March 5, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The left-wing American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is the nation’s premiere law firm for left-wing values, so its support of abortion on demand is unsurprising. But a tweet on the issue raised eyebrows and mockery Monday for reiterating its stance in a format more akin to something a high school liberal activist may have typed in a moment of frustration.
The tweet consisted of “ABORTION IS HEALTH CARE. ABORTION IS A RIGHT” repeated six times, in capital letters with no further argument or elaboration. It was the group’s only abortion-related tweet of the day.
ABORTION IS HEALTH CARE.
ABORTION IS A RIGHT.ABORTION IS HEALTH CARE.
ABORTION IS A RIGHT.ABORTION IS HEALTH CARE.
ABORTION IS A RIGHT.ABORTION IS HEALTH CARE.
ABORTION IS A RIGHT.ABORTION IS HEALTH CARE.
ABORTION IS A RIGHT.ABORTION IS HEALTH CARE.
ABORTION IS A RIGHT.— ACLU (@ACLU) March 4, 2019
In fact, both elements of the tweet are inaccurate. “Health care” is traditionally defined as the treatment of physical or mental illness or injury, to restore or maximize an individual’s physical or mental well-being. Abortion, by contrast, is the intentional killing of one individual (the child) for the perceived benefit of another individual (his or her mother).
The vast majority of abortions are not sought for reasons that could be defined as “health care,” but rather for financial, relationship, or other personal considerations. Rare medical situations can require delivering a baby early or administering life-saving treatment that could indirectly harm him or her, but experts such as pro-life OB/GYN Dr. William Lile and reformed ex-abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino agree that abortion itself is never medically necessary.
Furthermore, many legal scholars who favor legal abortion nonetheless admit that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which declared a “right” to abortion at least until fetal viability (and effectively until birth in light of its companion ruling Doe v. Bolton), was constitutionally baseless.
Roe “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be,” John Hart Ely of Yale, Harvard, and Stanford has written. “What is frightening about Roe is that this super-protected right is not inferable from the language of the Constitution, the framers’ thinking respecting the specific problem in issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation’s governmental structure.”
In fact, the history of America’s legal development from the Founding Era through the Fourteenth Amendment suggests the opposite. William Blackstone, the English jurist who set the foundation of the Founding Fathers’ legal reasoning, taught that “where life can be shown to exist, legal personhood exists.” The sponsors of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly argued that its guarantees of equal protection would apply to “any human being.”
The ACLU received a torrent of criticism and mockery in response:
BABIES HAVE A RIGHT TO LIVE
BABIES HAVE A RIGHT TO LIVE
BABIES HAVE A RIGHT TO LIVE
BABIES HAVE A RIGHT TO LIVE
BABIES HAVE A RIGHT TO LIVE
BABIES HAVE A RIGHT TO LIVE
ACLU – Abortion is healthcare – Abortion is a women’s right.
— Dr Michael Chitwood (@drmchitwood) March 5, 2019
Screaming something 6 times doesn’t make it true. It just makes you look like petulant children instead of a civil rights organization.
PS. Abortion is murder.
— Colonel, USAF, Retired. ���� (@TopFighterPilot) March 5, 2019
Glad that the ACLU will defend abortion as a right but not due process. https://t.co/5kaOaSAMhe https://t.co/TNuGmR73Fo
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 4, 2019
ALL CAPS AND REPITITION MAKES EVERYTHING TRUE
— Ethan Benfield (@EthanBenfield3) March 4, 2019
They're obfuscating on natural, inalienable rights. If the right to life doesn't start through natural process at conception then there can't be inalienable rights. Human rights become granted permissions and core Americanism falls.
— Iconic Industries (@iconic_inc) March 4, 2019
Explain how abortion is a right or healthcare ?? pic.twitter.com/JCnohr7bB1
— ComfortZoneDaCoon (@ZoneCoon) March 5, 2019
KILLING PEOPLE IS NOT HEALTHCARE.
KILLING PEOPLE IS NOT HEALTHCARE.
KILLING PEOPLE IS NOT HEALTHCARE.
— �� Wisdomination �� (@Supreme_Owl_FTW) March 4, 2019