ACLU denounced pandemic mandates before COVID-19

The American Civil Liberties Union revealed an op-ed in assist of vaccine mandates, taking the place that the mandates really “further civil liberties,” regardless of having publicly opposed such mandates before the coronavirus pandemic. 

“Far from compromising them, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties,” the ACLU posted on Twitter final week together with a New York Times op-ed written by two of the group’s senior attorneys. “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.”

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The authors of the piece argue that vaccines are a “justifiable intrusion on autonomy and bodily integrity” whereas acknowledging that “may sound ominous” however “the fundamental right to bodily integrity is not ‘absolute” and does “not include the right to inflict harm on others.”

Journalist Glenn Greenwald responded to the piece by saying it feels like an “NSA official justifying the need for mass surveillance” and identified that the ACLU has been against vaccine mandates up to now. 

“What makes the ACLU’s position so remarkable — besides the inherent shock of a civil liberties organization championing state mandates overriding individual choice — is that, very recently, the same group warned of the grave dangers of the very mindset it is now pushing,” Greenwald wrote on his Substack web page. “In 2008, the ACLU published a comprehensive report on pandemics which had one primary purpose: to denounce as dangerous and unnecessary attempts by the state to mandate, coerce, and control in the name of protecting the public from pandemics.”

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In the ACLU’s 2008 report, the group warned that “not all public health interventions have been benign or beneficial, however. Too often, fears aroused by disease and epidemics have encouraged abuses of state power. Atrocities, large and small, have been committed in the name of protecting the public’s health.”

Greenwald added, “The ACLU’s New York Times op-ed this week repeatedly stressed that coercive mandates are justified whenever ‘the disease is highly transmissible, serious and lethal.’ But its 2008 report argued exactly the opposite. The report was critical of forced vaccinations and other mandates in prior outbreaks of smallpox — certainly a highly contagious and lethal disease — but then argued that when the disease reappeared in the late 1940s, New York City handled it much better by offering voluntary vaccines and education programs rather than coercive measures.”

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The ACLU’s shift in place comes as governments and companies throughout the United States are grappling with the thought of requiring residents and staff to get vaccinated towards the coronavirus. 

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio enacted a plan this summer season forcing residents of his metropolis to indicate proof of vaccination so as to enter eating places, bars, and gymnasiums. The Los Angeles City Council has moved to implement an analogous mandate and President Joe Biden has instructed federal authorities companies to mandate vaccination for workers. 

Anti-vaccine mandate protesters have hit the streets throughout the nation to voice their opposition to the plan and a number of other native police unions have mentioned that some officers will step down from their posts if compelled to take the vaccine.

The ACLU didn’t instantly reply to Fox News’ request for remark.