Pro-Family Firm Granted Intervention In Arkansas "Choose Life" Case
by Jenni Parker and Rusty Pugh
September 3, 2004
(AgapePress) - A federal judge has given the green light to a pro-life group to defend the State of Arkansas' right to issue specialty license plates featuring the message "Choose Life." Judge Harry Barnes granted the request by Liberty Counsel to intervene on behalf of several pro-life groups seeking to defend the Arkansas "Choose Life" license plates. The lawsuit, filed by a pro-abortion advocate, challenges the state's Choose Life statute, along with the entire system of authorizing specialty and vanity license plates.
Under that statute, those purchasing the Choose Life plate pay an additional fee, and these funds go to support local crisis pregnancy centers. By law, that money cannot go to support any entity that provides, promotes, or refers individuals for abortion. 
Mat Staver | |
Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel's President and General Counsel, says the Arkansas Choose Life license plate represents an expression of the state's longstanding preference for childbirth over abortion. But one "pro-choice" individual, apparently offended by the state-sponsored Choose Life message, took the matter to court.
Staver says the lawsuit in Arkansas represents yet "another attempt by the radical pro-abortion advocates to stop free speech and to prevent people from having the choice to choose life." But while pro-abortion forces have launched an effort to shut down the pro-life plates' message, the attorney says these activists have not really attempted to counter it in a direct way.
"They never tried to have their own license plate," Staver notes. "If they did, obviously the message probably wouldn't be very popular, because it would be something like 'Choose death.' But they never tried to pursue that route." Instead, he says, they have tried to censor the pro-life message by attacking the state's life- and health-affirming statute. Moreover, he points out, "not only has this pro-abortion group gone against the 'Choose Life' license plate, but they are now trying to eliminate the entire specialty plate system in the state of Arkansas, simply as an attack against the 'Choose Life' message."
But now that a federal judge has granted Liberty Counsel's request for intervenor status, the attorneys will be able to help develop and implement legal strategy to defend the Arkansas Choose Life statute. Staver and Senior Litigation Counsel Rena Lindevaldsen are representing two pro-life supporters who purchased the license plate -- Rose Mimms and Debora Griffin Hannah -- and two crisis pregnancy centers -- Medical Center and Life Choices, Inc.
Can the State Promote the Healthier Choice?
Liberty Counsel is arguing on behalf of their clients that the Choose Life statute is a valid exercise of government speech. They contend that, just as Arkansas can warn against the unhealthy consequences of smoking, the state is likewise entitled to make a value judgment favoring childbirth over abortion as the choice that is truly in the best interests of women and children.
As some pro-life advocates have noted, at times it appears as though the so-called "pro-choice" crowd does not want women to have choices as much as they seem to want women to have abortions. In light of that observation, many pro-lifers find the term "pro-abortion" more apt. And while many pro-abortion activists claim they are advocating on behalf of women and girls (30% of abortions are performed on teenagers), they often ignore and sometimes even suppress information about the proven health risks and negative physical, emotional, and psychological after-effects of abortion.
Legal abortion is reported as the fifth leading cause of maternal death in the United States, though it is commonly known that most abortion-related deaths are not officially reported as such. Also, a significant body of medical evidence exists to suggest a link between abortion and increased risk of breast cancer, and between abortion and higher risks of liver, ovarian and cervical cancer as well. The increased cancer rates for post-aborted women seem to be tied to the unnatural disruption of the hormonal processes that take place during pregnancy, as well as to the untreated cervical damage that can result from abortion.
Medical researchers have documented the fact that cervical and uterine damage from abortion can have long-term health consequences that not only endanger a woman's life, but can put her at risk for complications during future, wanted pregnancies. This kind of damage increases a woman's risk of delivering prematurely, having problems during labor, or experiencing abnormal development of the placenta in later pregnancies. Such complications are leading causes of handicaps among newborns.
Mat Staver says he finds the actions of those pro-abortion individuals who tout their concern for women and young girl's lives, health, and future contradict their rhetoric. The attorney and head of Liberty Counsel contends that if pro-abortion activists were genuinely concerned about the health and well-being of women and children, they would welcome a pro-adoption message.
