Friday, May 05, 2006

What's "political" about the words "Choose Life?"

A lady in Wakefield, Massachusetts is trying to garner enough support to enable the Registry of Motor Vehicles to issue a license plate with the words "Choose Life" on it.

Three years ago, Nordeen, who opposes abortion, contacted the Florida-based group, Choose Life Inc., that promotes the special plates, sunny yellow with ''Choose Life" written in a child's handwriting above a crayon drawing of two children. If she is successful in bringing them to Massachusetts, she said, she hopes the Registry of Motor Vehicles will allow the same design.

If the Choose Life plates are approved, $12 of the $40 fee would go to the state. The other $28 would go to the groups supported by the Massachusetts Choose Life chapter, headed by Nordeen and her husband, Kenneth, who are the parents of six children. Nordeen said the group would award the money to antiabortion organizations that submitted grant applications, from pregnancy counseling groups to agencies that place children for adoption.

Planned Parenthood has a problem with this.

"Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts believes that state government should not be sanctioning political messages on license plates," Dianne Luby, the group's president and chief executive, said in a written statement.

The plates seem to be doing very well in other states.

Nationally, the plates have raised $5 million for pregnancy resource centers, maternity homes, and nonprofit adoption agencies. About $4 million came from Florida residents who have chosen the license plate, the country's first, since it became available in 2000, said Russ Amerling, national coordinator of Choose Life Inc.

Helping moms-to-be and their unborn babies...of course Planned Parenthood objects.

Source: The Boston Globe

Update: to find out more about these license plates, go here. Be sure to read it carefully.