A newly elected president faces the unexpected chance to nominate a new chief justice of the Supreme Court. His first choice is a nationally respected Court of Appeals judge, a woman whose nomination faces two serious obstacles: a long-held personal secret; and the prospect that a volatile abortion case - a trial pitting a 15-year-old girl against her pro-life parents - will come before the court. And, the Senate majority leader is determined to thwart the president's nominations for reasons that cross the boundary between the political and the personal. These intertwined stories give us the clash of competing political ambitions; the collision of science and culture in the courtroom; and a revelation of both how the judicial system works and how it intersects with politics.