Georgia Voters Approve Measure Allowing Choose Life License Plates

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Nov 9, 2006   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Georgia Voters Approve Measure Allowing Choose Life License Plates Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 9
, 2006

Atlanta, GA (LifeNews.com) — While other state initiatives across the country helping the pro-life cause failed, Georgia residents approved a constitutional amendment that will allow state residents to purchase Choose Life license plates for their vehicles.

By a lopsided 67-33 margin, Georgia voters backed Amendment 3 which would authorize specialty plates. It’s the only state in the nation that requires a constitutional amendment to share revenue from specialty plates with non-profit groups.

Thanks to the vote, Georgia drivers will now be allowed to purchase a Choose Life specialty tag similar to the ones already sold in fifteen other states.

Sales of the Choose Life tags will begin in January, Georgia Right to Life tells LifeNews.com and 1,000 Choose Life tags must be sold during 2007. Should that number be sold by next July, production can be started.

"Thank you to each and every person who supported this particular amendment," Georgia Right to Life told LifeNews.com in a statement. "In addition, thanks to each of you who forwarded emails, contacted family and friends, and worked to ensure the approval of amendment #3."

The Choose Life specialty tag will provide funds to agencies that counsel for adoption and is similar to plates in other states that have raised millions to help promote adoptions and abortion alternatives.

The amendment is a result of a bill approved by the state legislature and ultimately signed by pro-life Gov. Sonny Perdue, who won his bid for re-election.

Other Choose Life plates have hit the roads in other states and some have become the subject of intense legal battles as abortion advocates try to limit their sales.

The Supreme Court has refused to hear a pro-abortion group’s challenge to Choose Life plates in Tennessee and Louisiana and a pro-life appeal of a decision against the plates in South Carolina.

In the South Carolina case, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the plates violated the free speech rights of pro-abortion South Carolina residents, who don’t have a pro-abortion plate to purchase.

Choose Life license plates are now on the road in Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland, South Dakota, and Montana.

Only Montana and Hawaii have pro-abortion license plates, and in Hawaii abortion advocates use stickers instead.

Related web sites:
Georgia Right to Life – https://www.grtl.org
Choose Life, Inc. – https://www.choose-life.org