{"id":82188,"date":"2015-12-10T18:30:50","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T23:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=82188"},"modified":"2015-12-10T16:08:14","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T21:08:14","slug":"unreal-aclu-argues-racist-ban-racist-abortions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/unreal-aclu-argues-racist-ban-racist-abortions\/","title":{"rendered":"Unreal: ACLU argues it’s racist to ban racist abortions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The ACLU\u2019s latest attack on pro-lifers may be so preposterous that it almost discredits itself, but that hasn\u2019t stopped the folks at ThinkProgress from lapping it up. On Wednesday, Alex Zielinski approvingly wrote<\/a> that the American Civil Liberties (For Everyone But Babies) Union is filing a lawsuit against Arizona for its law requiring abortionists to confirm that abortions they perform aren\u2019t sought on the basis of the child\u2019s sex or race…<\/p>\n

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\u201c[The law] is a blatant violation of equal protection and the prohibition against state laws that discriminate on the basis of race,\u201d the ACLU complaint<\/a> states.<\/p>\n

The law\u2019s creators used racist stereotypes to back the need for its creation, arguing that Asian American women historically kill female fetuses and black women terminate their pregnancies because of racial biases. Neither arguments are based on existing data. None of the lawmakers involved have a history of supporting minority issues. These false stereotypes appear to be solely constructed by conservative lawmakers to block more women from accessing abortion care.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cWe know that people from those countries and from those cultures are moving and immigrating in some reasonable numbers to the United States and to Arizona,\u201d state Senator Rick Murphy (R) said after voting<\/a> to help pass the legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so with that in mind, why in good conscience would we want to wait until the problem does develop and bad things are happening and then react when we can be proactive and try to prevent the problem from happening in the first place?\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of acknowledging the false narratives behind the original law, the ACLU will use scientific research on the negative effects of racism to back their arguments in front of a Ninth Circuit judge on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The mind boggles at how little these objections\u2014objections, mind you, constructed by what is supposed to be the<\/em> premiere legal advocacy group for one side of the political spectrum in this country\u2014have to do with any actual legal principles that would be relevant.<\/p>\n

The sole determining factor in whether a law violates anti-discrimination principles is whether it, y\u2019know, discriminates<\/em> against a particular group. A law for the express purpose of preventing racial or sexual discrimination, equally applicable to all abortion seekers, manifestly does not. The ACLU knew this going in, so they had to get creative. And by \u201cget creative\u201d I mean \u201cgo full con-artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The arguments used to build support for any given law, no matter how erroneous or prejudiced (we\u2019ll get to that in a bit) they may be, have no bearing whatsoever on that law\u2019s constitutional permissibility. The varied rationales and personal opinions animating people to voice their support or cast their vote for a policy have no legal standing; only the law\u2019s actual effect does. If a policy decision deserves reversal because it was made on the basis of misguided or even duplicitous motivations, that\u2019s what elections are for. Not all bad ideas are unconstitutional (nor all theoretically-good ideas constitutional).<\/p>\n

To see the absurdity of this, just consider that for virtually any given issue (including abortion<\/a>), people can be found on both sides who claim their favored course of action is what God wants. So according to the \u201clogic\u201d used by the ACLU here, if intent defines constitutionality, virtually anything government ever does about anything<\/em> could be construed as an establishment of religion violating the First Amendment. The self-evident madness of it all is proof that the ACLU itself cannot possibly believe its own argument (whether ThinkProgress thought that far ahead is anyone\u2019s guess, though).<\/p>\n

Similarly but perhaps even more egregiously, whether \u201cthe lawmakers involved have a history of supporting minority issues\u201d is also irrelevant. You might as well throw out the Violence Against Women Act because the President who signed it<\/a>, Bill Clinton, didn\u2019t really respect women<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Constitutionality aside, the attack on the motives of the law\u2019s advocates shamefully ignores history. Abortions specifically targeting girls and minorities for extermination are not hypothetical. Live Action\u2019s own Gendercide Investigation<\/a> has found not only several mainstream academic studies finding evidence of systemic sex-selection abortion in the United States, but personnel at multiple Planned Parenthood locations perfectly willing to help with abortions motivated solely by the babies\u2019 sex:<\/p>\n