You think I’m shocked that the State Legislature wants to appoint lawyers for fetuses?

 I’m shocked that they want to stop there!

At the end of the legislative session in 2014, HB 494 was a resolution that was part of a group of proposed bills restricting abortion. HB 494 would make state funds available for fetuses to have legal representation.

Let’s say a teen whose parents won’t give her permission to get an abortion goes to court and asks a judge for legal permission to do so.

The judge, using state funds, could appoint the unborn fetus a lawyer at which point the teen ends up being on trial for trying to get the abortion.

The fetus’s lawyer could conceivably hold things up through appeals.

After about nine months the teen would go from litigant to mother and things would be pretty much decided at that point.

HB 494 seems extremely shortsighted to me.

It lacks that Alabama panache that we’re renown for down here.

It’s like the supporters of this bill believe the whole issue stops with the fetus.

Have they never heard of the pre-mortal world or souls being stockpiled in the Great Beyond?

Really, have they never heard of the pre-existence of souls?

Granted, this whole area about where the soul is before it becomes a human being is kind of grainy and fuzzy.

Does the soul exist before conception or not?

Does God create the soul or does the soul come from the parents?

Or is it the Holy Spirit that creates the soul?

Is the soul created at the moment it is placed in a human being (fetus?) or is there a stockpile of souls “up there” that the Almighty draws from each time a human being enters this world?

Even the distinction between soul and spirit could stand some firming up it seems to me.

Indeed, I’m an advocate for getting a better understanding of all this once and for all.

That’s why, if the State Legislature will take HB 494 one step further – give the soul legal representation – we’ll be on our way to getting some understanding about the mysterious happenings on the other side.

I know, I know. You’re thinking, “We just can’t start making laws that apply to the Great Beyond!”

Well, what do you think all those creeds, councils, statements of faith, synods, conclaves and convocations were about?

Just look at it this way. Doctors take that Hippocratic oath-thing and one part of it states, “Whatsoever house I may enter, my visit shall be for the convenience and advantage of the patient.”

When’s the last time you saw a doctor make a house call, huh?

And yet doctors still hang that oath on the wall with their diploma.

It’s the idea that’s important!  

Again, I’m aware that this pre-mortal world is a murky area and has been argued back and forth for thousands of years without resolution.

It will take somebody with courage and vision to navigate such a tricky course and give Alabama judicial oversight of the sweet by-and-by, something that we’ve long been seeking.

I’m nominating Rep. Becky Nordgren of House District 29 in the northeastern part of the state to lead us.

She is already a co-sponsor of HB 494 but Ms. Nordgren also sponsored a resolution last year that would create a Fourth of July weekend state sales tax holiday so we can purchase guns and ammo.

Now, that’s the kind of forward thinking and vision that can take us to the other side!

Bob Morgan is a retired, award-winning journalist and author.