowler hat thought about how he could insert a voice-over in the video and make it work.

At that moment, Donna Egush-Patel exited the clinic.  She had not informed Egush of her pregnancy like she had planned.  It was probably a bad idea to spring it on him at work.  He was preoccupied, busy - but she needed to tell him as soon as possible.  She couldn't hold it to herself a moment longer.  But inside the office was not the right place.  So she told him to meet her in the parking lot in fifteen minutes.  Fine, Egush thought, figuring that would give him time to sneak the baby parts out the back door, to where his SUV was parked.  As Donna left the building, Egush dismissed his receptionist and assistant, then put the baby part container on a dolly.  The container was basically a small cooler.  It reminded him of the dorm-room fridge he had in college as a freshman.  He rolled it out the back door and prepared to hoist it into the cargo carrier of his utility vehicle.  But the bin was too heavy.  

"Oh fuck," Egush muttered to himself.  He wasn't able to get the container into his vehicle... unless... "I'm gonna have to take the bags of body parts out of the container," he muttered to himself.  ",,, then I can throw the empty container into my vehicle and throw each bag back into it..."

---

             "Excuse me Miss," Brock smiled at Donna, who was walking nervously to her car.  He handed her the flyer as she slowed to glance his way.

"There is a discussion panel meeting this evening..." and then he recognized her.  And she recognized him.

"Brock?"  

It had been a decade.  They hadn't spoken since the abortion, literally.  He had not accompanied her to the clinic.  He called her afterward, but she didn't return his calls.  She never wanted to see him again.  But now here he was, right in front of her.

"Donna?  Are you..."  This was too weird.  The last time Brock saw her was when she told him she was going to the abortion clinic.  And now, ten years later, here she was coming out of an abortion clinic.  Brock didn't know whether she had the abortion or not all those years ago.  He had called her, tried contacting her friends and family, but...

"Are you pregnant?" he asked.

"Oh my god!" Donna cried, then ran off.  Paul, the kid in the bowler hat kept the camera rolling as Donna ran around to the side of the building, right to where Egush's SUV was parked.  There, she saw Egush literally holding a bag of aborted baby parts as she rushed up to him and declared, "Oh Egush, it's a baby!" as she wrapped herself in his arms. 

The blood in Egush's body left him as she clenched him.
"It's... it's..."  Egush stuttered until Donna interrupted.
"I'm pregnant!" she exclaimed.

Egush stared at her, noticing the flyer Brock had handed her just moments before.  She was still clenching it.

"We are having a baby," and he nodded at her.