The U.S. Supreme Court, not currently known as a bastion of liberalism, recently declined to hear a case filed by an Illinois pro-life group, Choose Life Illinois Inc. (natch). Choose Life Illinois was appealing the decision of a lower court, which ruled that Illinois did not have to begin issuing “Choose Life” license plates.

To be honest, I had never really heard about “Choose Life” license plates before, though, evidently, they’re available in 20 states.  [editor's note: you can read earlier post from Paige Johnson about NC''s own "Choose Life" license plate bill]  And while I think they’re fairly ridiculous, and unlikely to change anyone’s mind whatsoever, I do think that the fight over this has some larger implications.

A lot of times, I feel that the battle over reproductive rights often gets bogged down in semantics. One can be pro-choice or pro-abortion, pro-life or anti-choice. But what the semantics often hide is the fact that those who oppose abortion and other aspects of reproductive rights are actually in favor of a choice. They’re in favor of being the ones who get to choose what everyone else does. They want nothing more than to form their own opinions, and then compel others to agree. The hypocrisy of the situation often astounds me. Why should they be the only ones who get to have a say in the matter? Why should they be the ones making the decisions? Who are they to say that their version of morality is “better” than mine?

The fact that they call the matter of the license plates a free speech issue also bothers me. I’m not going to get into whether or not I think that they’re right or wrong about that… but what I do know is that, if a pro-choice group had advocated for “Choose Choice” license plates, these same groups would be completely outraged. It wouldn’t be free speech anymore… it would be indoctrination, or something quite similar. And the anti-choice individuals and groups would refuse to stand for it.

In a previous blog posting, I wrote about the fact that one of the ways that I knew that I was on the right side of the “culture wars,” as some like to call them, (other than, and not to sound glib, common sense) is that our side doesn’t have to lie to have a valid point. To make an actual argument. Well, here’s another argument for our side: we don’t have to constantly shift our values to make our case. We don’t have to be for free speech in one instance and against it in another. We don’t have to resort to hypocrisy to try and gain an advantage.

(Another brief example of hypocrisy and the anti-choice movement: In a recent Pew poll (which found that support for abortion rights may be slipping, though there are lots of rationales for why that may be happening, which I’m not going to get into right now), 63% of Republicans thought abortion should be illegal, compared to 31% of Democrats. So what happens if a woman “chooses life,” as the anti-choice groups like to say? Well, obviously, there are two options: a woman could decide to parent or she could decide on adoption. So one would think that Republicans would be falling all over themselves to help women who make one of those two choices, right? Right? Right?? Right!?!)

Honestly (in my more frustrated moments), it seems unfair to me. Sometimes it seems so much easier to just throw a bunch of lies at people and see what sticks. To constantly move the line of what is and isn’t acceptable. But I still do honestly believe (perhaps in my more idealistic moments) that there will be a day where the majority of the American public doesn’t buy into this nonsense anymore. Where they’re able to see through the blatant manipulation of facts.

Until that day actually happens though, it’s all we can do to keep calling out these distortions and misdirections. And maybe we can propose a license plate of our own, one that both sides can support: “Choose Integrity.” Think it’ll catch on with the anti-choicers?

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