Stop

Towanda ruled.

She drove up I-95 from Washington to Philadelphia on her mission. As the head of Planned Parenthood, she'd averted a fiasco in D.C. by holding a press conference ahead of the maelstrom. She'd gotten the heads up from Melissa Rosenberg, Mrs. Galt's social secretary, that the vice-president's young wife would be walking into the local Planned Parenthood facility to get an abortion. It would bring all of the crazies out of the woodwork. Sure enough, Towanda's network of contacts confirmed that weirdos from Alaska to Colorado to Arizona to Kansas to Kentucky to Pennsylvania to Maine would descend on Washington like a plague of locusts. She knew action had to be taken fast.

Mrs. Galt was outspoken in her pro-choice views. Towanda shared them, but she'd compromise, twist arms, negotiate with the opposition, give a little to get a little, rather than demand everything all at once. The Second Lady had cost President Anderson votes in the election because of it. Pennsylvania hadn't gone Republican since 1988 but the Democrats lost it, Towanda knew, because of Mrs. Galt's radical views on abortion -- at least, radical insofar as the current political times were concerned. Most people were pro-choice, but only up to a point. And the more one side fanned the flame, Towanda believed, the more the other side would push back.

Towanda drove to Washington without warning and spoke directly to the vice-president's wife. After much arm-twisting from her and from the president himself, she'd agreed to allow a Planned Parenthood doctor perform the abortion at the vice-presidential mansion. Her arguments had at first fallen on deaf ears, but when Mrs. Galt was told in a none-too-subtle manner that grandstanding in front of the Planned Parenthood facility would jeopardize the safety of all women seeking its services, she agreed to have the procedure performed in private. Following this, Towanda held a press conference and announced funding for confidential transportation to the D.C. facility for local women seeking abortions. Women would be escorted from undisclosed locations into the facility's garage, avoiding contact with abortion protesters.

She had to stop the "Stop Abortion!" fanatics in their tracks and keep pro-choice fanatics from ruining it for everybody. Yyou know what they say, Towanda thought. It's not your enemies you need to worry about. It's your friends.