Alabama Don't Give A-

     Hey, Alabama. I know you’re busy these days. We all are. We have jobs to get to, and ups and downs to contend with, new ciders that have been aged in scotch barrels to try. But I need a word. I promise it won’t take long, and I’ll try not to bore you. Just real quick, though:
     WHAT IN THE NAME OF MARY ARE YOU DOING?
     Have you dried up old crackers lost your self important little minds? What, a history of Jim Crow laws and systematic disenfranchisement of poor people and “tha ethnics” isn’t enough for you? It’s not bad enough that people already see you as a hotbed of racism and the butt of a never ending stream of incest jokes, now you have to go and make it known that you consider abortion worse than both incest and rape?
     Look, I know that you old, white fools are using your bible to guide your governance, but not everything that happens in a religious text should be held over. I know what Noah’s daughters did to him, but that doesn’t make it okay for a man to rape his sister and serve less time in prison than the doctor who aborts the fetus. While we’re on the religious aspect of this, if you believe that this is a right and just law that serves your god’s justice, then either you’re misinterpreting some choice passages, or your god needs to mind his (gender pronoun intended) own business almost as badly as you do.
     But that’s a personal belief you hold, and one you’re not likely to change despite how outdated and draconian it is. I’ve seen your haircuts, and it’s pretty clear you’re not into modernizing ( I usually try to avoid attacks like this one, being no prize myself, but I’m really mad right now.)                 Besides, I wouldn’t want to alienate you, so let’s shift our focus somewhere else.
     Let’s take a gander at it from a political/economic point of view: couldn’t be dumber. Take a second and look around, will you? We only have like three viable industries left in this country, and one of them is filmmaking. I don’t think I need to tell you, my Alabamanian friends and neighbors, those Hollywood types aren’t gonna like this one bit. Your actual climate is already a tough sell, considering what the humidity does to their perfectly coiffed hair; you might want to reconsider this political climate change, as it’s a lot harder to deny. I saw somewhere that even old Permanently               Obstructing Truth Until Sentenced himself is getting distance from it, and that guy is drawn to political fires like Roy Moore is to shopping malls.
     Though to be fair, the world class real estate mogul has no doubt paid for an abortion or two himself over the years. And I’ll tell you what, after seeing his kids perform in the world, I’d say those were the best investments he ever made.
     Whoops, hold on. Starting to feel like I might be alienating some folks again. Let’s try a different track.
     How about from a purely rational standpoint? What’s your logic here, legislators? Where’s the reason behind this? Any of your citizens who are against abortions are already not getting them (obviously no one would do something in secret that they were publicly against, right?), and you’ve effectively made a large number of the population potential criminals. Have you considered the cost of prosecution to the taxpayer, you fiscally conservative math whizzes? Keeping a woman and a doctor in prison, one of them for 99 years? I don’t know if you’re aware, but you already ain’t the richest state around. Nevermind the cost of raising all the kids who will for sure get abandoned to the state.
      You’ll have to take care of them for eighteen years before you can force them into the military through poverty, you know.
     When you look at it, there’s only one viewpoint where this looks like the right move, and it’s so monstrous I can’t imagine it as a viable motive. This really only makes sense if you have a long term goal of removing from women the right to control what happens to them, or how they can react. Like if somehow you don’t see women as people, or at least not equal people who deserve their rights and independence, even if they don’t agree with you. Seriously, when you get right down to it, this only makes sense if you’re senselessly, thoughtlessly, ruthlessly imposing your own belief system on an entire group of people, and that’s not-
     Oh. Dang. Alienated for sure. Too bad for me, I just enacted a rule where I can’t use the delete button, even though it’s right there and completely safe and might save the world from a lot of pain and suffering. I just think it would be immoral.
-John