The controversial judgment had been plastered over front pages and headline news. Streaming feeds of commentators shouted at each other about judicial activism and political correctness. Marybeth endured the pain of both the trial and her pregnancy.

The legal hurdles had not, however, yet been cleared.

The next higher court issued a writ of certiorari and picked up the case for review. Unanimously, they overturned the ruling, finding the parish innocent and Marybeth guilty of arson. The text of the decision blasted the lower court for its activism, finding that the nun to be legally justified in her approach and decrying the comparison of preaching to slut-tagging. She was to be remanded to the juvenile detention facility until she was twenty-one years of age.

Marybeth’s family appealed and appealed as far as the law allowed, severely draining their finances, but all the higher courts agreed with the overturning of the initial verdict. All the while, the new life in Marybeth’s stomach continued to grow.