Ask yourself the following question: is it ever right for a state government to, directly or indirectly, endorse a single political party or organization over another? Is it appropriate for the state government to set up methods in which these organizations can get money?

If you said “no”, you should also agree that “Choose Life” plates are inappropriate for the government to make available to the public.

There has been a large stir in NC trying to push the North Carolina legislature to allow citizens to have “Choose Life” plates — license plates for automobiles that advertise the driver’s anti-abortion sentiments. The argument is that, among the plethora of license plates you can have in NC (including everything from square dancing to confederate veteran plates), pro life drivers should have the right to advertise their support as well with “choose life” plates. It seems to make logical sense, in a way — after all, people use bumper stickers all the time for similar communication.

But take the following facts into account, and this issue gets a bit more messy:

1. Specialty license plates pay fees to the organization they depict. For example, my undergrad alma mater Wake Forest gets a cut of every Wake plate, and the V Foundation gets a cut out of every plate of their own. It’s a money making operation.
2. In addition, the state (somewhat) profits from the sale of a custom plate, be it one for Jeff Gordon or the Army. This is listed as a “yearly fee”, meaning that you pay for the privilege, not just the printing, of the plate.
3. Thus, both the state and organization and question make money through the sale of these plates — and, on top of this, in this process, the former implicitly endorses the latter.

So would it be fine for the state to sell “NC Democrat” or “NC GOP” license plates? Well, no. Sure, one could say some of the plates available for sale now are controversial — but none of them are explicitly political. Printing plates like “NC Democrat” or “NC GOP” would not only break new territory (that is, the printing of political plates), but it would do so in a way where the state would be forced to give money directly to political parties, which is a dangerous trend.

There are a multitude of reasons why making “NCGOP” or “NCDP” plates available is a bad idea. First off, it smacks of unfairness for third parties — the state cannot possibly (in an affordable way) print enough plates to cover all political parties in North Carolina. This means that some parties would need to be left out — and an arbitrary cut-off point would have to be made, resulting in some parties getting money simply because of their size or political connections. Secondly, the state giving political parties money sets a powerful precedent that would potentially result in one or more parties getting more money than others — after all, voter affiliations in the state are all over the map, and some parties may have a higher penchant for buying the plates than others. This means the state may end up paying $10,000 to the NCGOP and $10 to the NCDP — unquestionably unfair. Even on a more basic level, the plates could very well become targets for angry voters, or simply politically charged vandals.

In the same way, “Choose Life” plates are political, and they run the risk of all of the above problems. North Carolina should not make plates that endorse one political belief over another — “Choose Life” plates would not even be remotely fair unless accompanied with an opposing plate (“Choose Abortion”?), and maybe even a third option (“Choose Apathy”?). Giving money to one politically charged movement other another is simply not fair, regardless of the movement itself. Furthermore, the plates would clearly be targets for attacks and vandalism, if simply angry honks and middle-fingers, by those who did not agree with the pro-life agenda. No matter how you look at it, the plates are unfair, illogical, and meaningless, entirely regardless of how many other states have them.

But in all honesty, the debate over these plates is just a obtusely coded argument about abortion. Would pro-life protesters get a plate of this type made, they would begin to chip away at the NC Legislature in a way that may enable them to demand more pro-life legislation out of the legislature — a fact many of them are very likely aware of. Though license plates may be fairly innocuous, they may be the first step towards forcing NC towards certain political legislation, which would be a boon for those in support of said legislation. With that being said, however, such a debate needs to be had without the ridiculousness of license plates: the Department of Transportation has no place helping us make political statements, and we need to be able to have debates over abortion without turning to our cars to make points.