By Eleanor Bader, RH Reaility Check
April 15, 2008
According to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, the first vanity plate was produced in 1931 at the request of a Pennsylvania motorist who wanted his initials on the tag. In the 77 years since, specialized plates have become big business, with local governments and advocacy groups selling them to benefit causes from state parks, space exploration, and violence prevention to public education and endangered wildlife.
By the mid-1990's anti-abortion activists wanted in on the trend. Randy Harris, a virulently anti-choice county commissioner from Ocala, Florida, is considered the mastermind of the idea to have state DMVs collect funds to promote adoption over abortion. His plan was simple -- have the state agency sell "Choose Life" tags for $22 above the regular cost of a license plate. The extra money would then go to non-profit adoption agencies, so-called Crisis Pregnancy Centers, and maternity homes with the sole purpose of encouraging the unhappily pregnant to put their progeny up for adoption.
Harris galvanized supporters by arguing that since only one percent of women deemed "abortion vulnerable" by CPCs gave their babies to adoptive families, more needed to be done to promote this option. And doing more, he reasoned, required money for the medical care, shelter, food and living expenses of those giving birth.
How simple it would be, he cajoled, if people bought vanity tags to promote the cause.
Harris' three-year campaign was victorious and Florida's then-governor, Jeb Bush, authorized the plates in 1999. By 2000 bright yellow tags with a childlike drawing of a boy and girl -- the female is distinguished by longer hair and a red bow atop her head -- and a Choose Life message were selling like hotcakes.
By the end of 2007, the state had raised $5.5 million and the idea of selling anti-abortion tags had spread to 17 states; in less than eight years, more than $8.4 million was collected for anti-abortion adoption centers and explicitly Christian CPCs across the country.
No comparable pro-choice plates exist -- which clearly pleases anti-abortionists. At the same time, Florida anti-choicers acknowledge that the tags have not been as effective in promoting adoption as Harris originally expected. While figures for the number of babies placed for adoption pre-and-post tags are unavailable, Russ Amerling, Publicity Coordinator of Choose Life, Inc., a national network established to promote the plates and help anti-abortion activists bring them to their states, admits that the program has hit numerous bureaucratic roadblocks.
...
Read the entire blog at:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/04/15/license-to-lie