News Family Planning

Feb 28, 2017, 4:34pm Nicole Knight

California's pro-choice license plates would help fund a state program providing family planning services to 1.8 million people annually and funds Planned Parenthood clinics.

Choose Life license plates in at least 15 states fund crisis pregnancy centers, or fake clinics, that lie to pregnant people and oppose a full spectrum of reproductive health choices. California legislators are bucking this trend with California Trusts Women license plates.

New legislation from state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) calls on the state Department of Motor Vehicles to issue the reproductive freedom-themed license plates once 7,500 people order them. The plates would cost$50 initially, and $40 for annual renewals. Revenues would go to theCalifornia Reproductive Freedom Fund, and bespent on a full range of health-care services for more than a millionlow-income Californians in the statesFamily Planning, Access, Care, and Treatment (Family PACT) program.

The Trump Administration and Republican Congress are threatening to cut off critical federal funding to reproductive health care services, and we will not stand idly by and let this happen, Jackson said in a statement announcing SB 309. This license plate represents one way that we can demonstrate that we will stay true to our values and the right of every woman to safe, affordable and quality reproductive health care.

The stateFamily PACT program provides family planning services to 1.8 million Californians annually and funds Planned Parenthood clinics, according to a statement from Jacksons office. The program is expected to spend an estimated $340 million on family planning services this fiscal year. Roughly 76 percent of that money comes from thefederalgovernment, according the California Department of Health Care Services.

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One state, Virginia, has enacted a license plate program that spends money on pro-choice organizations, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America. Twenty-nine states sell Choose Life license plates, and15 states divertrevenues from these specialty platestoanti-choice outfits. Other states spend the money on adoption programs or even road repairs, as Quartz recently reported.

North Carolinalast year won a court battle with the American Civil Liberties Union over Republican-led plans to issue anti-abortion license plates, as Reuters reported.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled North Carolina couldreject pro-choice designs in favor of anti-choicelicense plates.

The California bill, which was introduced February 13, is awaiting ahearingin the Democratic-held state Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing.

In California, we support everyones right to reproductive health care, Amy Everitt, state director of NARAL Pro-Choice California, which is sponsoring the measure, said in a statement. We wont sit back when that right is threatened by a federal government that is determined to attack abortion providers and jeopardize healthcare for millions.

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California 'Trust Women' License Plates to Help Pay for Reproductive Care in Trump Era - Rewire