The ACLU Vs. The First Amendment, Freedom, and “Choice”
By Mitch Berg
So if you take the idea of “choice” on moral issues – like, say, abortion – seriously, then people are supposed to be able to make “choices” about participating in the practice.
Because the First Amendment protects freedom of conscience!
And the ACLU protects the First Amendment. Right?
Well…
A federal judge just tossed the ACLU’s suit against a chain of Catholic hospitals, because he found that the plaintiff’s claim that women were “harmed” by having to look for, y’know, a non-Catholic hospital to get an abortion was specious:
On Monday, weeks before oral arguments were scheduled to take place, Judge Gershwin E. Drain of the U.S. district court for Eastern Michigan dismissed the suit, calling the ACLU’s claims “dubious.” It’s tempting to follow suit and dismiss from our minds the agenda underlying the ACLU’s legal action. But we can’t afford to do that.
Emphasis added:
Think about it: The ACLU argued that a hospital should require its doctors and nurses to perform abortions even if the hospital recognizes that a new human life begins at conception and holds that the moral weight of abortion is no less than that of taking the life of a born person. The playing field is shifting under our feet. This lawsuit wasn’t about “choice” at all; it was about ensuring that medical professionals can’t act on their beliefs if they clash with assumptions that are politically in vogue. Rather than invoke the old mantra that abortion is between a woman and her doctor, the ACLU did the opposite, arguing that the government should be involved in decisions for abortion by stipulating that others participate in them.
The goal, of course, is to make abortion safe, legal, and enforceable under thoughtcrime statutes.
April 15th, 2016 at 11:52 am
a question for DG, that manque arbiter of all that is bien pensant.
How is your extreme rabid support of abortion nothing short of a slow motion genocidal policy perpetrated by yourself and other “Privileged” middle class White females with profound disparate impact on African-Americans.
Facts for you:
For the year 2014 in MN there were 10,123 abortions.
Out of that total 8,602 identified their race.
Blacks (5.7% of population) had 2,295 abortions or 26.67% of total,
Whites (86.2% of population) had 5,336 abortions or 62% of total,
American Indians(1.3% of population) had 253 abortions or 2.94% of total
and Asians(4.5% of population) had 718 abortions or 8.35% of total
This is your legacy of “white privilege” DG.
April 15th, 2016 at 12:21 pm
Gershwin E. Drain, seriously?
April 15th, 2016 at 1:28 pm
The ACLU has been, from its inception, an organization devoted to the socialist definition of rights.
They defended Commies when the US was locked in a life and death struggle with communism.
They defended nazis thirty years after the US defeated them.
April 15th, 2016 at 1:52 pm
My opinion on infanticide is evolving. Considering who (leftists, moochers, morally bankrupt reprobates) is offing their children, I’m beginning to think Planned Parenthood is mankinds best chance for survival….like Darwin with a suction curette, they weed out the trash.
I am waiting for, and will proudly accept a Margaret Sanger award. Seems Hillbillary Clottin may be right about something.
April 15th, 2016 at 2:03 pm
swiftee do you think this is how Secretary Clinton plans to weed out the “superpredators” she decried those many moons ago?
April 15th, 2016 at 3:19 pm
Yes kel, I think that is her plan. And I hope President Cruz (ugh) supports Planned Parenthood’s fight to keep the gene pool pure.
April 15th, 2016 at 5:12 pm
You don’t think that is coming here? One more Wise Latina on the court and its done.
April 15th, 2016 at 5:52 pm
Regarding superpredators and abortion, the connection has been made, I believe by Guttmacher or NARAL. Interestingly, this is a place that even Margaret Sanger and her hero, a chap who should have been named Schicklgruber, would not go.
I used to at least have a grudging admiration for the ACLU, even though they did defend communists and nazis. It was at least sort of about civil liberties at the time. With this, though, I think they’re realizing something very dangerous; without the power of the state backing up abortion, abortion will soon be nearly gone.
Do the math for yourself. According to Guttmacher (PP’s research foundation), there are about 1800 abortionists performing about a million surgical abortions each year at a cost of about $470 apiece. Mean wage for a gynecologist is about $250k plus bennies, and to run an abortuary, you need a nurse, an anesthesiologist, a receptionist, a building, etc.. Do the math; outside of big cities and major university towns, abortion cannot survive unless abortionists get other revenue streams, or unless the unwilling are compelled to commit them. It’s that simple.
April 15th, 2016 at 9:00 pm
“I hope President Cruz (ugh) supports Planned Parenthood’s fight to keep the gene pool pure.”
I guess losing New York to Trump/Kasich is part of Cruz’s winning strategy.
April 15th, 2016 at 9:08 pm
I guess Kasich losing every primary outside of Ohio is part of his winning strategy.
April 15th, 2016 at 9:17 pm
Steve Hayward at Powerline puts his finger on why I defend Trump the candidate (but will never vote for Trump): “It ought to be a matter of supreme embarrassment and shame that the most forceful and cogent response to the irresponsible demagoguery of Black Lives Matter has come from Bill Clinton.”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/04/where-are-we-now.php
BLM is a Black nationalist group. We have no more room in America for Black nationalists than we do for Hispanic nationalists or White nationalists. Some politician should tell them to grow the f*ck up and act like adult men and women, and stop defending violent criminals. It is sickening that no so-called conservative is willing to do so.
April 16th, 2016 at 5:39 am
Similar to Jeb approach: lose the primaries but win the general election.
Err, I meant Jeb!
Cruz! 2016: the Meaner, Uglier Jeb!
It’s almost like these clowns don’t want to win
April 16th, 2016 at 8:59 am
Because new York is such a conservative state that without it a presidency cannot be won. You are a indeed a clueless nitwit eTASS.
April 16th, 2016 at 9:44 am
The Republican race is a lot more interesting because the ending is not predetermined. There are so many great things about the Trump phenomenon. For example, watching the total meltdown of the idiots at National Review. Which reminds me, have any of you actually met a Cruz supporter?
Drudge has been pushing Trump pretty much from the start. Maybe that was just for kicks. It feels really weird for Drudge to be the least tawdry of the political sites I follow. Maybe says something about the sites I follow, but still.
April 16th, 2016 at 10:39 am
Some politician should tell them to grow the f*ck up and act like adult men and women, and stop defending violent criminals. It is sickening that no so-called conservative is willing to do so.
Some politician should tell them to grow the fuck up and and act like adult parents, and stop raising violent criminals.
But before that can happen, someone is going to have to tell leftist politicians to grow the fuck up and act like adult leaders, and stop pandering to parents that raise their kids like feral cats.
April 16th, 2016 at 10:55 am
If Cruz wins the nomination that will be right up there with the liberal dream of “free college”.
April 16th, 2016 at 12:04 pm
Emery, how many times, since 1972, has a GOP moderate presidential candidate gotten the majority of the popular vote?
I think it has been twice, Bush in 1988 and Bush in 2004.
April 16th, 2016 at 12:48 pm
At the last D debate, Hillary went on for some time about what she calls ‘systemic racism’:
So that’s how I see it. And I think we ought to be putting our attention on forging a consensus to make the changes that will divert more people from the criminal justice system to start.
LOUIS: Thank you, Secretary.
CLINTON: To tackle systemic racism and divert people in the beginning.
. . .
That’s why I chose to make my very first speech a year ago on this issue, Errol, because I want to focus the attention of our country and to make the changes we need to make. And I also want people…
(APPLAUSE)
… especially I want — I want white people — I want white people to recognize that there is systemic racism. It’s also in employment, it’s in housing, but it is in the criminal justice system, as well.
What Hillary meant by this is that Black people attack white victims or commit crimes against white victims This is the fault of white people. If you believe Clinton, Black people are not truly human. White people make moral decisions and act accordingly. Black people do not, and this is the fault of white people.
April 16th, 2016 at 4:12 pm
Clinton could win this election from jail if she had to. If (I pray) Cruz is the nominee, conservatives will no longer have the opportunity to say: “we lost because we didn’t nominate a true conservative.”
April 16th, 2016 at 7:35 pm
I’ve commented before this, Emery, that I don’t have a dog in this race. Cruz is my choice, but only because Perry dropped out. And I don’t like Perry’s position on immigration, and immigration is important to me. The government is remaking the electorate to suit its aims. That is appalling. Didn’t Brecht write about the government dissolving the people and electing another? Kasich would be more like GW Bush than Jeb Bush would be. Fiorina would have been okay.
We may not have seen the end of Jeb yet.
My prediction (for what its worth): The brokered convention will produce a candidate that the delegates believe can beat Hillary. That means either Kasich or Jeb Bush.
April 16th, 2016 at 7:35 pm
No child, Clinton won’t win from her jail cell. But it won’t be because you leftist cockroaches weren’t willing to vote for a piece of shit that compromised our national security to keep her own self serving secrets safe from public scrutiny.
April 16th, 2016 at 8:15 pm
BG: Um, what do you think “conservative” means, exactly?
Even if Trump loses, he has ripped open a breach that will not be sealed any time soon. He has exposed the nature of our system to many, many people.
It sounds like the “rules” do not actually get determined until one week before the convention. If they don’t change Rule 40(b), then it has to be Trump or Cruz, I think. They will pick whichever they think is more likely to get slaughtered in the general. 2016 is a write-off. https://gop.com/convention-facts/?convention_type=rules2
Swiftee: Here is some mood music to put on after the slaughter this fall.
Ry Cooder – I can’t win (From the Album: “Bop ’til you drop”)
https://youtu.be/EAe_3_GO9t0
April 16th, 2016 at 9:47 pm
They always change the rules, Emery. Rule 40 was adopted in 2012 by the rules committee to thwart Ron Paul, because the rules committee considered him a troublemaker. Wonder what the rules committee thinks about Trump? Or Cruz?.
April 17th, 2016 at 9:08 am
The moment that the results of the first ballot are announced may be the most suspenseful live television since the reading of the OJ verdict.