This is the inquiry on the BBC World Service with me, Kavita Puri.

Each week, one question, four expert witnesses and an answer.

It's May of this year in Montgomery, Alabama in America's deep south.

The state governor is sitting at her desk.

She takes out her black biro and writes her signature.

When she's finished, a new law has formally come into effect.

Alabama's governor has just put her name to one of the most restrictive laws on reproductive rights in the entire country.

A day earlier at the State House in a vote 25 to 6, Senate members passed the legislation.

All of them were white, male and Republican.

They outlawed abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.

The penalty for performing the medical procedure 99 years.

They're gonna throw them right in the Alabama slammer for 99 years.

Let's see, it's 2019 2019 so by the time those doctors get out of jail in

Alabama it will be 1895.

1861. Other states have passed restrictive abortion laws, but it's Alabama that's labeled backward, retrograde, living in the past.

It's what the liberal elite, like America's late night talk show hosts, have always labeled

Alabama.

And it's not just abortion.

Alabama's racial history, conservative views on social issues like gay rights

and its status as one of the poorest states in America have always made it

the butt of jokes. So this week we ask why is it always Alabama?

Part 1. Too Hot. We did believe some of the things that you hear about Alabama that they're just

...