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UHub Readers Choice on "Choose Life"

Massachusetts permits interest groups to use Commonwealth auto registration as a fund-raising and advocacy mechanism. As you know from an earlier post, "Massachusetts Choose Life says it is only 214 sign-ups away from getting the Registry of Massachusetts to begin offering "Choose Life" vanity plates..."

[center]IMAGE(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk143/nfsagan/choselife10.jpg)[/center]

Massachusetts Choose Life stated mission is to distribute funds raised, about $28 per plate, to agencies that provide material support to mothers who choose to carry their pregnancy to term and put the baby up for adoption, which by all accounts is a laudable mission.

[center]IMAGE(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk143/nfsagan/choselife4.jpg)[/center]

The unstated mission is to have autos in Massachusetts with official auto registration tags advocating "Choose Life" in the context of a nationwide debate over the right of a woman to make that choice about her own pregnancy within the boundaries defined by the Supreme Court.

In the vernacular "Choose Life" and "pro-life" mean anti-abortion rights. So the unstated mission, in fact the concealed mission, is to have advertising on automobile plates advocating against a woman's right to choose. The word "choose" is false and deceptive in this context because the group presents itself as a support group for pregnant women who make the choice to put their child up for adoption when in fact its unstated, and therefore concealed goal, is to advocate a legal remedy - to criminalize abortion rights that are currently legal.

[center]IMAGE(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk143/nfsagan/choselife14.jpg)[/center]

The "Choose Life" mission has not proceeded without legal challenge by groups that advocate for a woman's reproductive rights. From MA Choose Life Org FAQ:

What about lawsuits?

Three lawsuits were filed in Florida by the National Organization of Women (NOW), Planned Parenthood (PP), and the Committee for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP). All suits were lost or dismissed, although the dismissal is being appealed in two of them. One suit was filed in Louisiana, and it was dismissed. It was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and on December 2, 2002, the Court refused to hear any further appeal. One suit was filed in South Carolina. The plate was ruled unconstitutional at the first hearing. However, the merits are the same as the Louisiana plate, which also lost at its first hearing and was later ruled Constitutional. SC organizers are confident the SC case will be decided in favor of the plate at the 4th Circuit Level. Choose Life specialty plates were approved in Alabama, Hawaii, Oklahoma, and Mississippi, and went on the road without any suits being filed.

Please vote on your favorite tag or suggest your own design. One way to fight this deceptive tactic is to employ the same tactic but do it openly.

What is your best idea for a pro-woman's reproductive right's license plate design for Massachusetts? My idea is to use the same image of woman and child and change the slogan, as follows.

[center]IMAGE(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk143/nfsagan/choselife2.jpg)[/center]

This is a creative bunch, brainstorm in the comment section. I'd be glad to do the photoshopping and post a poll based on your ideas. Here are some ideas based on suggestions from the earlier thread.

[center]IMAGE(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk143/nfsagan/choselife8.jpg)[/center]

[center]IMAGE(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk143/nfsagan/choselife6.jpg)[/center]

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Comments

In the vernacular "Choose Life" and "pro-life" mean anti-abortion rights.

The same way "pro choice" means "anti-life."

Oooh! Look! I can troll too!

</facepalm>

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sometimes means saving a mother of multiple other children when things go badly wrong.

But that would be a pro choice stance.

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Sometimes it means a young George Michael dancing around in an oversized t shirt .

-----------------------------------------
who and the what now?

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x9rtEHtubI

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.

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Really? "pro choice" means "anti-life."

A woman's right to choose is pretty clearly a choice between one that ends the potential of a fetus to become a viable fetus and one that does not. So "choice" cannot reasonably be decried as anti-life, although one outcome of that choice can.

You might benefit from learning about medical reasons that drive women to make the decision.

I think it should be kept legal and safe and we should do much more by way of public policy to keep people from putting themselves in the position of making the choice. Prophylactics are a good start.

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One thing is for sure- a plate like this in MA is probably risky. In such a liberal state I think the plate-bearer risks vandalism inflicted on their automobile. It's not right, but putting your views out there like that is a risk in and of itself.

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Wait, I thought this was the liberal utopia. You know, the one where everyone is open to each other's ideas. Oh, it's not? How about we stop tip-toeing around the issue and call "pro-choice" what it really is: pro-murder. There is no enumerated right to "choice" but there certainly is one to life. You don't have the right to take another's life because you feel like it. And anyway the "choice" people have the "choice" wrong. There is another, better answer. Its called adoption. Look it up. Planned Parenthood is about as interested in "Parenthood" as PETA is in saving shelter dogs and cats. /rant

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abortion isn't murder. in most cases in Massachusetts a woman choosing to terminate a pregnancy is perfectly legal.

you may find it morally repugnant, and it might not be a choice that you would ever make. and hopefully most women never need to make that choice. it's a tough one.

but the supreme court believed that women have an inherent right to privacy and what they do with their bodies is their choice. it's simply not your business.

i have no problem with the pro-life movement getting themselves organized to have a special plate. it let's me know who to avoid in the parking lot. but i have a *serious* problem with self-righteous people who want to tell me that i am a murderer for terminating an unwanted and unplanned pregnancy that happened in my own body. it's not legally correct and it's seriously offensive.

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It's always easier to say it's a choice you would never make before you are faced with the choice. But the fact of the matter is that people who are politically opposed to legal abortions (fundamentalists, strict Catholics, etc.) have abortions at just the same rate as people who support legal abortions. Opposing legal abortion doesn't make them have abortions any less. When the day comes, they want that choice just like the rest of us.

Sometimes it seems like all they're really arguing for is greater punishment for their sins. Obviously, they want abortions; perhaps they just want them to be illegal and unsafe.

I propose that, in the spirit of pluralism, we offer two regimes: legal, safe abortions for those who support a woman's right to choose; and illegal, back-alley coat-hanger abortions for those who don't. Everybody can be happy then, right?

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molar pregnancy? Tubular pregancy? Too bad - die evil woman, you had sex!

That's pro-murder - particularly when the EXISTING children starve or suffer without a mother who died for your simplistic and ill-informed ideology.

Adoption doesn't help when the fetus is rotting and dead inside a woman, and nobody can help her.

Adoption doesn't help when a woman is ecclamptic (fucking look it up).

Life isn't so neat and tidy as the "we own your womb" brigade likes to make it sound.

If "pro life" is so very "pro life", then how come nobody in your camp gives the slightest shit about already born babies, eh? Huh? Oh noes, we can't reduce the infant mortality rate with universal care, a woman with cancer and existing children to care for might actually be saved by an abortion paid for by the system rather than die with her unborn child infiltrated with melanoma while inside her!

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Do you really not comprehend the meaning of the word "choice?"

Just because a woman has a uterus doesn't mean she wants to or has to use it. She should have that CHOICE.

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Yer Mom Senator Kyl!

So nice that a "pro-life" senator would be so very negative about requiring health care plans to provide maternity care. What's up with that?

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Kyl is a piece of work. More than half the population of this country are women and Kyl is arguing that the state has no interest requiring health insurance companies to cover the health services women need that men don't.

The junior senator from AZ is even worse. Enzi is the guy who was screwing the wife of a guy on his staff and when it started to fall apart, his parents paid her family $70,000 hush money.

Today, as part of the GOP slow-walking the Health care bill, Enzi proposed an amendment to hold hearings on Czars in the executive branch. I hope the enlightened people of Arizona are watching, especially the ones losing their insurance and facing health crisis without the means to pay for care.

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I am disappointed by the existence of this thread. Will the Universal Hub become nothing more than a bunch of posts by random passersby, each entry more inane, urbane, or dogmatic than its predecessors?

Did this site just jump the shark?

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Do I look like Arthur Fonzarelli?

One thread and you've consigned the entire site to the dustheap of Boston blogging history?

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Wow you sell-out your contributors at the first complaint. What in the main post is beyond belief?

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Sit down, Waldo. A troll like this is supposed to be a hit and run job, and staying around afterwards to protest your innocence doesn't help you one bit. Do we have to help you with everything around here?

Now be quiet, leave the flames to build up naturally, go start up Photoshop and work on something else. Maybe a Shepard Fairey parody. Oh! I know! Maybe you could do a Kanye West "Imma let you finish" joke. Yeah! Run with that, man.

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I wrote this post in all sincerity, I am offended by the anti-choice advocates co-option of the the word Choice and my instinct is to go right back at it on the same terms.

Some of my ideas are well over the top and that probably moved the conversation in an nonconstructive direction but I assure you, trolling was not my intent.

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I was complaining about Mr. Keith, who sometimes seems to overreact just a tad to things he doesn't like.

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Q: Did this site just jump the shark?

A: One thread and you've consigned the entire site to the dust heap of Boston blogging history?

You probably weren't talking about this thread being the one you thought might qualify as deserving his just criticism ;-)

Have a good panel in RI. If someone hires you to run their on-line news service, will you take the job with the understanding that they will let you keep up your work on Uhub?

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antichoicers were portraying Sarah Palin's child with Down's syndrome as a heroic choice...

You know, it's the anti-choicers who use "it's not a choice, it's a child" as a rallying cry to force women to give birth. And yet here I am, as pro-choice as can be, really fucking annoyed that conservative assholes are portraying this very real, actual child as a political choice rather than the human being that he is.link

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What is the final license plate design trying to convey?
I don't get it.

Anyway, my suggestion would be to keep the opposing design simple: a picture of a chopped-up fetus with the slogan "Choose Abortion."

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if you're advocating for or against abortions.

I'm not. I'm advocated for a women's right to control her own body in the context decided by the Supreme Court.

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[center]IMAGE(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk143/nfsagan/Choose-Life16.jpg)[/center]

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Wha is da finl lisense plate desine trying to convey? I dont get it. A choptup feetus wit the slogan "Chooos Abortion."

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You legitimately made one with a coat hanger. You're the best.

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because you asked for it.

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[center]IMAGE(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk143/nfsagan/MA-Abstinence-3.jpg)[/center]

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[center]IMAGE(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk143/nfsagan/MA-Abstinence-2.jpg)[/center]

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[center]IMAGE(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk143/nfsagan/MA-Abstinence-1.jpg)[/center]

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...you keep re-posting these?

are you that enamored with your own genius?

because, no offense, i sort of think this thread should just kinda go away at this point.

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[center]IMAGE(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk143/nfsagan/Choose-Life18x.jpg)[/center]

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amusing. carry on.

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[center]IMAGE(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk143/nfsagan/Choose-Life20.jpg)[/center]

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