A Book of American Martyrs(130)
The blond TV woman tried to think what to say to these words, that were uttered in a low, urgent voice like the voice of someone who has gripped your elbow to make you stop and hear. But all she could reply was—“Ohhh! Yes”—“Thank you, Reverend!”
Already there were 103 aborted infants buried in this cemetery, the minister said. After tonight the number would near 150.
The camera moved onto the gaping grave site again, though still you could not see clearly what was inside the Ziploc bags, only just pale-shadowy outlines. And there was my sister Edna Mae kneeling at the edge with her head bowed and her face shining tears.
These were the strangest minutes in my life. Seeing my sister there on TV, as distant to me as if we’d never known each other. And I had to realize, Edna Mae and I had been out of contact for most of our adult lives. Since the death sentence of my brother-in-law, it had been hard to speak to any Dunphy. What do you say? What can you say? I had tried to keep in contact with Edna Mae but Edna Mae never answered the phone and never returned my calls. And when I called and got Dawn on the phone, Dawn would say she’d tell Edna Mae that I called, but Edna Mae never called back. And if I asked how they were Dawn would say, How’d you think we are?—in this sarcastic voice.
Oh yes. We gave Edna Mae money. What we could afford.
Later we heard how many thousands of dollars had come to Luther Dunphy’s defense fund, that was posted online. People would send money, cash, in envelopes, and only God knows how much of this money actually made its way to Luther Dunphy’s family.
The scene in the cemetery ended with a close-up, of dirt being shoveled onto the grave. The somber words of the minister—“May God have mercy on our souls.” I felt an almost unbearable sadness. I thought—they are mad, to give themselves up to such futility. And I thought—they all know that it is futile, to provide a Christian burial for infants who have never lived. To pray to God for mercy, when it is God who has shown no mercy, for if God had shown mercy the infants would not have been murdered in their mothers’ wombs.
They know that it is futile—but they act as they are bid to do by conscience. Like Luther Dunphy, too. Their faith has made monsters of them—and this too, they accept.
By this point I could no longer make out Edna Mae, among the others. I had lost Edna Mae.
LATER ON THAT TV CHANNEL there was a feature on right-to-life “martyrs” and these included Shaun Harris, Michael Griffin, Terence Mitchell, James Kopp and now Luther Dunphy—my brother-in-law!
All of these men had shot and killed abortion providers at abortion clinics in the United States. Their brooding faces filled the TV screen if but fleetingly. A (male) voice-over spoke of them in reverent summary terms.
At the time, all of the men had been convicted of murder and were incarcerated, three of them on Death Row. And at the time, all were still alive and their cases under appeal.
DEATH WARRANT
Do not sign a petition for me. Do not even pray for me. I do not protest my death any more than my life, it is in the hands of God.
THESE WERE LUTHER DUNPHY’S own words released to the media in the week of February 21, 2006, in reference to his execution, now scheduled for March 4, 2006.
These words painstakingly he had composed. He had written these words syllable by syllable. On yellow lined paper given to him by his lawyer he had written these precisely chosen words gripping a pencil awkwardly in his fingers.
He was not accustomed to writing. He had written virtually nothing in the years since he’d left school. He had not read a book in those years except (of course) the Holy Bible which he read every day of his life and always with a sense of breathless urgency to know what will happen next as a child is breathless to know how a story will end even if the end of a story is but the prelude to another story, and the end of that story the prelude to yet another; and even if everything is known beforehand, nothing is truly known. Luther could read again and again the first several books of the New Testament that filled him with wonder, hope, terror and joy and each time be surprised, that Jesus would be nailed to the cross as He was, having made no effort to escape His captors; that Jesus would say to the thief crucified beside Him—Truly I tell thee, today you will be with me in paradise; that Jesus would despair on the cross, and suffer and die as an ordinary man might suffer and die, and be laid in the tomb, and yet revive, and ascend to Heaven.
A lightness passed through Luther’s brain, like heat lightning. He was struck blind, and found himself on the floor of his cell, having fallen without realizing, and yet there was joy in his heart.
Truly I tell thee, today you will be with me in paradise.
“LUTHER, ARE YOU SURE?”—his lawyer was not happy with the statement Luther had written.
“Yes. I am sure.”
Stubbornly he spoke. But quietly, not defiantly. His voice had become hoarse as if his throat were coated with dust.
His lawyer was a young lawyer from the law school at Columbus. His lawyer was one of a team of young lawyers whose specialty was death penalty law and whose subject was Luther Dunphy; before Luther Dunphy their subject had been another Death Row inmate at Chillicothe, who’d been executed the previous November.
“There are petitions being circulated in Ohio protesting the execution. By releasing your statement you will undercut the efforts of those who oppose the death sentence on principle and you will surprise and upset those who oppose the death sentence on your behalf.”