Thanks for Reading…

Last night I published my first work of fiction on Medium, The Emergency Room Lawyer (https://medium.com/@stan20881-56127/the-emergency-room-lawyer-8732b4501b74). Thanks to those of you who took the time to read it and even more to those who gave me feedback. It is much appreciated.

This story came to me when the draft ruling overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked and I started writing it not long after the actual ruling. It actually took much less time than I imagined for the horror stories to emerge, the ten year old rape victim in Ohio, the woman forced to carry a dead child in Louisiana, others that attracted the attention of our fickle press.

Doubtless, there are thousands we have not heard about, horror stories, stories of misery and despair, women who will bear the child, try to manage their own abortions, or injure or poison themselves. As I was writing, I remembered the story I had read long ago in Freakonomics about the correlation between crime and abortion. The story goes that crime dropped in states that legalized abortion before Roe v. Wade was law, then dropped nation-wide some years after that. The examples of Romania and Sweden were also cited: In Romania, abortion was made illegal and crime increased some years later. Sweden made the decision to ensure every child was wanted and cared for, and did not see the increase in crime.

I wanted to write about people affected by the ruling who were not pregnant and seeking an abortion. Burgess, the lawyer, is deeply affected to the point it has given him an ulcer. Dr. Mayes is an exhausted emergency room physician, overworked due to the flight of physicians from the state. The women are almost cutouts intentionally — it was not their story. Initially, Burgess was supposed to be a hard-ass but he would not cooperate. He has to advise as he does on the first case of the night to protect the hospital. He has a choice on the remaining cases.

I sincerely hope nothing like this happens, that we come to our collective senses and see abortion as a medical procedure, appropriate, useful, and ultimately the choice of the woman. I fear we will not, as Republican legislatures race to become the most abortion-restrictive. And my beloved Colorado is one election away from being in the same condition as Indiana.

Again, thanks for reading. If you like what you’ve read, follow me or like what I’ve written. And if you take the time to write something about the story, I appreciate that even more.