Dignity (Season 20, Episode 5)
Premise: A doctor who performs third-trimester abortions is killed during a church service, and the protester who shot him claims he was defending one particular viable fetus.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 20, Episode 5
- Detectives
- Det. Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto), Det. Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Michael Cutter (Linus Roache), ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza), DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston)
- Guest stars
- Richard Thomas as defense attorney Roger Jenkins, P.J. Sosko as Wayne Grogan, Bill Sage as Kevin Morton, Christina Kirk as Jennice Morrow, Jessica Dickey as Lisa Barnett
- Ripped from the headlines
- The story draws on the killing of George Tiller, a Wichita, Kansas, abortion provider who was shot dead during a worship service at his church on May 31, 2009.
- Director
- Jim McKay
- Writers
- Richard Sweren & Julie Martin
Summary
The Investigation
“Dignity” opens with the murder of Dr. Walter Benning, shot once in the head from behind during the opening prayer at his church. He was armed and wore a bulletproof vest, because he performed third-trimester abortions at a Riverdale clinic, where a protester had shot him the year before. A smoker outside saw a white man flee in a dark blue sedan. His widow blames anti-abortion zealots, and clinic staff describe patients facing grave prenatal diagnoses. Van Buren, meanwhile, learns that chemotherapy has not shrunk her tumor and agrees to try harsher drugs.
Calls to Benning from a man posing as an unborn baby’s father lead to Blair Morton, 28 weeks pregnant with a son diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a fragile-skin disorder. Her father, science professor Kevin Morton, made the calls hoping to stop the abortion, and a security guard’s chalk mark on his tire exposes his lie about never visiting the clinic. He admits a protester followed him to his car and assured him his grandson would be fine.
Clinic staff note that Wayne Grogan, a regular protester, stayed away only on the Monday after the murder. Grogan’s son tips off Roger Jenkins, a lawyer for the anti-abortion group Mission for Life, about a police trap, and Jenkins appears as Grogan’s attorney. A photo of Grogan with a woman leads the detectives to her off-the-grid home, where he runs and is caught.
The Trial
The prosecutors reject Jenkins’s request for ten years on manslaughter. Grogan admits the killing but claims justification, saying he was defending Blair’s viable son, and the judge lets the defense go to the jury over Cutter’s objection. Former clinic nurse Jennice Morrow reveals she quit after Benning, at the mother’s request, ended the life of a baby born alive during a late-term abortion. Cutter calls it irrelevant and McCoy tells them to forget it, but Rubirosa, convinced that ethics require disclosure, quietly alerts the defense.
A prosecution expert praises Benning but on cross-examination calls the right to choose absolute and dismisses opponents as hypocrites and fools. Lisa Barnett describes carrying a terminally ill daughter to term and holding her for most of the 21 hours she lived. Over objection, Morrow recounts the live birth; on cross she agrees the child would have lived a day or two at most even if carried to term. Jenkins presents Blair’s newborn son in summation, and Cutter, unable to finish his prepared remarks, speaks about the worth of every life.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Grogan of first-degree murder. Rubirosa asks to move to the white-collar crime bureau, but McCoy refuses and tells his two prosecutors to work it out.
Why it stands out
- Like Benning, George Tiller had survived an earlier shooting, in 1993, years before he was killed in his church in 2009.
- Van Buren learns that her tumor has not responded to her first round of chemotherapy.
- Rubirosa breaks with Cutter and McCoy by tipping off the defense to a damaging witness, then asks to leave Cutter’s side.