Irreparable Harm

Mitchell Taylor is a talented but green lawyer, and his professional duties collide with his personal convictions. His client is a young surrogate who is carrying a child she needs him to protect, and saving that child may come at a cost to other lives he is bound to consider.

The case began with a controversial cloning-based fertility procedure used by Dr. Nathan Brown and his wife, Cameron. Some of the embryos they created were implanted in a surrogate, Maryna Sareth, while the rest were frozen. When Dr. Brown dies suddenly and tests suggest the child Maryna carries has Down syndrome, the situation erupts into a legal, ethical, and moral dispute with consequences for thousands of embryos and unborn children.

Dr. Brown's final wish was that the frozen embryos go to stem cell research. Cameron, by contrast, wants the pregnancy terminated so that one of the remaining embryos might produce a child she considers healthy. Mitchell faces a painful choice. Protecting the embryos would require overturning a federal ban on cloning, yet saving Maryna's child depends on that same ban remaining in place.

As the deadline closes in, Mitchell and Maryna must face a series of dangers, including corporate deception and violent threats. This legal thriller by Randy Singer is for adult readers who enjoy courtroom-driven suspense that explores the bioethics of reproduction.