Illustration by Ji Ko, contributing illustrator

Hannah Richey Senior Staff Columnist [email protected]

Porn has not created a systemic public health crisis in Alabama.

Despite this, the Alabama Senate passed a resolution declaring that porn has created a public health crisis.

The resolution states that, “pornography, including obscenity, is creating a public health crisis.”

It also details how porn can lead to sexual dysfunction and toxic sexual behaviors. Things that could be mitigated if Alabama planned to enact sexual education laws that required teaching students about safe sex practices rather than abstinence.

The resolution was introduced by State Sen. Dan Roberts (R-Mountain Brook) in the first month of the 2020 session.

A resolution is not legislation. It’s essentially a declaration of how a legislative body feels about a topic, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important.

This isn’t to say there shouldn’t be an examination of porn and how it affects people who consume it regularly, especially violent genres. However, Alabama has public health crises that are life or death situations.

Carving out time we don’t have to pass a mostly meaningless resolution wastes the time our state senate has to make Alabamian’s lives better.

Alabama’s public health crises include the shameful conditions of state-run prisons, which have come under scrutiny recently.

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has alleged that the conditions in Alabama prisons meet the threshold to be considered unconstitutional.

These conditions include overcrowding, which the DOJ has said increases violence in prison.

The Holman prison was forced into a partial closure due to not supplying electricity and water to inmates.

Alabama also has a public health crisis with maternal mortality rates. Alabama’s maternal mortality rate is higher than the national average with 34.5 deaths per 100,000 live births according to americashealthrankings.org

The maternal mortality rate for Black mothers is nearly double the state average, with 61.7 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Only half the counties in Alabama have a hospital that is suitable to give birth in. This makes labor more difficult as mothers now must drive to another county to give birth.

The Chartis Center for Rural Health explains that states like Alabama that refuse Medicaid expansion leaves hospitals with inadequate operating margins due to the services often left unpaid.

The Medicaid expansion wouldn’t just give Alabamians health insurance butwould also save their hospitals.

Gov. Kay Ivey’s response to expansion was questioning how to pay for it, even though she knows the federal government would.

Alabama is in a public health crisis, but it’s not due to porn. It all has to do with the lawmakers who have outright refused to make the lives of their constituents easier.

Alabama doesn’t have to fix everything alone. The DOJ has offered to help reform prisons and reduce the conditions that are conducive to violence.

Provisions have been made for Alabama under the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid with limited cost to the state.

If lawmakers and the governor would prioritize the people over their dignity and objections to assistance, everyone would be healthier and safer.