I stood in the back of the packed courtroom surveying the room where I had sat for the past month listening to evidence. Each day for four weeks, the jury had routinely passed in front of me, taking their seats across the room. Now, as they filed by me for the final time, my eyes settled on the judge waiting to read their decision.
The verdict is in. Dr. John Biskind is guilty of manslaughter. On February 20, eight jurors agreed with Arizona state prosecutors that Dr. Biskind “recklessly caused the death of LouAnne Heron,” showing a “conscious disregard of substantial risk” involved in her late term abortion.
The question of guilt has been settled. One month of carefully crafted questions and witness testimony created a clear picture of a young woman bleeding to death while young medical assistants worked without the expert medical direction they needed to save her life. Prosecutors were thorough. They questioned everyone involved, covering every facet of LouAnne’s surgery and the events of the day she died.
Yet, with the verdict now in, questions remain–questions unanswered because they were never asked. Judge Michael Wilkinson carefully focused the trial on the death of LouAnne Heron, restricting the scope of questions that could be asked. Abortion is an explosive topic, and he made it clear that abortion was not on trial.
Oddly, though, Judge Wilkinson’s instructions and the restraint they placed on prosecutors Paul Ahler and Susan Brnovich cast a steady, unmistakable light onto abortion. For one brief moment in time, from the witness box, one person after another gave witness to the many truths about abortion, truths suppressed and ignored in a culture where abortion has been redefined as choice.
The trial began with intense testimony from the paramedics responding to the 911 call who found LouAnne Heron already dead. Medical assistants, nurses, and technicians, each in their turn, then went through the events of the day leading to the arrival of the paramedics. Six carefully cropped photographs from the autopsy illustrated the source of her bleeding. LouAnne died as the result a two-inch uterine tear caused by a metal instrument used during an abortion performed at 23 to 26 weeks of pregnancy.
Bit by bit the prosecutors built a mountain of evidence that Dr. Biskind recklessly caused LouAnne’s death. Every witness, and every bit of testimony held the complete attention of people in the courtroom. And while limitations constrained the discussion on abortion, one by one, testimony revealed the truth about the medical procedure called choice.
Witnesses were obliged to describe the abortion procedure that led to LouAnne’s death. Jenil Begay, a medical assistant, described taking ultrasounds, showing us where to measure the “baby’s head,” across the forehead, above the facial features.
Expert witness Dr. Finberg gave classroom lessons in neonatal ultrasound. We learned that determining the age of a fetus becomes more difficult as time passes, as the baby grows. Like people, babies are each individual. And like people, they grow uniquely. If even more accuracy is needed to determine gestational age, doctors can average measurements of the distance around the head and stomach, the length of the femur leg bone, and the baby’s foot.
All of this was familiar to the mothers and fathers in the courtroom. It was the “stuff of life”—a retelling of their own trips to the doctor, mapping the growth in their own babies and children.
Yet, this was a trial involving abortion. What caused the death of LouAnne Heron? Dr. Brown the medical examiner who performed the autopsy described the tear of the uterus caused by a metal part. Lawyers questioned her. Was she familiar with abortion? “Yes,” she replied. Dr. Brown had witnessed the “products of conception” during her residency.
I blinked and sat up straight. Dr. Brown’s use of the term “products” jarred me into attention. With the choice of a word, all evidence of the humanity of the fetus disappeared.
Witnesses had spent the better part of two weeks describing in detail how to measure the fetus. We became familiar with the thalamus and twin hemispheres of the fetal brain, the inside and outside parts of the skull, the femur, feet, and abdomen. Now this developing baby was a “product.”
A doctor may call the fetus a “product.” But eventually, compelled by the need for truth in a trial, he must explain that the teeth on the forceps need to be strong enough to grab the product by the “arms and legs.” A “product” older than 20 weeks has a head and spine “large enough that they generally have to be crushed to be removed.” And while we are locked in a violent image of what is happening to the fetus, we are reminded of the other victim—the woman.
Dr. Sidney Wechsler agreed that abortion at 24 weeks of pregnancy is a very “violent” surgery. “The larger the uterus is, the more fragile it is.” The soft tissue of the uterus can be punctured by the metal instruments used in the abortion. Or it’s possible, the doctor explained, to grasp a femur “and pull it out crossways,” causing a laceration to the uterus. A veteran reporter opened her eyes in surprise and turned to look at me. “Did you know all this?” she silently asked.
It was no small wonder that expert witness Dr. Carl Hoffman, hired to testify on behalf of Dr. Biskind, continued apologizing to the jury, “I’m sorry. It sounds gross, I know.” But what good were his apologies when a short time later, using a medical picture of the uterus, he pointed to the “upper uterus where the baby lives.”
Maybe we should all be witness to a trial involving abortion. It is impossible to hold onto our ignorance in a court of law where witnesses are sworn to tell the truth–all of it. For a doctor who is telling the jury how to decide the proper size forceps needed to pull pieces of fetus through the cervix, there is very little leeway for sidestepping the truth. And while we can talk about the fetus in a mysterious third person vagueness, as a “product,” we can’t get off the witness stand until we describe how pieces of the crushed skull from the “product” can cut the tissue in the soft uterus of the woman.
The prosecutors were scrupulous in following the judge’s instructions. He required that they demonstrate how a doctor mishandled the abortion surgery without inflaming the sympathies of the jury for the fetus. He made the rules tough.
Yet, paradoxically, the restraint of the prosecutors and witnesses in avoiding opinions and sticking to the surgical details seemed to heighten the impact and awareness that abortion affects life. It affects two lives, in dramatic and serious ways.
This might be a lesson pro-life people can take away from the Dr. Biskind trial. Outside the politics of abortion, with the accusations, the insults, the tirades, and passion—in the quiet of a courtroom where the complete unvarnished truth of facts rises above passion—perhaps this is where we can truly change people’s hearts about abortion.
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“Biskind Verdict: Witness to a Prosecution,” Arizona Citizen, May, 2001, pp. 2-3.
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