Plates planned

Anti-abortion license plates are on the way

The approval of the “Value life” plates, which will financially benefit the Women's Resource Center of Southern Nevada, was voted by the Commission on Special License Plates at its Oct. 28 meeting, but has not been widely publicized.

There is already a slot available for the plates. Special plates are limited to a list of 30 topics. Openings appear as plates lose the minimum number to stay on the list. A “Second Amendment” plate approved by this year's legislature will have to wait to move up five spaces on the list, according the Commission member Don Gustavson.

The commission approval came over a protest filed under the language of the special license plate statute that bars plates that “promote a specific religion, faith or antireligious belief.” An attempt to obtain minutes of the commission meeting was unsuccessful, but Gustavson said the plates won approval because they did not directly address abortion, only “life.”

Nearly half the states—most of them in the east and south—have abortion plates, and about half of those supply a portion of license fees to anti-abortion groups or pregnancy centers. In Nevada, abortion rights are protected by a 71.3 to 27.2 percent referendum vote in 1990 that approved a Roe-style state law and bars changes without another public vote.