Legal Murder

chapter:5

She slipped her long, brown coat on over the Pink Floyd band tee and skinny jeans she was wearing. The ends of her toes felt a bit cold beneath her red Converse, so she stomped her feet to circulate the blood. Planted atop her mane of brown waves sat a grey winter cap, and fastened around her pale neck was a matching, wool scarf.

Dixie worked up friction with her hands, while calling over her shoulder, "Going out, Dad!"

"What for?" His voice drifted over the sound of the television set across the hall.

She opened the front door to a gust of cold wind. "Research for a school project."

"Have fun!" He replied with distraction.

The startling facts on abortion that Dixie had uncovered the previous night caused her more chill than the November snow presently collecting at the tip of her nose. Those numbers; those babies that would never see the light of day, haunted Dixie. Just the thought of abortion began to frighten her so much, that it was all she could do not go hysterical and blame the world for the tragedy that never seemed to stop.

Dixie, although only fourteen, knew very well that you couldn't blame the world for the world's faults. It was impossible, and more importantly, a waste of time. The world wouldn't listen to anything. When Dixie's mother had been alive, she'd given her daughter some advice. She'd told her that you can't change a world overnight, but you can change a mind overnight.

"Hello there, Dixie. Weekend reading?" Mrs. Waltz, the friendly head librarian, greeted, as Dixie stepped into the doors of the small, local library.

The young girl pulled the grey cap off of her head, and felt the rush of warm air relieve her shivering bones. "Hi Mrs. W. And sort of. I'm doing some research."

"On what? I might be able to help." She spoke in a fairly-loud, casual tone, not worrying at all about disturbing the lack of library-inhabitants. Mrs. Waltz's half-dyed grey-red hair sat perfectly erect at the top of her wrinkled forehead. Her lips were always pursed.

Dixie stepped closer to the long, oak desk piled with books, papers, and used bar-code label sheets. "My topic is abortion."

Mrs. Waltz stopped mid-glasses-raise. Her eyes fell sharply on Dixie's. "My goodness child. Keep your voice down. Someone might hear."

"Hear what...?" They'd been talking just as loud a moment before.

The librarian leaned forward with a slight grimace. "Abortion."

Dixie furrowed her brows. "It's a very serious problem in our world today, Mrs. Waltz. I should think you'd want everyone to hear about it, not that there are many people here anyway." Her voice trailed off, surprised by her own forward response.

Caught off guard, Mrs. Waltz's eyebrows shot up. "I know what abor- that is, Miss Simmons."

"Do you?" The girl hadn't even considered the rudeness of this challenge until it had already escaped her lips.

Someone once told her that sometimes in life, the only way to get your point heard, was to sharpen the end until it was no longer dull. Sometimes you had to cross the line to draw the line.

Mrs. Waltz put on a look of repulsion. "This conversation is over." She turned her back on the girl, and shut the library office door with a pronounced bang.

Dixie stood in front of the librarian's desk with a dumbfounded expression. What just happened?

She shifted her gaze over to the non-fiction bookcases, and started for them.

The abrupt reaction of Mrs. Waltz to the subject of abortion never left Dixie's mind. The girl hadn't exactly expected people to sit down with her for long discussions on the first mention of the project, but the older woman's response to even the word made Dixie realize her topic may be more difficult than originally anticipated.

What if people were so ignorant or ashamed by the thought of abortion, that they simply refused to acknowledge the existence of the situation? She was beginning to notice that that was precisely the problem.

Problems always have a root. The root is usually ignorance. Dixie had read that somewhere, but couldn't remember where.

After scanning the A section, and thumbing through both the history and medical areas, Dixie had still not come across a single solitary thing even closely resembling facts on abortion. She wondered if the kind of book she was looking for was the kind of book Mrs. Waltz had once told her about. The censored list. Books that were considered too controversial to be unleashed to the general public were placed on the Banned Book List.

Dixie made her way over to the young adult novel section and collapsed warily on a hard, plastic chair behind one of the public computers. She let out a sigh and stared at the search engine that seemed to stare back at her. Dixie typed in American Library Association: Banned Books. Her eyes narrowed in a new-found anger as she found another root that needed to be torn out of the ground.

The American Library Association bans books with the best intentions—to protect others, from difficult ideas and information.

Dixie wasn't aware that both of her hands were visibly shaking. She was angry. The same question kept circling around and around in her head until she felt a wave of nausea.

Is it really with the best intentions to keep people from knowing that innocent, defenseless human beings are being killed every second?

Maybe it wasn't the facts that scared people. Maybe it was the idea of changing the facts.

Do you think "censoring" authors, books, and ideas is acceptable in America, where we unite under freedom of expression?