Right to Life
Ardy
Published by Ardybooks at Smashwords
Copyright 2012

This free ebook remains the copyrighted material of the author. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

Matthew and Kristine Smith sat anxiously in the waiting room. Although they had expected this to be a routine appointment, one they had arranged weeks in advance as part of Kristine’s prenatal care, what the doctor had said the night before when Matthew called to confirm the appointment had made for a sleepless night and a very anxious morning.
“There is something I would like to discuss with you, Mr. Smith,” Dr. Turner had told him after the pleasantries and confirmation were out of the way.
“What is it?” Matthew had asked. “Is there something wrong with the baby?”
“No, no,” Dr. Turner replied. Too quickly, Matthew thought. “No, the baby is healthy. No physical abnormalities were found.” 
“Then what is it, Doctor?” Matthew had asked. Kristine heard the panic in his voice from the kitchen and came into Matthew’s home office to see what was wrong.
“It’s something I would rather discuss with you and your wife in person,” the doctor said. “I hope you’ll be accompanying her tomorrow?”
“I will be now!” Matthew said.
“Good,” the doctor replied. “I’ll see you then.”
“Doctor, wait!” Matthew said. “You have to tell me something! Is there a problem with the baby? …Or Kristine?”
“No, Matthew,” the doctor said. “You can calm down. I assure you that there is nothing wrong with your baby or your wife. They are both perfectly healthy physically. I foresee no problems at all with the pregnancy or the delivery.”
Matthew could tell from the doctor’s tone and his guarded responses that there was some sort of problem and that the doctor wasn’t going to tell him over the phone. He didn’t want to push things, or to cause his wife, who was standing wide-eyed and pale-faced in the doorway, to panic. He knew worry wasn’t good for the baby she was just four months from delivering. He hung up the phone, told his wife as much as he knew, telling her not to panic. And the two of them spent the night holding each other and staring at the ceiling.
One of the many things that crossed Matthew’s mind as he lay there was that on their last visit to the doctor a month ago he had run all sorts of tests on both Kristine and the fetus. The doctor was vague about what most of them were, but he did say that recent advances in genetics and prenatal care had allowed medical science to discover more about a developing fetus than ever before.
Matthew looked at the bulge in his wife’s belly and wondered of those tests had revealed something about the baby that would have caused the grave concern that he thought he had heard in Dr. Turner’s voice.
Was  he just imagining it, or during their phone conversation had Dr. Turner hesitated when he said that Kristine and the bay were both healthy…physically? Could the tests reveal a mental problem?
As he and his wife sat in the waiting room just twelve hours later, he was still wondering.
He looked at the clock. 9:45 a.m. Still fifteen minutes to go. As slowly as time had seemed to drag since the phone call, those fifteen minutes would seem more like fifteen years.\
“Matt,” Kristine said, grasping his hand with both of hers, “what do you think is wrong?”
Oddly, the two of them had barely discussed the baby at all since the phone call. Kristine said it would only worry her to do so, even thought Matthew couldn’t imagine either of them worrying any more than they already were. Apparently, Kristine was ready to talk now.
“I don’t know,” her told her. “The doctor said there was nothing physically wrong with either you or the baby.”
“That means that there’s something wrong mentally,” she said. “Doesn’t it?”
“Not necessarily.”
“It’s retarded or something,; she said. She started to cry.
“Kris, stop it,” Matthew said. “Don’t jump to conclusions. Besides, we discussed this months ago, remember? If there’s something wrong with the baby, we’ll raise it anyway, love it no matter what.”
“I know, I know,” she said. “But it’s easy to say that when you don’t believe that there’s going to be a problem, isn’t it? Months ago I decided that we’d keep the baby no matter what. But I never thought something would actually be wrong. I mean, what were the chances?”
“So what?” Matthew asked. “If there’s something wrong, what are we going to do? Put it up for adoption? Or… or maybe have an…”
“An abortion,” she said.
They looked at each other for a long moment. The word hung in the air. It was the first time that either of them had ever mentioned abortion as an option. They were both staunchly pro life, Kristine even more so than Matthew. He had always believed in an exception for rape or incest, until he had met Kristine and found out that she was a product of rape herself. Kristine’s mother, a Catholic, had kept her even though she was conceived through a vicious rape when she was fifteen. She had loved Kristine and raised her with certain values, including a belief that every child deserved a chance at life, no matter what.
Matthew had always believed that the two of them were the least likely people ever to consider abortion as an option. But Kristine was right. It was so much easier to reject abortion based on fine sounding arguments when they were abstract possibilities and what-if scenarios. This, however, was a concrete reality. He could hardly believe that even an unconfirmed possible complication would cause him and his wife to utter a word that they had always equated with murder.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I’m sure that it won’t come to that. If the baby is retarded, then it’s God’s will, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Kristine said. “I know. And we both agreed even before we were married that abortion would never be an option. I mean, it’s murder right?”
“Right,” Matthew said. “Absolutely!”
“But still…”
He looked at her for a long while, seeing the torment in her eyes and knowing that she saw the same in his.
“But still.”
He gripped her hand in both of his and they watched the remaining minutes tick away on the waiting room clock.
The clock passed ten and kept on going and the doctor didn’t come out, nor were they called to go in. Even thought the Smiths had never had a doctor’s appointment that started exactly on time, the two minutes and forty-five seconds after ten that they were forced to wait only added to their worry.
Finally, a young woman emerged from the back and went to the receptionist desk to pay her bill and Dr. Turner came out a moment later. He smiled when he saw them, but Matthew saw it as a reassuring smile, and he had found that reassuring smiles were rarely reassuring.
“Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” he said. “Come on back to room three. I’m just going to retrieve your file and I’ll be right there to see you.”
And so, instead of anxiously waiting in the waiting room, they spent the next two minutes waiting in room three. When the doctor came in with a manila folder, Matthew had to refrain from jumping up from his chair and shaking the man, demanding to know what was wrong with his child.
“Good morning,” the doctor said as he sat down across from them with their file on his lap.
“Can we do without the small talk, Doctor,” Matthew almost barked.
“Yes, of course,” Dr. Turner said. “I’m sorry if I worried you last night.”
“Just tell us what’s wrong with our baby,” Kristine said, almost pleading.
“Your baby is perfectly healthy, Mrs. Smith,” the doctor replied. “As are you. No physical defects at all.”
“Or mental?” Matthew asked. “It is retarded?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” the doctor said. “In fact, our tests show the child to be quite intelligent.”
“The tests can show that?” Matthew asked.
“Oh, yes!” the doctor said. “And they can also tell us… other things.”
“What sort of things?” Kristine demanded.
“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Dr. Turner said. “But please, remain calm. This could take a while to explain.”
Matthew and Kristine braced themselves for the worst and the doctor began, opening their file for reference, but rarely so much as glancing at it.
“As you both know from our last visit, medical science has had some great advancements in recent years, especially in the field of genetics. Two years ago scientists in Germany analyzed a sample of saliva from somebody here in the United States. They were given absolutely no information about this person, but through genetic tests were able to rightly determine that he was a thirty-six year old man, heterosexual, half Japanese, one quarter white, one quarter Mexican, and they even predicted his height, his weight within five pounds, and that he had slightly wavy and thinning hair.”
“What does this have to do with us?” Matthew asked.
“Well,” Doctor Turner continued, “geneticists are finding new genes every day, genes for obesity, height, hair and eye color, sexual orientation, addictions, allergies, athletic abilities, intelligence, even some that determine what a person’s favorite food will be.”
Matthew and Kristine exchanged glances. They had heard all this before. People had been arguing for years that a person’s genes determined who or what they would be more than any other single factor. It was almost as if they had no choice whatsoever. Now, science had seemed to prove the genetics argument, claiming to have stopped any discussion about things ranging from addiction to homosexuality.
The Smiths were both Christians and both believed in free will and personal choice. The genetic argument held little water with them. They considered it merely a scientific version of the doctrine of Predestination, which neither of them held to either. But, even as Matthew considered this, he realized that, like with the arguments against abortion, things changed when the abstract became concrete.
Doctor Turner went on:
“Recently, government mandates have led to the genetic testing of every developing fetus. If there is going to be a problem with a child, or even a perceived problem, considering some people’s beliefs, it was determined that the child’s parents be made aware ahead of time so as the allow them time to make certain… decisions.”
“About whether or not to keep the baby?” Kristine asked.
“Yes,” the doctor replied. “Or about any accommodations, schooling, preventive measures, even some genetic correction, if possible. The government protects your right to choose, but they want parents and their doctors to make more educated choices.”
“So,” Matthew said, “this is the point where you tell us what you found when testing our baby. To help us make our educated choice.”
The doctor merely nodded and turned over a paper in the file.
“There was a gene found in your fetus,” he said. “A very rare gene, only recently classified. We have only been able to identify this gene in less than one percent of the population.”
“What is it?” Kristine asked.
“In laymen’s terms,” Dr, Turner said, “violence.”
“Violence?” the Smiths said in unison.
“Yes,” the doctor said. “Very extreme violence. I’m not talking about a person who will get into lots of fights or abuse his wife and children. This gene causes much worse things than that.”
“How much worse?” Matthew asked.
“Well,” the doctor cleared his throat, “the gene was discovered by analyzing an old DNA sample from Adolph Hitler.”
“Dear God!” Matthew sighed.
“That sample was cross checked with those of serial killers and mass murderers on death row and with offender DNA samples at brutal crime scenes. It was found in almost every single case of extreme cruelty, brutal torture, or mass murder, and has yet to be found in any other person.”
“So you’re telling us that our baby is some kind of monster?” Kristine asked.
The doctor seemed unsure how to respond. He put the file down on the table next to him.
“I’m telling you,” he said slowly, “that your baby has a gene that, according to every genetic expert on the planet, guarantees extreme violence. There is a ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent chance that your child, at best, will become a brutal killer.”
The statement hung in the air for a while, the same way that the word “abortion” had earlier. Matthew held tightly to his wife’s hand while he tried to process all that he had just heard. Images of the Holocaust, Klan rallies, and cannibalistic serial killers filled his mind. His blood seemed to have dropped fifty degrees.
“What about choice?” he asked at last. “Lot’s of people have violent tendencies and  never act on them.”
“Violent tendencies, yes,” Dr. Turner said, “but not this gene. By all scientific reasoning, your child will be a psychopath. He may be able to control himself for a while, but sooner or later his violent nature will take over, and then only God knows what the terrible result will be. There will be no controlling it. Most likely, many people will die at his hands, and he’ll end up in prison, locked down, and sentenced to die.”
Matthew could hardly breathe. He didn’t know what to say or think. He had never bought into the new theory of genetic precursors, at least not to the extreme recent “discoveries” had seemed to predict. In fact, just a week earlier he had had a heated discussion with a coworker about homosexuality’s supposed genetic roots. He knew that he had come across sounding ignorant and even a little bigoted, especially to his coworker, who was a self-professed atheist and seemed to take a sadistic pleasure in arguing with Matthew. He wondered how the conversation would play out now that the person in question was his own flesh and blood.
His own flesh and blood. Which meant…
“Wait a minute, Doctor,” he started. “Where did this gene come from, me or Kristine?”
“Neither,” the doctor replied. “Or both. This is a new science, Mr. Smith. We don’t know exactly where it came from. It’s possible that you or your wife carry the gene in some dormant form. Maybe both of you, and the combination of your DNA somehow activated it in your child. But it is active in your child. Of that there is no question.”
An uncomfortable silence followed. Matthew could only guess  at what his wife was thinking. Ever since she had learned she was pregnant she had almost unconsciously rubbed her belly, as if comforting and caressing the child inside. Since last night’s phone call the rubbing had been almost obsessive. She’d fallen asleep holding the bulge that was her baby. Now her hands were both on the arms of her chair, as if the thing growing inside of her was too dirty to touch.
He himself was searching his past for any indication of violence in him or in his family. He couldn’t recall anything worse in his past than tearing the wings off of flies, but he did have a great uncle who had done time for attempted murder. From what Matthew could remember, the details were nowhere near as extreme as the violence described by Doctor Turner. But it did make Matthew wonder.
“I know that this is difficult for you,” the doctor went on. “You both made it very clear to me early on how you felt about abortion.”
“That’s right,” Kristine said, trying to sound firm in her convictions and failing miserably. “We believe life is sacred. Every person deserves a chance to live.”
She looked to her husband who nodded emphatically, but was already expecting the doctor’s next words. He was thinking the same thing.
“I understand,” the doctor said, “and normally, I would agree with you. I’m pro life myself, though admittedly  not as… concrete as you are. But I have to ask you about the other lives, the ones who may be killed if your child is allowed to live. How many people could die because of your pro life convictions?”
“We could stop him,” Matthew said. “We could be on the lookout for any violent behavior and steer him away from it. We could get him counseling, instill him with good moral values. We’ll even tell him about the genetic situation so that he’ll know what he’s up against.”
“It might work for a short while,” the doctor replied. “But, as I’ve said, his violent nature will almost certainly take over. In order to stop him, you’ll have to put him into an institution, where he’ll have to be strapped down and drugged, fed through a tube, little more than a vegetable. What sort of life is that?”
Kristine grabbed Matthew’s hand. She was crying. He looked over at her, then down at her growing belly, then back to Doctor Turner.
“Doctor, can you give us a moment?”
“Of course,” the doctor said, standing. “But let me tell you, nobody can force you to do anything about this. Thank God the government hasn’t stepped in to control which babies can live and which should die. At least not yet. The choice is yours. I can only ask you to make the right one.”
“Are you a praying man, Doctor?” Kristine asked him as he reached the door.
“Yes,” he said. “And you don’t even have to ask. I’ve been praying for you since I got your test results.”
With that, the doctor left Matthew and Kristine alone. As soon as the door was closed behind him, Kristine let out a loud sob and fell into Matthew’s arms. Had the armrests of their chairs not been between them, she probably would have crawled into his lap like a hurt or frightened child. He held her like that for nearly a minute, his shirt soaking with her tears. He wasn’t crying, but he knew he soon would be.
“Oh God, Matt,” she sobbed. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said, rubbing her back, the way he had imagined rubbing his baby’s  back in a few months.
“We can’t kill our baby,’ she said. Her voice was full of doubt and the statement that should have come out as a firm declaration was more of a question. He as going to say something, he had no idea what, and stopped. This wasn’t the time to spew some nonsense like, “It’s going to be okay,” or, “We’ll figure it out,” or even, “God will guide us.” That last one sounded more clichéd and naïve than the others for some reason. He hated himself for thinking so, but what sort of God would create somebody who was destined to cause pain to others. How did a man destined to be a violent murdered fit into God’s plan?
The doctor had mentioned Hitler. This brought to his mind something even more clichéd than anything else racing through the storm his mind had become: the old philosophical question of whether or not you’d kill Hitler if you had the chance. He had always hated stupid questions like that and had never given them any serious thought. But now he had been presented with a real life scenario with real life consequences and a real life choice to make. He had the chance to stop a killer like Hitler before he had the chance to hurt anybody.
As he was thinking that another thought came to mind. At church that Sunday their pastor had said that a man’s choices, especially the choice to surrender to God, determined his destiny. He had even brought up Adolf Hitler. Saying that had he made certain other choices, he could have been an amazing preacher and evangelist. His abilities and his gifts, his qualities of leadership and emphatic public speaking could have been used to advance God’s kingdom instead of Satan’s.
But was that true? Could Hitler have become a man of God? Did he even have a choice, or was his fate determined by an unfortunate combination of certain genes? 
Matthew didn’t know. He was not sure of anything. It was amazing how your entire foundation of beliefs could be shattered by one so-called scientific discovery. 
“What are we going to do, Matt?” Kristine asked him, her face still buried in his chest.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I wish to God I knew, but I don’t.”
She pulled back from him and looked at him with swollen, wet eyes. A line from an old song came to him. Something about seeing his unborn children in her eyes. Her hands were once again on her belly, a sign which said more to him than any words could have.
Then she smiled, a sad, tired, but genuine smile. She took his hand and placed it over her abdomen.
“Matt,” she said as he felt the movement. “Our baby is kicking.”

Afterward:
Although there are some sci-fi elements, and even a little bit of what could be called horror, this is admittedly different from the other works I have published here. I found this story sitting in a notebook and knew that I had to publish it. Writing it made me think a lot about my own beliefs and convictions.