The debate has long been waged via bumper stickers, but Massachusetts drivers opposed to abortion have a new mouthpiece: license plates.

The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles is set to offer a "Choose Life" plate sponsored by the anti-abortion organization Massachusetts Choose Life, Inc. The plate's design features a yellow heart behind an image of a mother holding a child.

Massachusetts Choose Life, Inc. -- an affiliate of the national Choose Life, Inc. organization based in Ocala, Florida -- will receive $28 of the $40 Massachusetts special plate fee. Customers pay the $40 special plate fee in addition to the $50 registration fee for a standard plate. Massachusetts Choose Life, Inc. will allocate the proceeds it receives from the plates to not-for-profit agencies within the state that do not counsel in or refer for abortion.

"Once we start to receive money from the Registry, we will have a grant process whereby eligible organizations can apply for funds," reads a statement on Massachusetts Choose Life, Inc.'s website. "The grant process will ensure that the agencies are non-governmental, not-for-profit agencies not involved in abortion services in any way who offer free counseling and services to women with a crisis pregnancy."

Merry Nordeen, 47, began campaigning for the Massachusetts plates in 2003.

"I prayed really hard for this — I prayed for seven years, and God didn't disappoint me," Nordeen, a secretary at St. Joseph Parish in Wakefield, told the Boston Globe.

Massachusetts law allows eligible charitable organizations to benefit from the issue of a special plate series. Groups seeking to sponsor a special plate are required to post a $100,000 bond, which is released after the sale of 3,000 plates within the first two years of its original issue. Production of the plates -- which are manufactured at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute / Cedar Junction -- begins once the sponsoring group has collected applications and the $40 special plate fee from 1,500 customers.

With the addition of the "Choose Life" plate, the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles now offers a total of 18 special plates. Others include the "Fish and Wildlife Plate," which supports the Massachusetts Environmental Trust; the "Cure Breast Cancer Plate," which supports the Diane Connolly-Zaniboni Breast Cancer Research Fund at Tufts Medical Center in Boston; and the "United We Stand" plate, which Massachusetts 9/11 Fund, the Massachusetts Military Heroes Fund and local police and fire departments.

Florida began offering "Choose Life" plates in August, 2000. The plates are now available in over 20 states, and Choose Life groups are working for approval of the plates in over a dozen additional states. Lawsuits involving the plates are pending in New York and New Jersey, according to Choose Life, Inc.'s website.