'Choose Life' license plate would funnel cash to divisive cause
JANUARY 31, 2012 AT 9:32 AM
'Choose Life' license plate would funnel cash to divisive cause
LAURA BERMAN 46 COMMENTS
In the January rush to help solve the state's problems, state Sen. Patrick Colbeck has launched his vital bid for a "Choose Life" state-sponsored license plate.
Michigan won't be the first.
Choose Life America, a national nonprofit organization, has successfully enlisted 24 states over a decade to add "Choose Life" plates to their otherwise innocuous rosters of rear-bumper fundraising. Organ donation, the Boy Scouts, the Olympics — causes we can all believe in.
But "Choose Life" is different: Unlike the Scouts, who encounter only occasional controversy, Choose Life is a hot-button political slogan and a tool of one of the state's most powerful political lobbies, Right to Life of Michigan. (Choose Life America designates the Michigan group as its go-to operator in Michigan on its website.) It's a slogan that divides us, and a precedent for the state helping to funnel dollars and vehicle advertising to the causes that make us crazy.
Sponsor Colbeck, a Republican from Canton Township, doesn't see it this way. He considers "the right to life" as an American core principle and one that's rightfully articulated in his bill. That the U.S. Supreme Court has held otherwise is their mistake, not his, he argues.
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