Several things to report from the Show Me State:

First, Missouri may soon be offering “Choose Life” license plates after a federal court approved Choose Life of Missouri Inc.’s 2006 application for the specialty plate. It was previously rejected by a joint House and Senate Transportation Committee. This is great news! Not only are these plates a good way to show your support for life, but the money raised by the plates will help fund pregnancy resource centers, maternity homes and adoption agencies.

On Tuesday a federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling that Missouri must provide transportation to clinics for inmates seeking abortions. Since 2005 the policy against transporting inmates outside of the prison for abortions has been held up in court. How often does this actually occur, you might ask? Apparently seven Missouri inmates have had abortions since 2005.

Missouri Right to Life endorses (gasp!) a Democrat for State Rep. in a Feb. 5 special election. It’s not unheard of either. Missouri is loaded with pro-life Democrats who have been instrumental in passing some very important pro-life legislation, such as our ban on partial birth abortion when they went against their Democrat Governor to not only pass the legislation, but also override his veto. With other MRL representatives I recently sat in on a meeting with the Democrats for Life in the MO legislature about efforts to work together this session. This just goes to show you that the right to life is not a partisan issue, it is a human rights issue that transcends partisan politics (or it should).

The Washington Times has an article about Gov. Blunt’s Task Force on the Impact of Abortion on Women

Be sure to check out this mini documentary about last year’s HB 1055, now Missouri law, which requires some clinics to adhere to the standards of an ambulatory surgical center. It gives an eerie look into the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Columbia that I picket in front of with some of the kids in our area. It is pretty balanced and Rep. Therese Sander, who sponsored the bill, does an excellent job. She really knows her stuff! The new law is still held up in court and has yet to go into effect.

No news on the cloning ban, still. Be sure to check out Missouri Cures Without Cloning’s new blog to stay updated.

In non political related life news, The Catholic basketball coach for the Catholic St. Louis University, Rick Majerus, is refusing to back down from his public pro-choice and pro-embryonic stem cell research profession at a recent rally for Hillary Clinton. This is yet another sad case of a Catholic who thinks that the Church is a cafeteria of ideas which one can take or leave and one’s own pleasure and still maintain sacred communion. It is most unfortunate when Catholics in influential positions (politicians, entertainers, even radio talk show hosts) openly and even proudly dissent from Church teaching, especially on life issues.