The Tale Of The Infertile Innocents

The doctor wasn't the sort of man anyone would call "kindly." He was still too young to be avuncular, and though it was clear that he was stern with his patients because he wanted for them only what was best, stern he was. Considering that his life's work revolved around the very most intimate events in human lives -- sex, pregnancy, and the delivery of babies -- the doctor could have striven a little harder to cultivate a manner that would make patients feel easy sharing their secrets with him. In this case, though, the coolness of his manner served him well.

Sitting before the doctor was a sweet young couple, Patty and Glenn. They had been married only six months, and though they had been trying those long six months to achieve pregnancy, they had not yet been successful. They had prayed on the matter, they said; they hoped that if they could keep the faith, they would, like Sarah and Abraham, someday have "descendants as countless as the sand on the seashore." But they wondered if God's plan might not be for them to be parents after all.

The doctor was not fazed by their story. He could see that they were very young: certainly, they must both still be in the prime of their fertility. He asked Patty whether her menses were regular -- and though eventually she said they were, once he explained that he meant her "monthly cycle," he couldn't ignore the chill that came over him. Something here was not right. Something was very, very wrong.

Glenn went on to say that, just as the Bible instructs, he and Patty lie together every night -- which, as one needn't be a doctor to know, is usually a very effective way to accomplish pregnancy. But the doctor was starting to see that, though they seemed like perfectly normal young Americans, Patty and Glenn were no ordinary couple. What exactly had walked into the doctor's office?

The doctor soldiered on, like the seasoned professional he was, asking a routine question: what positions had Patty and Glenn tried?

In response, the doctor was met by terrifyingly blank stares. After a long moment, Glenn asked a question that shook the doctor to his very core.

"...'Positions'?"

Only then did the doctor realize what he was dealing with. He was a scientist above all. He had devoted his life to the pursuit of truth and knowledge. Little had he known when he signed off on Patty and Glenn's consultation that he was approving an appointment with two personifications of his lifelong enemy.

All at once, realization washed over him in a flood.

The school board elections in which he hadn't voted, possibly keeping out of office candidates who would have given primacy to the teaching of basic sexual education!

The instances when past patients had brushed past the question of "positions" and the doctor hadn't followed up to make sure they knew what he was talking about!

Couples in his practice who hadn't conceived cascaded before the doctor's eyes. How many of them had failed to become parents because no one had ever told them the man was supposed to put his penis into his wife's vagina and purposefully move it around?

On that day, the doctor wasn't merely challenged to treat an innocent young couple.

On that day, the doctor gazed into the faces of pure ignorance!

The doctor could teach them how to conceive, but that would risk the birth of another generation of imbeciles. And he couldn't take that risk. But there was only one way to make absolutely sure they didn't accidentally figure out sex for themselves. And that's why the doctor set aside his Hippocratic Oath, just for one day; bled out Glenn and Patty with a nearby scalpel; and dumped their bodies in the Mississippi.

And that's why, every year on the anniversary of that day, kids all over the city of St. Louis find condoms and contraceptive foam tucked under their mattresses, and their Bibles torn in half.