The Girl Scouts deleted a tweet Thursday congratulating Amy Coney Barrett as the fifth female U.S. Supreme Court justice after leftists and abortion activists complained.
The International Business Times reports the Twitter post included photos of Barrett and the four other female justices as well as a message congratulating her as the “fifth woman appointed to the Supreme Court since its inception in 1789.” The Girl Scouts also shared the post on Facebook.
Barrett is a pro-life, conservative Catholic and a well-respected law professor at the University of Notre Dame. She believes that life begins at conception and once signed an open letter that described abortions as “barbaric.” Her confirmation created a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
The Girl Scouts frequently highlights women leaders like Barrett as part of its mission. In 2019, it also posted a tweet honoring the four female Supreme Court justices.
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But abortion activists and leftists flooded the Girl Scouts with complaints, arguing that it should not honor Barrett because she is pro-life. The organization responded by deleting the post and issuing an apology.
“Earlier today, we shared a post highlighting the five women who have been appointed to the Supreme Court,” the Girl Scouts wrote. “It was quickly viewed as a political and partisan statement which was not our intent and we have removed the post.”
The Girl Scouts said its organization is non-political and nonpartisan, and its goal is to “lift up girls and women.”
But apparently not conservative women, former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly responded, according to the Daily Wire.
“This is pathetic [Girl Scouts]. It’s not ‘partisan’ to generically congratulate the 5th woman ever to join the High Court,” she wrote. “It’s patriotic. Taking your tweet down *is* partisan, however, and a real disappointment.”
Other conservative women also called out the organization for caving into radical leftists’ demands.
Federalist writer Anna James Ziegler criticized the Girl Scouts for allowing itself to be “bullied into deleting a simple tweet acknowledging” the female Supreme Court justices.
Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said its decision to delete the tweet was shameful.
“A post listing the five women appointed to SCOTUS is factual and apolitical. Replacing it with a tweet listing only four was the political and partisan decision,” she tweeted.
The Girl Scouts says it is non-political, but pro-life advocates repeatedly have criticized the organization for its work with the abortion chain Planned Parenthood.
The ties between the two groups have been questioned ever since former Girl Scouts CEO Kathy Cloninger admitted on NBC’s The Today Show: “We partner with many organizations. We have relationships with…Planned Parenthood organizations across the country.”
In a national survey in 2013, seventeen Girl Scouts councils admitted to partnering with Planned Parenthood; other councils refuse to answer the survey question. Of the 315 Girl Scout councils in the U.S., 17 councils reported having a relationship with Planned Parenthood and its affiliates, and 49 reported they do not. The other 249 refused to disclose any relationship.
In 2013, Girl Scouts USA shared a recommendation for abortion activist and former pro-abortion Texas legislator Wendy Davis as a 2013 Woman of the Year on its official Twitter account. The organization also suggested pro-abortion former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as a woman “with courage, confidence, and character.”
Meanwhile, a former national spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts, Kelly Parisi, also was a former spokeswoman for a pro-abortion organization founded by Gloria Steinem.
The Girl Scouts also have been criticized for their involvement in the May 2013 Women Deliver Conference, an international event that included “safe and legal abortion” among its overarching themes. It documents its role in the planning and facilitating of the December 2012 Bali Global Youth Forum and the outcome declaration, which demands youth access to abortion.
