Alabama Approves ‘Choose Life’ License Plates

An anti-abortion group won approval Tuesday for an official Alabama license plate proclaiming “Choose life,” a slogan that has prompted lawsuits when authorized for tags in other Southern states.

The Alabama Pro-Life Coalition Education Fund got the Legislature’s License Plate Oversight Committee to approve the bright yellow tag on a 6-3 vote. The state will print the tags when 1,000 motorists each pay $50 to order a tag.

“I bet you a dime to a penny we are going to get sued,” said state Rep. John Rogers, who voted against the license plate.

Legislatures in Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana have approved “Choose life” license plates. All are being challenged in court, and Florida’s tag is the only one that has appeared on cars.

Bob Foust, executive director of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition Education Fund, said the Alabama tags will “raise awareness and consciousness for people that life is precious.” He said they also will generate money for programs that help women with “crisis pregnancies” who want to keep their children or put them up for adoption.

Tag proponent Bob Burton said the Florida tags have raised $400,000 for programs that help pregnant women.

“Florida is our model,” said John Giles, state president of the Christian Coalition.

In Alabama, the Legislature’s License Plate Oversight Committee, a panel of legislators, state leaders and county tag officials, has the legal authority to approve a specialty tag without a vote of the full Legislature. The tags can be used by educational and nonprofit groups to raise money.

Larry Rodick, state director of Planned Parenthood of Alabama, said he expects that proponents of the tags will have no trouble reaching 1,000 sales. “They could get a church to buy that many,” he said.

In other states, Planned Parenthood has sued over the “Choose life” tags, but Rodick said it is too early to say what will happen in Alabama. “It’s obviously a biased tag in favor of one side’s thinking.”

Beginning Dec. 1, any motorist can go into a county license plate office and pay $50 to reserve one of the tags. Out of the $50 fee, $8.75 covers printing and issuing each tag. The remaining $41.25 will go to the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition Education Fund to distribute to organizations that give assistance to needy pregnant women.