2014’s Hottest Legal Trends

Women in Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Ohio must undergo a nine-month waiting period after asking their doctor for an abortion.

Women in Texas, Arizona, Rhode Island, and South Carolina must successfully draw a picture of what their ultrasound might look like if the fetus were a baby deer wearing a sailor suit singing “I’ve Got No Strings” from Pinocchio and holding a shakily handwritten birthday card before obtaining an abortion.

Women in California, Virginia, Maryland, Arkansas, and North Dakota must complete a six-page, single-spaced essay about the role of the emerging middle class in the Industrial Revolution before obtaining an abortion.

Customers at coffee shops in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and New York City will not be served until they have said loudly enough for a barista to hear, “We should just, like, let the South secede, you know? You know? Right? Like, fuck them, right? All the cool people should just, like, move here.”

“Stand Your Ground” laws will be more broadly interpreted after Smithson v. Schoolbus, when a Pennsylvania judge rules that any American citizen standing on or simply touching the ground has the right to use deadly force.

“Looking suspicious” now considered a Class-A felony in fourteen states; “looking suspicious after sunset” considered a misdemeanor in an additional nine.

Menstruating women will not be allowed within the city limits of Washington, D.C. A special “red tent” will be set up for them on the other side of the Potomac. Women who can prove infertility or menopause will be allowed in the city and given special grey vests. Women found in the city not wearing their Unbleeding Garments may be deported.

There will be no changes to the regulation of student loans’ or home foreclosures.

Women who fire warning shots to protect themselves and their children from an abusive spouse will be put in prison, where they will be very, very, very safe.

Rather than offering their employees health insurance under Obamacare, employers will also have the option of quietly poisoning them after they have outlived their usefulness.

All potential jurors in Montana and Wyoming will be required to say “Actually, I don’t even see race” at least four times in a grocery store, out loud, unprompted and in front of strangers, before they can be called to serve.

Children receiving vaccines in the city of Philadelphia will legally be considered “looters” and subdued accordingly.

New York’s “Stop and Frisk” policy will be implemented in all schools where students of color are learning math, in case anyone is trying to hide crimes inside of their math homework.

Anyone gathering in Los Angeles in larger numbers than groups of seven will be deemed “rioters” and relocated to San Luis Obispo.

Numerous protests after an entire wing of children recovering from juvenile leukemia in Indiana’s state hospital is gunned down by a disgruntled parking lot attendant will result in the removal of all gun-purchasing waiting periods. “If only those children weakened by their bout with cancer had been properly trained in the safe and responsible use of firearms,” the governor says in an official press release, “this tragedy might have been averted.”

Residents in Tennessee, Alaska, Colorado and Oklahoma must complete a forty-five minute fitness test that includes singing the entire libretto of the H.M.S. Pinafore while doing chin-ups in perfect form before voting. Residents who can prove they have descended from the Mayflower will, as usual, vote simply by writing down their favorite candidate on any scrap of paper they have lying around the house; Voting Butlers will perform a top-to-bottom search of their compounds and take the scraps back to the White Voting Centers.

Anyone named Brent will receive a free gun with every purchase he makes at the Men’s Wearhouse.