Fayetteville, AR – Liberty Counsel filed a motion to intervene in a case to protect Arkansas’ decision to issue Choose Life license plates. The lawsuit, which was filed by a pro-abortion advocate, challenges the Choose Life statute, along with the entire system of authorizing specialty and vanity license plates. Liberty Counsel intervened in Brackett v. Weiss in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas to defend the Choose Life license plates on behalf of Hannah Medical Center, Life Choices, Inc., Rose Mimms and Debora Griffin.

The Arkansas Choose Life license plate represents an expression of the state’s longstanding preference for childbirth over abortion. Under the Choose Life statute, anyone who purchases a Choose Life plate pays an additional fee to obtain the plate. Those funds are then used to support local crisis pregnancy centers, with the express condition that no funds may go to an entity that provides, promotes, or refers for abortion. For no other reason except that she disagrees with and finds offensive the Choose Life message, an individual plaintiff commenced a lawsuit to invalidate the Choose Life statute and the entire specialty license system. Arkansas currently authorizes more than fifty specialty plates, many of which contain private expression.

Liberty Counsel’s clients consist of two individuals who purchased the specialty plate in order to support life as an alternative to abortion, and who also seek to have their funds distributed to agencies that promote adoption. Hannah Medical Center and Life Choices, Inc. are crisis pregnancy centers, which provide services to pregnant women and encourage adoption as an alternative to an abortion. Together, they argue that the Choose Life statute is a valid exercise of government speech. Just as Arkansas can warn of the health consequences of smoking, so the state is entitled to make a value judgment favoring childbirth over abortion.

Mathew D. Staver, President and General Counsel of Liberty Counsel, commented, “If those who call themselves ‘pro-choice’ were genuinely concerned about the best interests of women and children, they would welcome a pro-adoption message. Their actions betray their rhetoric.”

Liberty Counsel successfully intervened on behalf of individuals and crisis pregnancy centers to defend Florida’s Choose Life license plate. Last year the federal court of appeals, in the first ruling of its kind in the country, upheld Florida’s Choose Life license plates. The sale of Florida’s Choose Life license plates has generated over $2 million in private funds to promote adoption. This plate has become one of the most popular specialty plates in Florida. Liberty Counsel will be making similar arguments to defend the Arkansas Choose Life license plates that it made in the Florida case.