by Mary Carter
THE WOMB BOMBER
Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23
Squatting on the Washington Mall, Rose was able to see straight up Jenny Lemke's nostrils. They were kidney-shaped and sooo pink—but then never before (Rose realized as she focused the camera) had she spent so much time concentrating on the underside of another person's nose. In fact, if you stared at a human nose long enough, it stopped looking human at all, or even animal. What came to mind was a begonia stem: waxy and tuberous and luminescent.
A few feet away from Jenny Lemke, a tall woman was giving a speech to the loose crowd of Fetal Rights supporters. She stood with her back to the rope—a thin, pale woman with a heart-shaped face and black hair pulled back in a French braid. Her voice trembled as she spoke.
"The message I want to send out today to the people who insist that it's OK to abort America's precious babies, is that George Washington would roll over in his grave if he knew what was happening in the country he fought to make free!"
"Amen, Sibyl," shouted a grey-haired woman, waving an "FRL" banner over her head. "You preach it to them."
The speaker turned and shook her finger toward the United for Choice bandstand 50 yards down the field. "Abraham Lincoln would hang his head in shame," she went on, "if he knew what was happening beneath the Washington Monument today! Some people claim that in America, it should be a woman's right to choose. But how can we the people allow one American the choice to take the life of another American—without even a trial or a judge or a jury?" She put her hands together in a gesture of prayer. "People, some of you are for capital punishment. I personally happen to be against it. But either way, how can we allow precious babies to be put to death without due process? That is what is happening in this country. Sweet, innocent children, every day, are given capital punishment without a trial, for no reason that is just, and in ways more cruel than anything even allowed for criminals—in ways that even many liberal, pro-abortion people say are barbaric and inhumane. How can we allow this? Doesn't the plight of these precious babies stir our hearts? How long can we look upon this sea of troubles without taking arms to oppose them?" She separated her hands and held them over the crowd. "Oh God," she said, turning her face toward the sun but closing her eyes, "we ask that you deliver the children. Deliver the children! Oh, God, deliver them!"
Rose glanced back to Jenny Lemke, who hovered nearby with her arms crossed and her mouth straight.
"What do we ask?" screeched Sibyl, looking back down at the human faces around her.
"Freedom!" they shouted back.
"What does freedom mean?"
"The right to be born!"
"Who are we?"
"Precious babies!"
She clapped. "Come on, let's all shout it. What do we ask?"
"Freedom!"
"Come on everybody now. What does freedom mean?"
"The right to be born!"
"Who are we?"
"Precious babies!"
"Yes! Yes! Amen! Thank you, Lord!"
The Fetal Rights crowd cheered and shook their posterboard signs: Stop Abortion Now, You Save Baby Whales but Kill Baby Humans, The Supreme Court will answer to a Higher Court. Rose turned her camera on an elderly black woman, clicked and swung around to a young man holding hands with a couple of little girls. She clicked again. The children's faces were red in the heat. The smaller one had a ring of chocolate around her lips.
"Thank you," Sibyl said. "Oh thank you, and bless you. Our numbers may be small today, but remember Joshua and the walls of Jericho. We will lead the little children out of Egypt. We will bring down Roe v. Wade. God is on our side—"
Suddenly there was a loud sprooiiinnngg and a high-pitched whine from the PA system downfield. An electric guitar thrummed once and then drums came in with a bass and piano. A roar arose from the sea of marchers around the United for Choice bandstand.
Rose stood up for a better view: a line of people in white t-shirts and blue jeans were filing onstage—dancing, smiling, holding out their hands to the crowd. The marchers howled and jumped up with their arms out, as if begging the people on the bandstand to jump down. Rose fumbled in her bag for the telephoto lens.
"We're gonna march, children, what's that sound? You say Roe v. Wade ain't coming down?"
Sibyl's mouth kept moving. "Don't listen to Hollywood!" Rose heard her yell, but the words were lost.
"Do you see who that is over there?" shouted a big-nosed, short-haired woman right into Rose's ear. She was holding an "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart" sign.
"No, who is it?"
"It's the whole cast of St. Terry's."
"What's that?"



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