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Maryland has Choose Life license plates

Three years ago, on a trip to Florida, former State Del. Robert Baldwin spotted some cars with specialty license plates bearing the upbeat message, "Choose Life."

What a great idea! he thought.

When he got back to Maryland, the Anne Arundel county legislator went to work to make such plates available to Maryland drivers.

Two routes are available in Maryland to get approval for spe­cialty tags.

One is the legislative route. To get approval for the Chesapeake Bay tags or the "agricultural" tags, for example, the General Assembly passed a law.

Knowing the liberal make­up of Maryland's legislature, Bob chose the alternate, "administrative" route, which requires an application by a nonprofit organization to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Baldwin, State Sen. Janet Greenip and other pro-life-minded individuals formed the nonprofit organization, Choose Life of Maryland, then applied to the DMV for approval of their proposed tag.

Modeled after the Florida plate, it displays cheerful line drawings of the faces of a boy and girl, and below the tag number, the simple message, "Choose Life."

The DMV approved the tag in May.

The plates cost $40: $25 goes to the DMV, and $15 (tax­deductible) is for membership in Choose Life of Maryland. The entire amount of the membership fees will be used to support and pro­mote adoption.

Pro-lifers can obtain an application form for the plate by e­mailing their name and address to chooselifemd@ao1.com, or calling Ann Johnson at 410-987-0313, or writing to Choose Life of Maryland, Inc., 1 Churchview Road, Millersville, MD 21108.

At this writing, Bob was hoping that the first batch of tag applicants would receive their tags by early August.

He says he has written to Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, "asking him to help me put the fIrst tags on."

In a masterpiece of under­statement, Bob says that he expects "a few raised eyebrows" when the Choose Life plates appear on Maryland's roadways.

Florida's four-year battle to get Choose Life tags included a 1998 veto of the enabling bill by then-gov­ernor Lawton Chiles, and the signing of the resubmitted bill in 1999 by Gov. Jeb Bush, followed quickly by a lawsuit against the tags by the National Organization of Women.

The suit was eventually dis­missed and the tags released to the public in 2000.

Because of the nationwide publicity engendered by the lawsuit, Florida's Choose Life, Inc., has been working with people trom 41 states on getting the plates for their own states.

So far, in addition to Florida and Maryland, six other states have Choose Life plates: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Arkansas.

Pro-abortion groups have mounted legal challenges against them with varying degrees of success.

Gov. Mark Warner vetoed a bill for Choose Life plates in Virginia in March. The Virginia legislature was not able to override the veto.

As of Jan. 1, 2003, Florida's Choose Life plates had raised $1.4 million to aid organizations that help women make an adoption plan for their child.