Editorial: Silly arguments against Choose Life
plates
Pending the governors approval, Florida
drivers may soon have the option of a specialty license plate that sports the
message Choose Life.
The $20-a-year tag, sponsored by an organization in Ocala called
Choose Life Inc., will provide funds for care of needy mothers and infants and
support adoption services.
So whats wrong with that?
Plenty, according to abortion groups that strongly oppose the
plate. Abortion rights advocates charge that legislators, by approving the
plate, have wrongly taken sides in a divisive political debate over abortion.
The spokeswoman for a leading national abortion rights group was heard on
National Public Radio asserting that the state should be neutral
(an ideal that strikes us as odd for a government founded to be of, by and for
the people).
We think even those who favor a place for legal abortion in our
society ought to see through those arguments and recognize them for what they
are: silly and sad.
By way of background, Florida has, since 1987, approved a host of
specialty plates supporting a variety of causes. They include space technology
research, college scholarships, wild dolphins, Girl Scouts, football, the
Everglades and manatees. No similar outcry surrounded approval of those plates.
Groups, including Choose Life, that wish to sponsor a plate must first put up
$30,000 and get 10,000 signatures on petitions.
The controversy over the license plate is one of the clearest
signs weve seen of late that the abortion rights movement is seriously
out of touch with national sentiment -- and with the arguments that afforded
the abortion rights movement its success. Many Americans were persuaded that
abortion should be legal out of sympathy for women so desperate that they
risked health and life in unsafe and illegal procedures. Studies show that a
majority of those Americans who came to support a legal place for abortion also
believe that abortion should be rare.
The hullabaloo in Florida smacks distastefully of vested economic
interests from a movement that claims its concern is womens welfare. The
fact is, many women choose abortion not because they prefer it but because they
lack the financial and/or emotional support to carry a child to term.
A movement that labels itself pro-choice and then
fights efforts to enhance choices for women betrays its name.
National Catholic Reporter, May 15,
1998
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