In a news cycle filled with indictments, scandals, and violence, a story like Rosa Maria Hernandez’s can fall through the cracks. But the ACLU took pains on October 31st to make sure the story of the detention of the ten year old undocumented disabled Mexican immigrant remains in the public eye.

BREAKING: We just sued Customs and Border Protection and the Office of Refugee Resettlement to demand they release 10-year-old Rosa Maria Hernandez. #FreeRosa pic.twitter.com/8BEhnKXtNc

— ACLU (@ACLU) October 31, 2017

According to the Guardian, this past week on October 24th, Rosa Maria Hernandez was traveling from Laredo to Corpus Christi for emergency gallbladder surgery when border patrol stopped her ambulance and discovered her undocumented status. Her parents, who are also illegal immigrants, were not with her in the ambulance. Instead, Rosa Maria was accompanied by her cousin, an American citizen in her thirties. Border patrol then followed Rosa Maria’s ambulance to the Corpus Christie hospital, allowed the surgery to happen, and then took the ten year old into state custody when she was stable. She has not seen her parents since before the surgery.

Yesterday, on Halloween, the ACLU announced that it had filed a lawsuit against “Customs and Border Protection and the Office of Refugee Resettlement to demand they release…  Hernandez” to her parents. A representative of the ACLU said that the actions of border control violated “a slew of statutes and regulations in the arrest, transfer, and ongoing detention” of the girl. The ACLU has also stated their belief that detaining the girl is a violation of her Fifth Amendment right to due process, among other grievances and accusations of abuse. One of the biggest reasons behind their request for Rosa Maria’s release was rooted in the fact that Rosa Maria is disabled. According to the ACLU, Rosa Maria needs extensive care and therapy that her mother can provide, and detaining her deprives her of that care.

In light of the ACLU suit, it goes without saying that Rosa Maria’s story warrants attention. It is another tile in the mosaic that is the nationwide discussion of policy involving undocumented immigrant youth. Her situation is one that both sides have referenced to try to fortify their own political stances.

But I’m not here to talk about immigration. I’m here to talk about how the left’s reaction to Rosa Maria’s story demonstrates that feelings of empathy for disabled kids are conditional among activists in the liberal community.

It’s funny how, in the minds of liberals like the folks at the ACLU, Rosa Maria deserves 1) constitutional rights as an illegal alien and 2) sympathy as a disabled child, but viable, late-term unborn American babies (whose mothers discover fetal abnormalities late in pregnancy) don’t have constitutional rights until they are no longer in utero, and disabilities they have only make them more likely to be killed via abortion, even in the late stages of pregnancy.

Most people, even those who are pro-abortion, dislike the idea of aborting a late-term fetus. People understand that the melon-sized thing inside a woman kicking her is a unique human. So why on earth is it considered okay by so many to abort late-term fetuses that have physical abnormalities?

They’re human and we know it and we play god anyway.

Kid’s got spina bifida? Or another neural tube defect, one that can lead to complications like cerebral palsy? Physical disfigurement? Down syndrome? It won’t be able to walk and will need surgeries? You didn’t know about the disability till the twenty week ultrasound? You don’t want to bring that child into the world only for it to potentially live with pain and a disability? You want to euthanize it because it might die anyway? No problem. Make an appointment with a late term abortion provider and they’ll take care of it.

The worst part is that, in many testimonials written by women who have had late-term abortions to “save” their children from disabilities and abnormalities, the women describe their choice to terminate as a choice rooted in deep love for the babies they abort.

You can’t claim that the life of a disabled child like Rosa Maria is valuable and worthy of protecting and then say that the lives of disabled children in utero are disposable. You just can’t. You cannot take evil and call it good. You cannot take darkness and call it light. You cannot, in one breath, say that Rosa Maria the immigrant should be treated with extra care because of her disability, and then in the next breath say that the disability of an unborn child is grounds for ending its life. You cannot kill an unborn child and call it love.

If I could talk to the ACLU right now, here’s what I would say:

Do you know that set of feelings you have about Rosa Maria, that overwhelming and lingering feeling of care and sympathy for her, such a small and innocent human caught in a bad mess that she didn’t herself create? Do you worry for her? Do you yearn to speak up for her as you think about how she is helplessly subject to the whims of an entity much bigger than her, an entity that you believe does not have her best interests at heart?

Yeah… that is exactly how pro-lifers feel about infants that are cut down in utero because they don’t measure up to social ideals of perfection.