“But . . .” I rubbed my eye.
“Girl, come here,” he said. He wrapped his arms around my neck and almost knocked my chair over, our clumsiness reminding me of just how young and clueless we all were. We were just stumbling our way through a situation that was the biggest event of our entire lives. But there was no denying that my love for those girls was genuine, inadequate and flawed as it may have been.
I pressed the picture to my chest. My girls. My little girls.
FORTY
On Wednesday of that week, Lou delivered a bombshell in court. “Your Honor, you have before you the pamphlet containing sterilization guidelines.”
A copy of the pamphlet lay open across my lap. Lou had given it to me the night before. Today was the first day he would be able to frame an argument around it. The government lawyers had theirs in binders. All originals. There were enough to go around.
“Your Honor, there were twenty-five thousand copies of this pamphlet printed. Twenty. Five. Thousand,” he repeated slowly. “Yet they remained in a warehouse, and, as a result, federally funded clinics across the country never received them.”
The judge peered at Lou over his glasses. “Were the guidelines replicated in any other material sent from HEW to the clinic?”
“Not to my knowledge, Your Honor. After the national media attention of India and Erica Williams, the twenty-five thousand copies of the printed guidelines were discovered in a federal warehouse on Third Street in Washington, DC.”
Lou emphasized Third Street with a dramatic flourish and waved a hand at the defense table as he said it. There was no doubt about it, at least in my mind: Distributing these guidelines could have prevented some of the sterilizations, though surely trained nurses and doctors did not need written instructions to tell them not to sterilize a minor.
I listened to the scratch of pencils on paper as I watched the judge’s face. The existence of the guidelines proved that the federal government was at least aware of the potential for abuse and understood the clinics’ need for a set of standard practices on the issue. The fact that the clinics never received those pamphlets meant that the government had doled out money and then negligently failed to provide guidance on how the money was to be utilized.
Sometimes it was hard to hear in the courtroom, but other times you could hear someone’s stomach growling. The Washington lawyers likely believed they were at a disadvantage, coming down here to unfamiliar territory where the judge had the same accent as the opposing lawyer.
Then again, if anyone was at a disadvantage in this whole mess, it was my girls. The system was not designed for poor people to win. To his credit, the judge ran a careful trial. He listened intently, never asking anyone to repeat themselves. He made a lot of notes and at the end of each day thanked everyone politely. I looked over at the court reporter, a sallow-faced woman. Every day she wore a different floral dress, and today she was wearing one with daisies. The keys of her machine thumped softly. The bailiff’s face was reddened from the sun and sweat stained the armpits of his shirt despite the draftiness of the courtroom. The radiators ticked softly when they fired up.
“Mr. Feldman. Is your witness ready?”
“Yes, Your Honor. I would like to call Dr. Lance Paasch.”
A man rose from the pew and passed through the aisle. After being sworn in, he sat in the seat to the judge’s left.
“Please state your name and position for the record.”
“My name is Lance Paasch. I am the former branch chief of the Family Planning Division of the Office of Economic Opportunity.”
“Thank you.”
Lou walked out from behind his table. “Mr. Paasch, is it correct that you are the author of these . . . sterilization guidelines?” Lou held up the pamphlet.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you wrote these guidelines in your official capacity as branch chief?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Were you instructed to write them?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who ordered you to carry out this task?”
“The deputy director of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, or HEW as we call it.”
“What is his name?”
“Anthony Marcus, sir.”
“And do you know why you were asked to write these guidelines?”
“Objection, Your Honor. Counsel is asking the witness to speculate on another person’s motivations.”
“I am simply asking about Department policy, Your Honor.”
“Overruled. Please answer the question,” said the judge.
“We created a new policy in 1971 that allowed us to fund voluntary sterilization services. We needed guidelines to implement the new policy, and my division was tasked with developing the guidelines.”
“How long did it take you to complete the guidelines?”
“It took a few months. We began in summer 1971 and they were written by Christmas. I remember because I visited my mother for the holidays.” He turned to the judge and smiled.
“Once the guidelines were finished, did you send them to the appropriate agencies?”
“Well, we sent a letter to all the community action agencies, asking them to withhold funding for sterilization services until the guidelines could be approved and issued.”
“And did the agencies wait?”
“I don’t know. The guidelines were approved by Deputy Director Marcus on . . .” He held up a piece of paper to read. “January 10, 1972. It took another month to print them up and get them ready for distribution. But then my division got a note that they needed to be approved by the White House.”
“By the White House? You mean by the president?”
I leaned forward in my seat. I had suspected that these government projects could be traced all the way to the top. I had told Lou as much, too.
“Well, I have no way of knowing whether or not the president himself was personally involved in the matter, sir.”
“Did you have communication with the White House during this period?”
“Yes, I reached out to the White House staff several times over the course of about four months. Finally, I got ahold of the White House legal counsel’s office to find out what the holdup was, but instead of information I received a reprimand. So I resigned.”
“A reprimand?” Lou said, acting surprised.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why did you resign?”
Mr. Paasch hesitated. He glanced over at the government lawyers, then back at Lou. “I resigned because I was concerned that this delay was creating a dangerous and urgent situation.”
“What do you mean? Didn’t you write the agencies and ask them to hold off on sterilizations until you could distribute the information?”
“Yes, we did, but I was still concerned the surgeries were happening and that they would be undertaken without patients being given adequate counseling.”
“You were concerned that they would not be able to give informed consent?”
“Objection, Your Honor. Leading the witness.”
“Sustained. Please rephrase your question, Mr. Feldman.”
Lou spoke slowly. “Why were you concerned enough about this issue to resign, Mr. Paasch?”
“I was concerned about a lot of things. Sterilization was becoming a political issue in the administration. It was an election year.”