False Choice.(Review)

Protect and Defend, by Richard North Patterson (Knopf, 549 pp., $26.95)

Never let it be said that American publishers won't take a risk for a good cause. In fact they are quite happy to do so in support of political liberalism. Richard North Patterson's new novel (his eleventh) is a fine example, involving abortion, the political use of private peccadilloes, campaign-finance reform, and the confirmation process for presidential appointees. The book's first hardcover printing comprises 500,000 copies, making it an instant bestseller, and Random House, the megapublisher that owns Knopf, is promoting it heavily. The book recycles prominent characters from Patterson's other popular legal thrillers, which also helps its marketability.

Of course, such complex and controversial topics can be expected to alienate numerous readers, so the publisher has hastened to assure us that Protect and Defend does not take sides. The review in Booklist agreed with that assessment, and Kirkus Reviews called the author's treatment "generous," while Publishers Weekly lauded his "sensitivity to both sides." But while these official sources promote the book as ideologically balanced, the back-cover endorsements-including raves from Alan Dershowitz, Amy Tan, Archibald Cox, Mario Cuomo, and Barbara Boxer-strongly suggest otherwise.

Indeed, as might be expected from this list, the book is less fair than the average political press release. In Patterson's story, a young, newly elected president, the attractive, charismatic, and shrewd Kerry Kilcannon, takes office amid tragedy when the chief justice of the United States (a sworn enemy of the new president's liberal judicial philosophy) dies while administering the oath. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a young, ambitious lawyer named Sarah Dash takes up the case of Mary Ann Tierney, a 15-year-old girl who is unmarried and pregnant with a hydrocephalic baby and wants to abort it without her parents' consent. There is also a small risk that undergoing a cesarean section, which would be necessary if she were to have the baby, will make her unable to bear children in the future. Just four months earlier, however, Congress had passed the Protection of Life Act, which the previous president (a pragmatic Democrat) signed and is now the law of the land. Under this sinister (but of course entirely fictional) edict, Sarah explains, "You need the consent of a parent before aborting a viable fetus. And even their consent must be based on a doctor's 'informed medical judgment' that an abortion is necessary."

These two stories are linked by a coincidence highly favorable to the author's purposes: The judge Kilcannon nominates to be the next chief justice, Caroline Masters, is Sarah Dash's close friend and legal mentor. Although the ambitious Judge Masters has never given an opinion-public or private-on abortion, she is known as a liberal, "living Constitution" jurist; and with the Republican senatorial majority already opposing her, the judge's relationship with Sarah threatens to scuttle her chances of becoming the first female chief justice. By another very convenient coincidence, young Mary Ann is the daughter of a prominent pro-life attorney who becomes lead counsel in the legal action to prevent her from obtaining an abortion-opposing his own daughter in court.

In the ensuing parallel abortion-rights trial and confirmation battle, Patterson, a lawyer by training, creates the impression of objectivity by giving both sides time to present their cases. Nevertheless, he always contrives to give the last word to the pro-abortion camp and Masters's supporters. In the courtroom scenes, for example, Sarah, an inexperienced litigator less than 30 years old, invariably gets in the last shot and turns every witness to her advantage, despite Sarah's opponents' far greater legal expertise. This motif further strains the story's credibility by repeatedly requiring her opponents and their witnesses to commit huge blunders and forget to make well-known arguments.

Perhaps the most ridiculous example occurs when Sarah cross-examines a wheelchair-bound bioethicist who opposes the abortion of children who may have disabilities. Sarah exposes him as hypocritical because he does not oppose all abortions, only those of children with disabilities, which would perversely allow mothers to abort healthy children while requiring them to carry to term those most likely to be born with genetic problems. What Patterson fails to explain, however, is why the pro-life attorneys did not bother to find a bioethicist who opposes all abortions. The answer, of course, is that Sarah would not be able to counter his arguments so easily.