After seven long years of planning and waiting, South Carolina Citizens for Life (SCCL) and the South Carolina Association for Pregnancy Care Centers (SCAPCC) will finally see a common goal come to fruition. The South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles is producing the first Choose Life license plates. You should be able to purchase one of these tags in October.
Joe MackThe tags could have been issued in 2001, but Planned Parenthood filed suit against the state to prevent the issuing of pro-life plates. According to Holly Gatling, SCCL executive director, “Planned Parenthood receives $336 million in tax dollars and does a $1 billion – yes, billion – annual business.?Is it possible?Planned Parenthood is afraid?that the positive message ‘Choose Life’?on car tags might kill its business?”
The tag costs $35 in addition to your regular registration fee. The collected revenue will be disbursed among the more than 25 pregnancy care centers that belong to the SCAPCC. “We are excited to have these tags as a testimony. We are pleased that people all over the country will see that South Carolina is a state that appreciates life,” said Alexia Newman, executive director of the Carolina Pregnancy Care Center in Spartanburg.
The Christian Life and Public Affairs Committee of the South Carolina Baptist Convention donated the funds needed to put the license plates in production in 2001. The SCAPCC held the money in escrow until this year. Hal Lane, 2001 chairman of the CLPAC, said, “We were honored to be able to sponsor the tags. We felt that this was an honorable gift that would provide a steady funding stream for our pregnancy care centers.”
The tag does not portray the stick-figure children like the Florida Choose Life tag. Our license plate has a white background with a blue stripe across the top that says Choose Life SC. It also carries a rectangular logo that says the same thing, with the exception of a palmetto tree in place of the letter I in Life.