{"id":58400,"date":"2016-04-15T11:30:28","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T16:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=58400"},"modified":"2016-04-14T15:24:09","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T20:24:09","slug":"the-aclu-vs-the-first-amendment-freedom-and-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=58400","title":{"rendered":"The ACLU Vs. The First Amendment, Freedom, and “Choice”"},"content":{"rendered":"

So if you take the idea of “choice” on moral issues \u00a0– like, say, abortion – seriously, then people are supposed to be able to make “choices” about participating in the practice.<\/p>\n

Because the First Amendment protects freedom of conscience!<\/p>\n

And the ACLU protects the First Amendment. \u00a0Right?<\/p>\n

Well<\/a>…<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

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\u2019s claims \u201cdubious.\u201d It\u2019s tempting to follow suit and dismiss from our minds the agenda underlying the ACLU\u2019s legal action. But we can\u2019t afford to do that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Emphasis added:<\/p>\n

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<\/strong>. The playing field is shifting under our feet. This lawsuit wasn\u2019t about \u201cchoice\u201d at all; it was about ensuring that medical professionals can\u2019t act on their beliefs if they clash with assumptions that are politically in vogue<\/strong>. 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.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The goal, of course, is to make abortion safe, legal, and enforceable under thoughtcrime statutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So if you take the idea of “choice” on moral issues \u00a0– 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. \u00a0Right? Well… A federal judge just tossed the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war","category-liberty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58400"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58404,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58400\/revisions\/58404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}