Saturday's Warrior
"Of course not," he said. "If I thought that, then I would think that I was an accomplice or an accessory or something. I wouldn't bring you all the way here to commit a murder."
"But that's what people say," I said.
"Look," he said. "No one knows when the spirit enters the body. Look at the play we're in. In it, the spirits don't go down from the pre-existence until birth. At one point in the play, the mom has a miscarriage of the body that was intended for little Emily, yet Emily is okay to try again later. I know that seeing it in a Mormon play isn't the same as it being doctrine, but at least it shows there's some leeway for different interpretations."
"That's a good point," I said.
"I don't know all of the theology behind it," he said, "but on a gut level I just can't see this as being the same thing as killing a person, especially at this very early stage."
"Thank you," I said. His words made sense, but I couldn't escape the feeling that I was somehow fallen and tainted and evil and that no amount of repentance would ever restore me. My mind was full of darkness and monsters as I fell asleep.
When we got up in the morning it was time for the appointment, the real one this time. It turned out to be less of a big deal than I'd expected. the clinic was now familiar, and the doctor himself was sympathetic.
He gave me a pill to take and some water. He said that that would render it "non-viable" which seemed to be a nice technical euphemism for killing it.
I thought to myself how I'd already decided and it was too late to change my mind now as I took the pill. I repeated to myself that this was my grace period.
Then the doctor gave me some pills to insert twenty-four hours later and a rubber glove to do it. He also gave me some painkillers to take on the same day. After that, the counselor came in to check on me one last time to make sure I was okay, and that was it, we were free to go.
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