…which is that these bills, like the one Gov. Kay Ivey signed yesterday in Alabama which would felonize almost all abortions in that state, are merely a reaction to what happened in blue-state legislatures earlier this year.

Let’s not forget New York, which passed the Orwellian-named Reproductive Health Act in January. Timothy Cardinal Dolan, in a New York Post op-ed, took the measure of that bill and eviscerated it as an affront to human life.

It’s been a rough time for faithful Catholics recently in our state government’s frantic rush for “progressive” ideas.

I’m thinking first of the ghoulish radical abortion-expansion law, which allows for an abortion right up to the moment of birth; drops all charges against an abortionist who allows an aborted baby, who somehow survives the scissors, scalpel, saline and dismemberment, to die before his eyes; mandates that, to make an abortion more convenient and easy, a physician need not perform it; and might even be used to suppress the conscience rights of health care professionals not to assist in the grisly procedures. All this in a state that already had the most permissive abortion laws in the country.

As if that’s not enough, instead of admitting that abortion is always a tragic choice, and that life-giving alternatives should be more vigorously promoted, the governor and his “progressive” supporters celebrated signing the bill. At the governor’s command, even the lights of the Freedom Tower sparkled with delight.

Those who once told us that abortion had to remain safe, legal and rare now have made it dangerous, imposed and frequent.

The New York law removes abortion from the state criminal code, removes any restrictions on the procedure prior to 24 weeks and provides for abortions right up to birth so long as they’re certified as necessary for the life or health of the patient. Since it’ll be abortion clinics making money off performing the abortions doing the certifying, it isn’t hard to recognize there will never be trouble getting that certification. There are no meaningful restrictions on abortions in New York anymore.

And like Dolan said, Gov. Andrew Cuomo did a touchdown dance after signing that monstrous bill by lighting buildings pink in Manhattan.

Then there was Virginia, where an even more obnoxious abortion bill didn’t quite survive scrutiny. That came thanks to the self-immolation of that state’s Democrat governor Ralph Northam, who touched off one of the most fabulous strings of gaffes in recent political history by giving a sickening account of what could happen to a baby surviving an attempted abortion in Virginia if the law passed.

“[Third trimester abortions are] done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s nonviable. So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” Northam, a pediatric neurosurgeon, told Washington radio station WTOP. “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

The bill — which among other things would end a state rule that requires at least three physicians confirm “that a third trimester abortion is necessary to prevent the woman’s death or impairment of her mental or physical health” and ends “the need to find that any such impairment to the woman’s health would be substantial and irremediable” — is currently tabled in Virginia’s legislature.

Northam said he supports the bill’s measures, telling WTOP that “we want the government not to be involved in these types of decisions. We want the decision to be made by the mothers and their providers.”

Shortly after Northam’s interview, several prominent Republican leaders sharply criticized the governor’s comments, accusing him of being in favor of infanticide.

“This is horrific,” Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel wrote on Twitter, adding that Northam “is defending born-alive abortions.”

A former classmate of Northam’s was so disgusted over his comments that he released a copy of the governor’s medical school yearbook that included pictures of him in blackface – and before it was over the entire top level of Virginia’s state government, including the Lt. Governor and Attorney General, both Democrats like Northam, were enmeshed in scandal.

The point being that it was the Left who pushed the abortion issue into the public sphere this year, not the Right.

So when Alabama, Georgia, Missouri and Louisiana, among other states, are pushing their own electoral majorities’ view on the abortion issue let’s remember the obnoxious triumphalism of Andrew Cuomo and the incompetent babblings of Ralph Northam in lighting this fire.

And while Hollywood and the media elite are shrieking over Ivey signing that bill in Alabama, what should be understood is this debate is a healthy one. Alabama and New York are much different places with significantly different values and almost entirely opposite majority views on abortion. After all, last year 59 percent of Alabama voters opted to include language in the state’s constitution including the unborn as persons entitled to the same rights as everyone else – and the bill Ivey signed yesterday is only the natural and obvious product of that vote.

As such, neither state should be in a position to impose its values on the other.

If New York has abortion on demand and Alabama all but bans it, that – at least from the standpoint of federalism and political pluralism – is a good thing. People can adjust their business, living and travel arrangements accordingly in a free society, and we’ll see which of these laboratories of democracy and public policy comes out the better.

Certainly, there were just as many on the Right horrified by New York’s new pro-abortion law as there are people of the Left incensed about Alabama’s opposite choice. The real horror lies in the federal government forcing the two states together on the issue and denying the people of those states from having their voices heard at the ballot box and through their elected representatives.

Let’s remember how that began, and who installed Roe v. Wade as the current law of the land.