Wednesday, December 12, 2012

No Choice

A federal judge has ruled that North Carolina’s “Choose Life” license plate is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge James C. Fox ruled on Friday that North Carolina cannot produce or distribute the “Choose Life” plate.

Judge Fox concluded, “The State’s offering of a Choose Life license plate in the absence of a pro-choice plate constitutes viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina Legal Foundation had filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina in Sept. 2011 on behalf of North Carolinians seeking a specialty license plate that supports a woman’s right to reproductive freedom.

Florida also has a “Choose Life” specialty plate (along with about 100 others), so it will be interesting to see if that affects the rear ends of cars here.

I think it’s silly to reduce the discussion about something as deeply felt as a woman’s right to choose down to a slogan on a license plate, and I can see this escalating to a battle of the parking lot where you have “Choose Life” duking it out with “Free the Uterus.”  But as long as the state is going to go to the trouble to make these plates — and collect money for the sponsors — then they at least need to be fair about it.

2 barks and woofs on “No Choice

  1. I’d rather “affect” the rear ends of the drivers of said cars, but then my parents instilled a belief in firm discipline in me from when I was small.

  2. Also, I can’t help thinking that the anti-choice crowd is so ignorant that they’d see “Free the Uteri” and think it’s some international policy statement.

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