Fred Thompson on Meet The Press says he doesn’t support the Human Life Amendment

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/11/04/video-fred-thompson-on-mtp-says-he-doesnt-support-the-human-life-amendment/

Twin survives several abortion attempts, refuses to die

We’re twinseparable! Happy with his brother, the boy who refused to die

By LUCY LAING – More by this author » Last updated at 01:09am on 3rd November 2007
They say twins share a strong bond – but the one between Gabriel and Ieuan Jones was unbreakable.
When doctors found that Gabriel was weaker than his brother, with an enlarged heart,and believed he was going to die in the womb, his mother Rebecca Jones had to make a heartbreaking decision.
Doctors told her his death could cause his twin brother to die too before they were born, and that it would be better to end Gabriel’s suffering sooner rather than later.

Mrs Jones decided to let doctors operate to terminate Gabriel’s life.
Firstly they tried to sever his umbilical cord to cut off his blood supply, but the cord was too strong.
They then cut Mrs Jones’s placenta in half so that when Gabriel died, it would not affect his twin brother.
But after the operation which was meant to end his life, tiny Gabriel had other ideas.
Although he weighed less than a pound, he put up such a fight for survival that doctors called him Rocky.
Astonishingly, he managed to carry on living in his mother’s womb for another five weeks – until the babies were delivered by caesarean section.
Now he and Ieuan are back at home in Stoke – and are so close they are always holding each other’s hand.
Mrs Jones, 35, a financial adviser whose husband Mark, 36, is a car salesman, said: “It really is a miracle. Doctors carried out an operation to let Gabriel die – yet he hung on.
“It was unbelievable.”
“When I felt him kicking madly the morning after the operation, I suddenly knew that he was going to hang on.
“The doctors couldn’t believe it when they could still hear his heartbeat the next morning.”

Mrs Jones learned she was expecting twins when she was ten weeks pregnant. She said: “When they told us we were over the moon.”
But at her 20-week scan, doctors had some devastating news. One of the boys was half the size of his brother.
They didn’t know what was causing it, but somehow he wasn’t getting enough nutrients.
Then doctors said his heart was three times normal size and it was likely he would have a heart attack or a stroke in the womb.
Mrs Jones said: “They told us that if he died, it could be life threatening for his brother.
“We had to decide whether to end his life and let his brother live, or risk them both.”
They said it would be impossible to keep him alive afterwards as he was so poorly.
It would be kinder to let him die in the womb with his brother by his side than to die alone after being born.
“That made my mind up for me. I wanted the best thing for him.”
At Birmingham Women’s Hospital, when Mrs Jones was 25 weeks pregnant, doctors tried to sever Gabriel’s umbilical cord to cut off his blood supply and allow him to die.
But the cord was too thick, and they could not cut through it.
As a last resort they divided Mrs Jones’s placenta so that when Gabriel died, it would allow Ieuan to survive. Mrs Jones said: “I put my hands on my stomach thinking of Gabriel. It was devastating. I had said my goodbyes.”
But the next morning Mrs Jones felt Gabriel kicking. A scan showed his heart was still beating. She said: “No one could quite believe it.”
Gabriel hung on, and his enlarged heart started to reduce in size. He also gained weight.
Mrs Jones said: “They thought it may be because the placenta had been divided. Inadvertently, it had evened out the distribution of nutrition between them, allowing Gabriel to survive.’
When Mrs Jones reached 31 weeks doctors carried out a caesarian to deliver the twins. Ieuan weighed 3lb 8oz and Gabriel 1lb 15oz. Both were kept in hospital, but since going home they have thrived. At seven months, Ieuan weighs 15lb and Gabriel 12lb 6oz.
Mrs Jones said: “The boys are so healthy, they have huge appetites too. Ieuan is the noisy one, while Gabriel is always laughing, it’s like he’s just so happy to be here.
“There is such a strong bond between them.
“They are always holding hands and if one cries, the other reaches out to comfort him.”
“Doctors tried to break their bond in the womb, but they just proved it couldn’t be broken.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=491443&in_page_id=1770

Christian group apologizes for pro-life message

Christian group apologizes for pro-life message’

We respect the separation educators need to have from the church world’
Posted: October 16, 20071:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
Tina Marie
A Christian organization that provides motivational speakers to high schools has apologized to a school after one speaker made comments that could have been interpreted as opposing abortion and support heterosexual relationships.
The speaker is Tina Marie, an actress who is available for such events through Premiere Speakers. She spoke recently in several Minnesota schools under the auspices of Youth for Christ.
“The issue … was that the speaker indicated a pro-life stance when it came to the abortion issue, and when it came to homosexuality and/or the gay issue, she could have been interpreted as an anti-gay stance,” Bob Poe, a spokesman for the YFC office, told WND.
“Although she did not say directly either one of those statements, by her examples and inference that would have been logical,” he said.
Poe said he wrote to the school to address the concerns, while Willmar High School Principal Rob Anderson was writing to parents to apologize for Marie’s comments, which he defined as having “crossed the line.”

The actress, who has experience as an international speaker, host, reporter, author and emcee, has appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “The Young and the Restless,” “Lizzie McQuire” and others. She worked for eight years in feature films and television shows and realized during that time how the media “twists the truth.”
Now as a National Speakers Association member, she wants to share the truth with teens and their parents.
During her visit to Willmar, she asked students to listen to song lyrics, and consider their message. She also said actors and musicians often won’t let their own children watch or listen to the things they are trying to sell to others’ children, according to a report in the Morris, Minn., newspaper.
But the report in the Sun-Tribune said Tina Marie told the students one-third of their generation has been aborted, and she suggested boys who wear low-hanging pants may be seen as homosexuals.
YFC, which has worked for 20 years bringing motivational speakers to Minnesota schools, agrees biblically with her opposition to abortion and homosexuality. But Poe said that wasn’t supposed to be the topic of the address to students.
“We have never taken speakers into the school system to deal with those issues,” he told WND. “I think we would rather that the speakers we bring to schools not deal with topics that are controversial, that the school desires to remain neutral about, although as YFC, an organization, we are pro-life and pro-heterosexual.”
Poe said he’s never before worked with a speaker who broached such subjects in the past while they give assigned talks on issues such as racism, bullying, drug abuse and alcohol abuse.
“I know these people [in the community]. I’ve lived with these people for years. They have kids’ best at heart. Unfortunately, we’re in a system that allows one individual to cause a lot of pain,” he said.
“We respect the separation the school needs to have from the church world,” he said. He said he refunded the money Willmar schools paid for the program.
Many times a companion evening event is held that does include a religious component.
“We work very hard to follow the law as it applies to separation of church and state,” Superintendent Kathy Leedom told the newspaper. “We’re also diligent in refraining from advocating for a certain viewpoint.”
Marie, calling herself a “truth catalyst,” said students must think about media messages in music and television and become proactive in attempting to make changes.
Bart Graves, a volunteer with YFC, said the organization “can help find ways to reach kids when traditional methods are not as useful as they used to be.”
Marie, who also has been on Alan Colmes National FOX radio show, also has served as commentator on issues such as “Brokeback Mountain” and South Dakota’s legislative effort to ban abortion.
Her profile describes her as a former Wisconsin farm girl who challenges her audience “to take a stand against violent, obscene entertainment.”
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58156

20% of all unborn babies are aborted worldwide

One in five pregnancies ends in abortion: study
Oct 11 07:05 PM US/Eastern
One in five pregnancies worldwide ends in an abortion, amounting to a significant fall compared with the mid-nineties, but nearly half these terminations still take place in unsafe conditions, a study says.
In 2003, the latest year for which full figures are available, 42 million abortions were carried out around the world, compared with 46 million in 1995, according to the paper published by The Lancet next Saturday.
For every 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44 in 2003, 29 had an abortion, down from 35 in 1997, it said.
“Overall abortion rates are similar in the developing and developed world, but unsafe abortion is concentrated in developing countries,” it notes.
“Ensuring the need for contraception is met and that all abortions are safe will reduce maternal mortality substantially and protect maternal health.”
Abortion rates were lowest in Western Europe (12 pregnancy terminations per 1,000 women) but highest in Eastern Europe, where the rate was 44 abortions per 1,000 women. In the United States and Europe, it was 21 per 1,000, while in Asia and Africa, the rate was 29 per 1,000.
Forty-eight percent of all abortions worldwide were unsafe, and more than 97 percent of unsafe abortions took place in developing countries.
On the basis of the 2003 data, on average 90 percent of women worldwide will have had an abortion before the age of 45, the study calculates.
This varies, though, between many women who will have had multiple terminations and many who will have had none at all, note the authors, led by Gilda Sedgh of the Guttmacher Institute in New York and Iqbal Shah of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071011230521.w3h0azqq&show_article=1

Complaint says abortion done without permission

Complaint says abortion done without permission

Cites case of teen injected with digoxin before signing consent
Posted: October 5, 20071:00 a.m. Eastern
By Bob Unruh© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
Operation Rescue officials have filed a complaint with the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts alleging Wichita abortionist George R. Tiller and an employee violated state law when teenager Michelle Armesto had a late-term abortion at Tiller’s clinic in 2003, a procedure that was begun before she signed any consent forms.
Armesto was the woman who provided startling testimony before a state legislative committee investigating late-term abortions recently when she related that her abortion procedure was begun before she signed any paperwork, or had any of the evaluations required by state law.
She also did not know that the abortionists had concluded her baby was “non-viable,” a determination that exempted them from certain state requirements.
“She had no idea that they [abortionists] had declared her baby non-viable,” Operation Rescue spokeswoman Cheryl Sullenger told WND, until she recently obtained her medical records. Sullenger said the unborn child’s mother was a healthy 18-year-old at the time of the abortion, and there had been virtually no indications of any health problems.
“Tiller now faces two Board of Healing Arts investigations that could cost him his license,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “He faces 19 criminal counts of illegal late-term abortions that could cost him huge fines, and he faces a grand jury investigation that could net literally hundreds of additional counts of illegal abortions from the past five years that could cost him his freedom.

“This is a full-court press against an abortion industry,” Newman said, “that has too long operated as if they are above the law. It is past time that these people were brought to justice.”
The newest complaint named Tiller as well as Shelley Sella, alleging “illegal acts, unethical conduct, and breach of the standard of care” for Armesto’s abortion.
Michelle Armesto, with her attorney, testifying to a state legislative committee
Armesto voluntarily released her medical records to Operation Rescue for the purpose of filing the complaint, which alleges 14 violations, including that the abortionists started the abortion procedure without taking her medical history – or even obtaining her consent.
Other allegations include that Sella ignored the legal requirement that she meet with the patient prior to the procedure, violated the 24-hour waiting period requirement, and failed to provide followup care.
Additionally, the complaint alleges Sella falsified the determination of non-viability in Armesto’s 24-week-old unborn child in order to avoid requirements imposed when doctors abort viable babies.
The complaint reports Armesto agreed to the abortion only because of intense pressure from her parents, and she and her mother became lost on the way to the clinic and arrived late.
“Upon arrival, she was placed immediately into a group with several other women also receiving late-term abortions, who were in the process of watching a video about the Tiller abortion legacy,” the complaint says. “From there, without having spoken to anyone or signed any paperwork, including a medical history and consent forms, the patient was taken to a room… At approximately 11:10 a.m., Tiller employee abortionist Shelley Sella, using the ultrasound imaging to guide her, administered a digoxin injection through the patient’s abdomen that was supposed to go into her baby’s heart. The patient was led to believe that the injection immediately killed her child.”
“Michelle delivered at the abortion clinic on the third day of the procedure. She refused to deliver her baby into a toilet bowl, as ordered by clinic workers. Instead she delivered her dead baby on the floor next to the commode, a sight that still haunts her to this day,” Operation Rescue reported.
Newman noted this is the second complaint filed with the KSBHA against Tiller. A document from October 2006 alleges Tiller and abortionist Ann Kristin Neuhaus had an illegal financial affiliation that they formed in order to perform abortions past viability. Operation Rescue said that complaint now is being reviewed by a Peer Review Board.
Between the complaints, state Attorney General Paul Morrison filed 19 charges against Tiller. He’s entered “not guilty” pleas and another hearing in the case hasn’t yet been scheduled.
According to 19 charges filed by Morrison, Tiller failed to follow Kansas late-term abortion law and substantiate the need for such procedures with a second independent opinion.
Kansas law bans late-term abortions past 22 weeks gestation, a developmental milestone recognized as viability in Kansas law. Narrow exceptions to the law are if the woman’s life is in danger, or if the pregnancy will cause a substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function. An opinion issued by former Attorney General Carla Stovall, an abortion supporter, allowed mental health risks to be included as a “major bodily function” under the law, but only if the risk was “substantial and irreversible.”
But in those cases a second opinion from a physician not financially connected to the first is required.
Tiller was the subject of a multi-year investigation by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, who filed 30 criminal counts against him. However, the charges were dismissed by a judge with connections to Tiller’s lawyers on the request of a prosecutor who also had connections to the other players in the case.
Then Kline appointed a special independent prosecutor to handle the case, but, as WND reported, the special prosecutor was fired by Morrison as soon as he took office.

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57995

Bishop Would Deny Communion to Giuliani

Bishop Would Deny Communion to Giuliani
Oct 3, 10:02 PM (ET)By CHERYL WITTENAUER
ST. LOUIS (AP) – Roman Catholic Archbishop Raymond Burke, who made headlines last presidential season by saying he’d refuse Holy Communion to John Kerry, has his eye on Rudy Giuliani this year. Giuliani’s response: “Archbishops have a right to their opinion.”
Burke, the archbishop of St. Louis, was asked if he would deny Communion to Giuliani or any other presidential candidate who supports abortion rights.
“If any politician approached me and he’d been admonished not to present himself, I’d not give it,” Burke told The Associated Press Wednesday. “To me, you have to be certain a person realizes he is persisting in a serious public sin.”
Asked if the same would apply to politicians who support the death penalty or pre-emptive war, he said, “It’s a little more complicated in that case.”
Asked about Burke’s comments Wednesday while campaigning in New Hampshire, Giuliani said:
“Archbishops have a right to their opinion, you know. There’s freedom of religion in this country. There’s no established religion, and archbishops have a right to their opinion. Everybody has a right to their opinion.”
Burke says that anyone administering Communion – ordained priest or lay minister – is morally obligated to deny it to Catholic politicians who support an abortion-rights position contrary to church teaching.
Burke published an article in April in a church law journal that explored whether it is ever appropriate to deny Communion. Some U.S. bishops interpret church teaching to say that an individual examination of conscience, not a minister, should dictate whether a person is worthy to receive the sacrament.
Burke said denial of Communion is not a judgment. “What the state of his soul is is between God and him,” he said.
The nation’s bishops are expected to discuss the question again in meetings next month. Burke said he has made no policy proposal, simply laid out his thoughts in the article.
Burke will not be attending the bishops’ meeting because of a prior commitment in Rome.
His stance on Giuliani was made public earlier Wednesday in an interview with The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
A number of other Catholic presidential candidates also have abortion-rights stances in apparent conflict with church teaching. Giuliani is the only Catholic among the top-tier candidates.
Giuliani, a Republican, sometimes evokes his Catholic upbringing as he campaigns for president, yet he declines to say whether he is a practicing Catholic. He has been a longtime supporter of abortion rights.
While it is unlikely Giuliani or any other presidential candidate will present himself to Burke for Communion in the next few months, the archbishop’s comments revive an issue that could be a factor for churchgoing voters.
In 2004, Burke said he would deny Communion to Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee who supports abortion rights. Several other bishops have said politicians should refrain from the sacrament if they oppose the church on such an important issue.
As for Giuliani, when a voter in Iowa asked him in August if he was a “traditional, practicing Roman Catholic,” he said: “My religious affiliation, my religious practices and the degree to which I am a good or not-so-good Catholic, I prefer to leave to the priests.”
Last week, Giuliani compared the scrutiny of his personal life marked by three marriages to the biblical story in which Jesus said only someone who was free of all sin should try to stone an adulterous woman.
“I’m guided very, very often about, ‘Don’t judge others, lest you be judged,’” Giuliani told the Christian Broadcasting Network.
“I have very, very strong views on religion that come about from having wanted to be a priest when I was younger, having studied theology for four years in college,” he said.
“So it’s a very, very important part of my life,” he said. “But I think in a democracy and in a government like ours, my religion is my way of looking at God, and other people have other ways of doing it, and some people don’t believe in God. I think that’s unfortunate. I think their life would be a lot fuller if they did, but they have that right.”
Republicans have been most successful with religious voters – President Bush, a Methodist, won the Catholic vote over Kerry, a Catholic, in 2004 – but Democratic candidates are fighting back and have spoken frequently about their religious beliefs this year.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071004/D8S24K980.html

Christian Conservatives Consider Third-Party Effort if Rudy Giuliani is the Rupublican Nominee

Religious right may blackball Giuliani
Christian conservative leaders privately consider supporting a third-party, antiabortion candidate should Rudy Giuliani win the GOP nomination.
By Michael Scherer
Sept. 30, 2007 WASHINGTON — A powerful group of conservative Christian leaders decided Saturday at a private meeting in Salt Lake City to consider supporting a third-party candidate for president if a pro-choice nominee like Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination.
The meeting of about 50 leaders, including Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, who called in by phone, took place at the Grand America Hotel during a gathering of the Council for National Policy, a powerful shadow group of mostly religious conservatives. James Clymer, the chairman of the U.S. Constitution Party, was also present at the meeting, according to a person familiar with the proceedings.
“The conclusion was that if there is a pro-abortion nominee they will consider working with a third party,” said the person, who spoke to Salon on the condition of anonymity. The private meeting was not a part of the official CNP schedule, which is itself a closely held secret. “Dobson came in just for this meeting,” the person said.
The decision confirms the fears of many Republican Party officials, who have worried that a Giuliani nomination would irrevocably split the GOP in advance of the 2008 general election, given Giuliani’s relatively liberal stands on gay unions and abortion, as well as his rocky marital history. The private meeting was held Saturday afternoon, during a lull in the official CNP schedule. Earlier in the day, Vice President Dick Cheney had traveled to Utah to deliver a brief address to the larger CNP gathering. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney also addressed the larger group.
The decision has also been reported in an unsigned article by WorldNetDaily, a conservative online news service. “Not only was there a consensus among activists to withhold support for the Republican nominee, there was even discussion about supporting the entry of a new candidate to challenge the frontrunners,” the article said. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, WorldNetDaily’s editor, Joseph Farah, attended the larger CNP gathering.
According to a New York Times profile, the CNP was established in 1981, with the help of Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, and the Rev. Tim LaHaye, the bestselling author of the “Left Behind” book series. In recent years, President Bush, former Undersecretary of State John Bolton and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have met with the group, the Times reported. CNP membership is a closely held secret, and its meetings are not publicly announced or open to the press.
Dobson, who is one of the nation’s most outspoken Christian leaders, has previously announced that he does not support Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain or former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson as nominees for the Republican Party.
Attendees at the Saturday afternoon meeting also discussed the possibility of recruiting another person to run for the Republican nomination, said the person familiar with the proceedings. Several names have already been floated, though no decision on a possible candidate has yet been made, the person said.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/09/30/giuliani/

Catholic Georgetown University Will Now Fund Law Students to Lobby for Abortion

SHOCKER: Catholic Georgetown U. Will Now Fund Law Students to Lobby for Abortion
Oldest Catholic university in U.S.
By John-Henry Westen

WASHINGTON, DC, September 26, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A change of policy at Georgetown University Law Center will permit the University – which is the oldest Catholic university in the nation – to give grants to students who lobby for abortion for agencies such as Planned Parenthood. The Hoya, the Georgetown University newspaper, reports on its front page today about the policy change.The policy change was announced September 7 by Law Center Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff in a letter published in the Law Center’s student newspaper. The decision comes after the Law Center got flack from pro-abortion students and faculty for directing student group Equal Justice Foundation, which received University funds, to refuse funding to a student who applied for funding to intern at Planned Parenthood.The Hoya reports that the University Law Center will no longer consider the mission of organizations in determining grants, as was the case for the initial denial of funding for the Planned Parenthood position. “In partnership with the Equal Justice Foundation, the Law Center will provide grants to all students who work on law-related issues at a public interest organization or government agency,” wrote Aleinikoff.Joy Welan the president of the Catholic university’s Law Center pro-abortion group – “Law Students for Choice” – rejoiced at the decision admitting that her group met with Aleinikoff several times over the policy. “We think that this compromise is fantastic news, for students who are interested in pursuing careers in reproductive rights advocacy,” Welan told The Hoya. “The dean has taken a huge step forward in advancing Georgetown’s commitment to public interest law, and we applaud him for it.”Daniel Hughes, president of the Law Center’s pro-life group – “Progressive Alliance for Life” – said plainly that the Catholic University was now funding abortion advocacy.”Aleinikoff has a radically secular, morally relativistic vision for the Law Center,” Hughes said in an e-mail to The Hoya. “He and other administrators have crafted a dishonest, legalistic ‘compromise’ that will allow students to gain assured, extensive Georgetown funding for pro-abortion legal work.”Spokesmen for the University Administration did not return calls from LifeSiteNews.com prior to press time.The Archdiocese of Washington did not comment on the development. Mark Adkinson, Communications Assistant at the Archdiocese of Washington, told LifeSiteNews.com that the Archdiocese does not oversee the university since it is in the control of the Jesuit Order. To express concerns to the Apostolic Nuncio:Archbishop Pietro Sambi 3339 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W, Washington, DC, USA Telephone: (202)333-7121 Fax: 337-4036 To contact Georgetown UniversityPresident John J. DeGioia Office of the President 204 Healy Hall 37th & O Streets, NW Washington, DC 20057 Tel: (202) 687-4134 Fax: (202) 687-6660 Email: http://contact.georgetown.edu/index.cfm?Action=Mail&NetI…

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/sep/07092605.html

Italian doctors in negligence probe after botched abortion

Italian doctors in negligence probe after botched abortion
Sep 18 12:33 PM US/Eastern
An Italian doctor who aborted a healthy twin by mistake and the obstetrician who performed a sonogram ahead of the bungle are under investigation for negligence by a Milan court, a report said Tuesday.
The operation, carried out in June, was intended to remove the other twin, who tested positive for Down’s Syndrome.
The foetuses reportedly changed places after the sonogram and before the procedure.
If tried and convicted, the doctors face between three months and two years in prison, ANSA news agency said.
Abortion opponents seized on the case to decry the practice of eugenics.
The daily of the Italian Catholic Church, Avvenire, said eugenics was a form of “‘ethnic cleansing‘ that even the worst racist violence by totalitarian governments never succeeded in carrying out.”
The 1978 law has seen many attempted revisions in a country that is primarily Catholic and conservative.
Abortion is legal during the first three months of pregnancy, beyond which it is allowed only if there is a grave danger to the woman or a suspected deformation of the foetus.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070918163308.ptpjegck&show_article=1

Pro-life groups taking "Choose Life" license-plate battle to U.S. appellate court

Abortion foes taking license-plate battle to U.S. appellate court
By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
Tucson, Arizona Published: 09.17.2007
PHOENIX — A coalition of anti-abortion groups wants a federal appeals court to force the state to produce special license plates with the message “choose life.”
The Arizona Life Coalition charges in legal papers that a state commission that reviews requests for special plates acted illegally in rejecting its application. The lawsuit asks the three-judge panel to order the members of the Arizona License Plate Commission to approve the plate.
But James Morrow, an assistant state attorney general, said the commission did nothing wrong in rejecting the plates because the message was controversial, and the state should not allow its license plates to be turned “into a billboard for one side of a hotly contested issue.”
Lawyers for the coalition, represented by the Alliance Defense Fund and the Center for Arizona Policy, argued their clients are not trying to get the state on record as being opposed to abortion. They said Planned Parenthood or any other similar group would be allowed to propose their own license plates expressing an abortion rights view.
Morrow, however, said neither message is appropriate for state license plates, which is why the Legislature told the commission to “steer clear of controversial issues.”
“The state must have the power to decline to express viewpoints that it does not wish to express,” Morrow wrote in the appellate briefs. “Many Arizonans may be offended if they believe that Arizona is sponsoring a pro-choice message, just as many Arizonans may be offended if they believe that Arizona is sponsoring a pro-life message.”
But Peter Gentala, one of the attorneys representing the coalition, said that argument misses the central point. He wants the appellate judges to rule special license plates are a public forum. That, he said, severely limits the ability of government and the License Plate Commission to restrict what they say.
State law allows Arizona lawmakers to create special plates on their own, as they have done for special groups such as the three universities, environmental education backers and a fund to halt child abuse.
Legislators also set up the separate License Plate Commission to review other requests from nonprofits agencies. The panel has approved eight special plates for groups as diverse as firefighters and future farmers.
In both cases, the plates do more than spread a message. They also raise money, with $17 of the extra $25 fee for these plates going to the sponsoring groups.
The request, submitted in 2002, proposed a plate with the faces of two children on the left side of the plate and the phrase “choose life” along the bottom, where regular plates now proclaim “The Grand Canyon State.”
The state law relied upon by the commissioners does permit them to restrict special plates to organizations serving the community. Other grounds for rejection include a requirement that the prime activity of sponsoring groups is neither offensive or discriminatory.
Critics said the law is unconstitutional because it allowed the commissioners to illegally infringe on the First Amendment rights of the coalition based solely on the message.
Any contention of censorship has been derided by former state Rep. Lela Steffey, R-Mesa, who was part of the commission that made the decision and is still on the panel. “And I’m about as pro-life as they get,” she said.
A trial judge sided with the commission, concluding that license plates are not a public forum. That, said Judge Paul Rosenblatt, gives government more discretion in deciding what messages to allow.
Gentala, however, said the very creation of the special plates for nonprofit organizations does “offer Arizonans an expressive opportunity that does not exist for standard license plates.”
Gubernatorial press aide Jeanine L’Ecuyer declined to comment on ongoing fight.
But the decision of the commission to reject the request was defended at the time by Gov. Janet Napolitano. Kris Mayes, the governor’s press aide at the time, said in 2003 that it was inappropriate to have controversial messages on state license plates.
All the members of the commission are appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the governor.
The coalition includes the Center for Arizona Policy, Arizona Right to Life, the Crisis Pregnancy Center of Arizona and other organizations.

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/related/201592.php