"Or to have screwball ideas. Anyway, people who think like you are on the losing side. The trend is to make abortion easier; eventually, maybe, wide open and legal."
"If it happens," Harris said, "we'll be a backward step nearer the Auschwitz ovens."
"Nuts!" Demerest glanced up from the flight log, where he was recording their position, just reported. His irritability, seldom far below the surface, was beginning to show. "There are plenty of good arguments in favor of easy abortion---unwanted children who'll be born to poverty and never get a chance; then the special cases---rape, incest, the mother's health."
"There are always special cases. It's like saying, 'okay, we'll permit just a little murder, providing you make out a convincing argument.' " Harris shook his head, dissenting. "Then you talked about unwanted children. Well, they can be stopped by birth control. Nowadays everyone gets that opportunity, at every economic level. But if we slip up on that, and a human life starts growing, that's a new human being, and we've no moral right to condemn it to death. As to what we're born into, that's a chance we all take without knowing it; but once we have life, good or bad, we're entitled to keep it, and not many, however bad it is, would give it up. The answer to poverty isn't to kill unborn babies, but to improve society."
Harris considered, then went on, "As to economics, there are economic arguments for everything. It makes economic logic to kill mental deficients and mongoloids right after birth; to practice euthanasia on the terminally ill; to weed out old and useless people, the way they do in Africa, by leaving them in the jungle for hyenas to eat. But we don't do it because we value human life and dignity. What I'm saying, Vernon, is that if we plan to progress we ought to value them a little more."
The altimeters---one in front of each pilot---touched thirty-three thousand feet. They were at the top of their climb. Anson Harris eased the aircraft into level flight while Second Officer Jordan reached forward again to adjust the throttles.
Demerest said sourly to Harris, "Your trouble is cobwebs in the brain." He realized he had started the discussion; now, angrily, he wished he hadn't. To end the subject, he reached for the stewardess call button. "Let's get some hors d'oeuvres before the first class passengers wolf them all."
Harris nodded. "Good idea."
A minute or two later, in response to the telephoned order, Gwen Meighen brought three plates of aromatic hors d'oeuvres, and coffee. On Trans America, as on most airlines, captains got the fastest service.
"Thanks, Gwen," Vernon Demerest said; then, as she leaned forward to serve Anson Harris, his eyes confirmed what he already knew. Gwen's waist was as slim as ever, no sign of anything yet; nor would there be, no matter what was going on inside. The heck with Harris and his old woman's arguments! Of course Gwen would have an abortion---just as soon as they got back.
SOME SIXTY FEET aft of the flight deck, in the tourist cabin, Mrs. Ada Quonsett was engaged in spirited conversation with the passenger on her right, whom she had discovered was an amiable, middle-aged oboe player from the Chicago Symphony. "What a wonderful thing to be a musician, and so creative. My late husband loved classical music. He fiddled a little himself, though not professionally, of course."
Mrs. Quonsett was feeling warmed by a Dry Sack sherry for which her oboist friend had paid, and he had just inquired if she would like another. Mrs. Quonsett beamed, "Well, it's exceedingly kind of you, and perhaps I shouldn't, but I really think I will."
The passenger on her left---the man with the little sandy mustache and scrawny neck---had been less communicative; in fact, disappointing. Mrs. Quonsett's several attempts at conversation had been rebuffed by monosyllabic answers, barely audible, while the man sat, mostly expressionless, still clasping his attache case on his knees.
For a while, when they had all ordered drinks, Mrs. Quonsett wondered if the left-seat passenger might unbend. But he hadn't. He accepted Scotch from the stewardess, paid for it with a lot of small change that he had to count out, then tossed the drink down almost in a gulp. Her own sherry mellowed Mrs. Quonsett immediately, so that she thought: Poor man, perhaps he has problems, and I shouldn't bother him.
She noticed, however, that the scrawny-necked man came suddenly alert when the captain made his announcement, soon after takeoff, about their