The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) endorsed vaccine mandates in both a Tweet and an op-ed piece in The New York Times on Sept. 2.
In the op-ed by David Cole, the group’s national legal director, and Daniel Mach, director of the organization’s program on freedom of religion and belief, claimed that vaccine mandates actually protected civil liberities.
“Vaccines are a justifiable intrusion on autonomy and bodily integrity,” Cole and Mach wrote in the Times op-ed. “That may sound ominous, because we all have the fundamental right to bodily integrity and to make our own health care decisions. But these rights are not absolute.” (RELATED: The ACLU Should End The Charade Of Protecting American Civil Liberties)
Far from compromising them, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties. They protect the most vulnerable, people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated, and communities of color hit hard by the disease. https://t.co/UYfQY2EEqj
— ACLU (@ACLU) September 2, 2021
Cole and Mach also criticized bans on vaccine mandates in some states. “[T]hese bans directly endanger the public health and make more deaths from the disease inevitable. They trample the rights of the most vulnerable, who want to participate in society without putting their health at grave risk,” they said.
The op-ed drew fire on social media, with independent journalist Kyle Becker tweeting, “You’re a complete disgrace, ACLU. Just a trashy Marxist outfit pretending to care about people’s rights as you work to destroy them.”
The group sued to strike down a South Carolina law that prohibited mask mandates in August, claiming it discriminated against students with disabilities. In July, the ACLU touched off another social media firestorm when it clamed the Second Amendment was built on a racist foundation.