The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union apologized Monday for altering a quote by the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that removed her references to “women.”
“The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity,” Ginsburg said during her 1993 Senate confirmation hearings. “It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”
But this is how the ACLU tweeted the message: “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a [person’s] life, to [their] well-being and dignity…When the government controls that decision for [people], [they are] being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for [their] own choices.”
With Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, we lost a champion for abortion and gender equality. And on the anniversary of her death, the fight to protect abortion access is more urgent than ever. pic.twitter.com/vIKadIHouN
— ACLU (@ACLU) September 18, 2021
The edits were widely ridiculed on Twitter, with critics calling them “deeply wrong on every level.” Some said the organization “should be ashamed of themselves” for trying to make RBG more “woke.”
ACLU executive director Anthony Romero acknowledged it was wrong to change her words.
“We won’t be altering people’s quotes,” he said Monday, according to The New York Times. “It was a mistake among the digital team. Changing quotes is not something we ever did.”
Still, he made an excuse for the move, saying it “was not a mistake without a thought.”
“My colleagues do a fantastic job of trying to understand a reality that people who seek abortions are not only women. That reality exists,” he claimed.