Further proof that pro-lifers don't believe in giving any woman autonomy over her own life.

Also proof that the term "anti-choice" is completely appropriate.

It's not about NOT choosing abortion or choosing 'life,' it's about NOT making a choice, because you're being a good girl and doing what you're told.

Women needing only a litle temporary help are turned away, while money for adoptions (by white middle-class families) piles up unused. Any questions about the priorities and goals of "pro-lifers"?

Women needing only a litle temporary help are turned away, while money for adoptions (by white middle-class families) piles up unused. Any questions about the priorities and goals of "pro-lifers"?

If there are choose life plates, there should also be choose adoption or pro-choice plates, in addition to a selection of other politically themed plates, with the extra revenue being directed to those causes.

"Also proof that the term 'anti-choice' is completely appropriate.

"It's not about NOT choosing abortion or choosing 'life,' it's about NOT making a choice, because you're being a good girl and doing what you're told."

Yup, good points.

Also, now I wonder how many of the mothers who did choose adoption still chose to not go through Project Gabriel and instead chose kinship adoption and/or international adoption (like giving custody of her child to her aunt, someone in Canada, or her aunt who lives in Canada).

Just a question ... does the program only cover adoptions by two parent families or by, gasp, single people as well?

As a Jew, I find the use of "choose life" by the anti-abortion people to be somewhat ironic.

After all, that phrase in context is: "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live"

Jewish commentators take this verse as indicating, among other things, that you are commanded by God to preserve your own life, except under certain highly limited circumstances and that preserving life overrides many other Biblical laws.

Among the situations where one "must choose" life, according to Jewish law, is in the case where a pregnancy threatens the life of a woman. She is supposed to "choose life" that way she may live (and whatever kids she may already have can have a mother and that she also can go on to have kids in the future if she desires and is able).

I wish I could distill this down into a bumper sticker:

"Choose Life: In case of pre-eclampsia, have an abortion"

Any ideas?

*

I know, the pro-life community says they always will have allowances for abortion in the case of a threat to life of the woman, but we all know what has happened in practice. And anyway, a lot of these people sincerely think that it is noble for women to sacrifice their lives for their fetus's even though that is a sin according to Jewish law (although I think it would be treated the same as suicide -- a woman who doesn't have an abortion and dies would be considered to be so distressed about the loss of her pregnancy, she wouldn't be held responsible for her failure to act).

In general, I wonder how these types who want to legislate morality would react if the morality being legislated were that of a liberal Jew such as myself: no blood sausages, mandatory abortions in the case of pre-eclampsia, etc., etc.

I suspect they'd change their tunes really quickly. Nu? Didn't Jesus say "do unto others as you would like them to do unto you?" If they wouldn't want someone like me acting as if my morality should be normative, why do they act toward me as if my morality is lesser than theirs?

Ugh, that's sick.

I live in FL, and these plates are everywhere. It really makes me sick because they are on SUVs and minivans and the cars are usually also flooded with condescending pro-Christian bumper stickers AND pro-war/Bush stickers. I would have no problem with them if there weren't such hypocrisy involved. I wonder how many people with these tags have adopted children?
(I am not being insensitive to adoption- my partner is adopted and I want to adopt one day as well. I am very pro-adoption just as I am very pro-shelter animal adopting).

Anyway, sorry for the long-windedness..these people do not care about LIFE, or women. That's obvious.

I thought there were a few states that DO have a Choose Choice?

Jeez, you'd think they'd use the extra money to provide for kids who already are in the adoption/foster care system. You know, the ones who were given up for adoption but never taken in by white wealthy heterosexual couples? They could give the money to pay for better medical care, education, psychiatric counseling and even higher education for the children who really need it, and they wouldn't be violating their own morality.

Except that they don't care about the kid after it's born...

Damn, I hate these anti-choicers. The problems they cause looks like the same chaos that brought about Planned Parenthood about 100 years ago. I hate these republicans. Weve already found a legitimate solution to reproductive health, why do these zealots want to overturn it!All they'll do is create the same horrors women experienced not too long ago.

"If there are choose life plates, there should also be choose adoption or pro-choice plates, in addition to a selection of other politically themed plates, with the extra revenue being directed to those causes."

Yup. I had a friend who posted a pro-choice license plate on her car, and ended up being harassed by all these so-called 'moral' anti-choicers.

Adoption renders the legal parent relationship between the natural parents and their child null and void. It is a type of death, an amputation, and felt that way by the mother, and it is said by some, by the child. Even open adoption agreements aren't legally binding in most states therefore aren't guaranteed to remain open, and many first parents have been devastated by planning adoptions that were supposed to be open but were (after the birth) closed up by the adopters.

This is not about choosing life, as adoption involves an already live, born infant.

I agree with the person who said the license plates should say "choose adoption" instead of "choose life" as that would show more clearly show what the agenda is... to sever relationships between parents and their children in order to transfer those children into families that are considered "better" (by their standards)... but we have seen that adoption does not guarantee a "better life" only a different life.

No mother should ever be pressured into giving her child up for adoption. The language of this license plate campaign is manipulative because it is really about getting more babys available for adoption.

PamelaV, I looked into this one once, and found no states that offer "Choose Choice" plates. The closest is Montana, where you can get a Planned Parenthood license plate as an alternative to "Choose Life" sponsored by MT Right to Life. Outrageous. Me, I'd pay a surcharge for "Powder & Crack Cocaine, Equal Time in [my state]."

Can Rush (the band) fans have a personalized license plate: "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice"?

Don't even get me started on Trainspotting (the movie) fans!

wow! im glad you posted something about our situation in FLA.

Im the vice president of NOW at the University of Central FLORIDA. pretty much for the past 2 years we have worked so hard to try and get a pro choice license plate. We have raised quite a bit of money but no where near the amount needed to make it happen. In order to have the application put in we need to raise 60 thousand dollars.

it is such an important thing to have this license plate. to raise money for organizations who are truly trying to help women

Im glad you have raised an eye brow or two about this looked over issue!

wow! im glad you posted something about our situation in FLA.

Im the vice president of NOW at the University of Central FLORIDA. pretty much for the past 2 years we have worked so hard to try and get a pro choice license plate. We have raised quite a bit of money but no where near the amount needed to make it happen. In order to have the application put in we need to raise 60 thousand dollars.

it is such an important thing to have this license plate. to raise money for organizations who are truly trying to help women

Im glad you have raised an eye brow or two about this looked over issue!

This is pretty vile. But it also is kind of interesting. This doesn't make sense from a pro-life point of view. Nor does it make sense from an anti-women point of view, unless adoption is in some way viewed as moral whereas single parenting is validation of sex out of wedlock.

This actually strikes me as a tension between the pro-life symbiote and their fiscally conservative Republican hosts.

(Anne_Molly, do you have a link? Is there a way for people to donate via paypal?)

I had a former friend from high school that got pregnant when she was 16. She was anti-choice and had the baby, but planned on giving it up for adoption. Unfortunetly when the 'father' found out he refused to sign the adoption papers. He didnt take the burden seriously, and she wasnt about to give up a kid to a frivolous guy, so she was forced to keep it. No parent/child relationship should have to be like that.

"Adoption renders the legal parent relationship between the natural parents and their child null and void. It is a type of death, an amputation, and felt that way by the mother, and it is said by some, by the child."

Nitpick: Except when the parents are already dead before the adoption, right? Or does it affect wills and inheritance too? I know my family had plans in place for who would adopt me if my parents died while I was little.

Thread over. Norbizness wins.

SRSLY though... that's a whole lot of F*d Up! Anti-choice is too kind of a term for policy like that.

You know, I would never choose adoption. I don't know about anyone else, but I definitely would never put a child up for adoption. I could never give my child to someone else, since I'd be wondering if he or she is having a good life or if they resent the fact that their own mother didn't want them or if they're looking for me. So adoption is not a choice for me, and there are probably a lot of other women in the same boat.

I don't know if it's worth my time to research this, but I wonder how many "pro-life" organizations, particularly those that run crisis pregnancy centers, push women with unwanted pregnancies to adopt rather than parent. I mean, crisis pregnancy centers masquerade as women's health centers that perform abortions or refer to places that do. Do you think that maybe the people who run CPCs don't want women who might have considered abortion to raise a child at all? I suppose the people at the CPC could safely assume that any woman who wandered into their fake clinic that pretends to be a Planned Parenthood has considered abortion. I mean, "pro-lifers" judge women all the time, so why wouldn't they make a judgment regarding if she'd make what they believe to be a good mother? But that's just the conspiracy theorist in me.

I just did an investigative paper for my final on CPCs. One of the woman I interviewed said she likes to 'give all of the facts' about abortion. Technically they do force a decision on them because they deprive them of adequete information. How are these centers even legal?!!!!

How about "Choose Choice" license plates that give all the money to Planned Parenthood, or to schools that refuse federal funding for abstinence only "sex ed"?

I can understand that people may want the money to first go to women who would otherwise abort but for lack of money. I mean, isn't that some of the reason y'all support abortion - that not all women can afford to have kids?

(Hypocrisy? I sincerely hope not.)

I can understand that, when you are dealing with limited funds, you don't want to give it to people who don't need it and are just taking it because it is there. I can really understand if they don't want to give the cash to women who would have the kid anyway, because it's not helping to save a life of a child who would otherwise be aborted.

This makes sense, if you think about it. The application, however, sucks. I'm sure that there are a lot of people who pay a premium for the plates, who put their money where their mouths are (hoping that the extra money goes to helping a woman in crisis pregnancy) and hoping to raise awareness at the same time. It's really sad that their money isn't being used to help women who need it - whether the choice be to adopt or to parent instead of aborting.

Frankly, the idea that you would read this as nothing but "anti-choicers" (who, again, put their money where their mouths are and are trying to do something to help women in crisis pregnancy) and just start attacking them is fucking pathetic. Really, ladies: when pro-lifers spend money to help women in crisis pregnancy, shove your "anti-choice" rhetoric and meet them in the middle - because the common goal of helping women is there. Absolutely, truly, pathetic of every one of you.

I don't "support abortion." I support individual choice.

"shove your 'anti-choice' rhetoric and meet them in the middle"

I'm new. What does this mean, exactly? Why do pro-choice groups need to be the ones to reach out first?

"the common goal of helping women is there"

You'll need to explain how crisis pregnancy centers do this, too. I've seen pat self on the back claims, with very few particulars.

Paying slightly more for a fancy, sanctimonious plate is not "putting your money where you mouth is." It is paying slightly more than the standard rate for something. If pro-lifers want to put their money where their mouths are, they are free to financially support women and their children for 18+ years. $20 extra to a state program is not 18 years of food, clothes, and shelter.

I have to agree with A Male. What can pro-choicers do here to meet the pro-lifers in the middle in this particular situation? Cheer on the use of funds collected through the state to go towards CPCs? Donate themselves to CPCs? Get exciting licence plates? Get pregnant in order to give up the child in Florida and receive these unused benefits?

Today I donated money to my woman's health clinic. It was $50, more than those license plates, but I am not going to bed tonight thinking I really did some fantastic great thing that I deserve praise for, nor do I think the pro-life crowd must support the same organization.

I find it remarkable that most people can afford children at all. I cannot find the original source of the $1.4 million figure per child from birth to age 18, not including costs of college.

I found this site interesting. It allows one to input personalized data.

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/calc/raiseChild.asp

Wow. If there is no inflation, it will cost me "only" $901,838.00 to raise both my kids to 18, minus college costs. No wonder I can't afford to buy a house in Hawaii.

The money central site makes it sound downright reasonable. They imagine my kids would be just $170,460 each.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/family/kids/tlkidscost.asp

That's a lot of license plates. No, I doubt any pro-life groups are prepared to take on these costs for women who would seek an abortion for economic reasons. Not that I believe money is the real reason, anyway.

"I find it remarkable that most people can afford children at all. I cannot find the original source of the $1.4 million figure per child from birth to age 18, not including costs of college."

o_O

I can only imagine that figure making sense if it's not in U.S., Canadian, or Australian dollars but in some other dollar that buys a lot less and is issued by a nation where the cost of living isn't as much less.

While I still hunt down the original source and figure - Speaking of the cost of raising a child and "The Threat Of Compulsory Motherhood":

The Price Of Denying Choice
by Ann Crittenden
June 13, 2005

"You don’t usually hear this, but the truth is that you cannot have well-nurtured, well-educated children or a modern, dynamic economy without reproductive freedom. Put another way, denying reproductive freedom is a perfect formula for economic backwardness."

"The world saw the consequences of denying reproductive freedom at the end of the Cold War, when they opened the appalling orphanages of Romania. The Communist dictatorship had denied Romanian women the right to decide for themselves whether they were equipped to be good mothers. Thousands of women were forced to have children they didn’t want or couldn’t care for. Many of those children were abandoned to state orphanages and to permanently damaged lives. And now we find ourselves in a struggle against those who want the government and courts here in the United States to do to American women and children what a Communist dictatorship did to the women and children of Romania."

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2005/06/13/the_price_of_denying_choice.php

As someone who does not make a practice of studying women's issues, I never considered that. Thought provoking.

Mina: Got it, from 1998. From birth to age 22, probably including cost of university. The figure is closer to $1.7 million now:

http://www.slate.com/id/1222

"U.S. News calculates the cost of raising a child from birth to age 22: more than $1.45 million. Most of that is lost parental wages . . . "

So it includes opportunity cost: what parents could have made if continuously working, I suppose at demanding jobs that did not require consideration for a family; instead of raising children.

Let me tell you as someone who did not do so, and will probably never afford a house or retirement, having children requires planning ahead. As Teddy Roosevelt said: "I can be president, or I can raise Alice, but I can’t do both." (Crittenden). Wouldn't give up my children for the world, though.

"Mina: Got it, from 1998. From birth to age 22, probably including cost of university. The figure is closer to $1.7 million now...

"...So it includes opportunity cost"

Thanks! Now I get it.

Before, I thought "that sounds way too high - wait a minute, not every dollar is American. That sounds way too high if it's current Canadian or Australian $, sounds way too low if it's current Zimbabwean $, some other currencies in between are $ too..."

Adoption is a fine choice, both for women and for parents who can't have children of their own. I'm disappointed to find it disparaged here. One of the interesting things in the article was that the organizations can't give money to women who haven't made up their minds yet-- only to women who are committed to giving the baby up for adoption. The whole thing's nuts.

I accept adoption as being one of a number of choices for women. I leave the issues of grief, loss or abandonment to the individuals and their circles of support, as part of living with the choices they make. It's not all bad.

As an adoptive mother (I prefer just "MOM") and a member of a "white heterosexual couple", I would like to say something. Of all who have posted on this subject....how many of you have found yourself poor, uneducated, possibly abused and pregnant? How many have had the father of your baby leave you, deny the child as his or worse yet, DEMAND you keep that baby and then later abandon you and baby? I believe in a woman's autonomy over her body, but choosing life should be an educated, thoughtful solution. When a woman without the means to care for herself, her two year old, her four year old become pregnant, shouldn't we as a society do something for that unborn child. I will always believe that child stands a better chance at happiness out side the vicious cycle of poverty. That child will stand a better chance at the educated life that a stable, loving living environment provides. I have known of too many little children that are forced to tag along with their high school dropout, drug using, sexually addicted mother as she moves from "home" to "home" in search of happiness for herself. Is that child better off? If the license plates save children from this fate, then I say sign me up. Remember when you reference us "white heterosexual couples" that you as a nonwhite...homosexual...single female may make an excellent parent to a child/or infant in need. So yes, I say CHOOSE LIFE...CHOOSE ADOPTION.

As an adoptive mother (I prefer just "MOM") and a member of a "white heterosexual couple", I would like to say something. Of all who have posted on this subject....how many of you have found yourself poor, uneducated, possibly abused and pregnant? How many have had the father of your baby leave you, deny the child as his or worse yet, DEMAND you keep that baby and then later abandon you and baby? I believe in a woman's autonomy over her body, but choosing life should be an educated, thoughtful solution. When a woman without the means to care for herself, her two year old, her four year old become pregnant, shouldn't we as a society do something for that unborn child. I will always believe that child stands a better chance at happiness out side the vicious cycle of poverty. That child will stand a better chance at the educated life that a stable, loving living environment provides. I have known of too many little children that are forced to tag along with their high school dropout, drug using, sexually addicted mother as she moves from "home" to "home" in search of happiness for herself. Is that child better off? If the license plates save children from this fate, then I say sign me up. Remember when you reference us "white heterosexual couples" that you as a nonwhite...homosexual...single female may make an excellent parent to a child/or infant in need. So yes, I say CHOOSE LIFE...CHOOSE ADOPTION.

As an adoptive mother (I prefer just "MOM") and a member of a "white heterosexual couple", I would like to say something. Of all who have posted on this subject....how many of you have found yourself poor, uneducated, possibly abused and pregnant? How many have had the father of your baby leave you, deny the child as his or worse yet, DEMAND you keep that baby and then later abandon you and baby? I believe in a woman's autonomy over her body, but choosing life should be an educated, thoughtful solution. When a woman without the means to care for herself, her two year old, her four year old become pregnant, shouldn't we as a society do something for that unborn child. I will always believe that child stands a better chance at happiness out side the vicious cycle of poverty. That child will stand a better chance at the educated life that a stable, loving living environment provides. I have known of too many little children that are forced to tag along with their high school dropout, drug using, sexually addicted mother as she moves from "home" to "home" in search of happiness for herself. Is that child better off? If the license plates save children from this fate, then I say sign me up. Remember when you reference us "white heterosexual couples" that you as a nonwhite...homosexual...single female may make an excellent parent to a child/or infant in need. So yes, I say CHOOSE LIFE...CHOOSE ADOPTION.