Forcing people to use vaccine passports to access everyday freedoms is apparently protecting their civil liberties, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The organization’s opinion was, for obvious reasons, criticized as part of its continued recent decline into politicalization and moving away from values it once supported.
The ACLU expressed its controversial opinion in an op-ed in The New York Times. According to the civil liberties groups, there is permissibility for COVID-19 vaccine passport mandates because: “The disease is highly transmissible, serious and often lethal; the vaccines are safe and effective; and crucially there is no equally effective alternative available to protect public health.”
The ACLU added: “In fact, far from compromising civil liberties, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties. They protect the most vulnerable among us, including people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated and communities of color hit hard by the disease.”
The organization acknowledged that “vaccines are a justifiable intrusion on autonomy and bodily integrity” and people have a “fundamental right to bodily integrity and to make our own health care decisions.” However, it argued that “these rights are not absolute” because no one has “the right to inflict harm on others.”
The article concludes contradictorily with: “We care deeply about civil liberties and civil rights for all – which is precisely why we support vaccine mandates.”
Libertarian Party’s Steven Kolln tweeted: “It is so sad to see how much leftism has destroyed your organization. Any real civil liberties union needs to be actively against the left and you are example #1 as to why.”
