Whatever Embryos Are

They Are Not Cool in Heaven

So the Alabama Supreme Court looked down from on high and spake, and ruled: An embryo is the same as a baby.

So it is and shall be in Alabama, and therefore wherever; or wherever, and therefore in Alabama. Or both. And the heavenly choir began to sing:

            Maybe baby, you've been frozen,

            Doesn't matter, you've been chosen.

Or words to that effect, because Alabama's supreme court is deeply in touch with the heavenly choir.

But:

            "Waaait-a-minute, waaait-a-minute," says the leader of the choir. "I'm hearing no upper register. I'm hearing lofty, I'm hearing rumbly, I'm hearing al- and le- and -luya to beat the band. But I'm not hearing twinkly, I'm not hearing pink-bottom, I'm not hearing sweet. And without that element, what I am hearing is not heavenly."

            You can probably guess what is happening:

            The grown-up angels are singing right along, but not the baby angels. Not the cherubs. Because -- I don't know how much you know about cherubs, but as angels go, the cherubs are not the most blissful. The cherubs tend to wish they had been allotted more time on earth. Even if it had to be in Alabama. The cherubs are withholding.

            Traditionally, cherubs have had one major consolation. Cherubs are cute, very cute. You think kittens are cute? Any one cherub is cuter than a pile of kittens. So if you could see a pile of cherubs -- let's just say cherubs are cuter than we can imagine.

            But cherubs don't have rights, cherubs don't have interests. Cherubs don't have personhood.

            Now, in Alabama, embryos do.

            And let's face it, embryos aren't cute. "Precious, sure, bless their little proto-hearts," a cherub will tell you. "Miraculous, even -- but not in the sense that they would be somebody you would have any intention of hanging out with."

            If they were babies, that would be something else. Cherubs still have a lot of baby in them -- as I say, they wish they could have been babies longer. Cherubs aren’t dumb, they can see that embryos can be a blessing to would-be parents who can't conceive on their own, which is why, as cherubs understand it, embryos are frozen and subjected to maybe occasionally risky implantation. The whole point of which is to give an embryo a chance to become a baby.

            But embryos aren't cute. They aren’t plump, they don’t have wings. Embryos aren't any cuter in Alabama than they are anywhere else, it's just that in Alabama . . .

            I don't know what it is about embryos in Alabama. The cherubs don’t know either, and they don't care to. And they're showing it. The putti, as Italians call them, are getting pouty.

            "What do we even get out of being cute?" the cherubs are saying. "We aren't all that cute to ourselves. We provide a service. Our cuteness is others' pleasure. We could be a lot less cute, for sure."

            Scary talk. At least one cherub is known to carry a bow and arrows. What’s keeping them all from going armed? Would we want to be bound by the Alabama Supreme Court's thinking on that?

       And Now For Another In Our Ongoing Series

          Of Limericks About Inappropriate Men

                             Our super-religious friend Steve

                             Has harked back to Adam and Eve.

                                    He goes around naked,

                                    Except for a checked

                            Cap that is hard to believe.