My employer asked, "Is that it? Did you invite us here just to ask about marriage? The answers to these sorts of questions are publicly available. They don't require–"
"No, I have another question as well. I understand that you terminate unwanted pregnancies."
"In your eagerness to make this sound like an accusation, you have turned a potentially true statement into a false one. I don't perform abortions, not from any moral objection but for the same reason I don't perform appendectomies or hysterectomies. Those are medical procedures, and I have no surgical training, apart from a few informal experiences in combat situations."
"I'm sorry," he said, "but I must interrupt. Are you saying that you have been in combat? I hope you're not referring to the few days following the beginning of Utown. That was chaotic, yes, but hardly combat."
She looked a bit annoyed, as she always did when she met somebody who was not sufficiently familiar with her curriculum vitae, and who tried to judge her based on her studious appearance and her impeccable three-piece suits.
"Before we came here," she said, "Marshall and I spent over six months in Bellona. During the worst part of the war."
Her annoyance, at the question and at the entire interrogation, was starting to creep into her voice, so I spoke up.
"In addition to reporting on the war, we sutured and bandaged wounds, set broken limbs, and even delivered a couple of babies. Under conditions which certainly seemed like combat at the time, based on the number of people who were being shot and blown up all around us."
"Ah," the priest replied, "I was not aware of this. I read your magazine pieces at the time, a least some of them, but perhaps I missed those installments."
She smiled, somewhat mollified. "Most of those experiences were not included, not unless they were relevant. I'm a reporter, not a diarist. In any case, yes, abortions are performed at the hospital, by people who have had the appropriate training."
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