See, when SCOTUS justices become senile -- or stop caring whether people know the truth about them or not -- they don't retire, they just run their mouths more. And say what they mean, I guess. Wonder which populations Justice Ginsburg considers untermensch?
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Source article from National Review:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWNhNzBhMTg1MGJmMWU3ZmU2YzgyMmI1ZTI3ZTE3ZjM=
Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sotomayor and Abortion for Undesired 'Populations'
07/08 05:40 PM
In this interview from this coming Sunday’s issue of the New York Times Magazine, Justice Ginsburg sees fit to offer her views on a range of matters, including:
1. Interviewer Emily Bazelon states that Ginsburg “was forceful about why she thinks Sotomayor should be confirmed.” Just the topic, of course, that any Supreme Court justice should see fit to opine on the day before a confirmation hearing starts.
Ginsburg offers this feeble defense of Sotomayor’s “wise Latina woman” comment: “Think of how many times you’ve said something that you didn’t get out quite right, and you would edit your statement if you could.” Ginsburg is evidently unaware that Sotomayor’s comment was part of a text that Sotomayor herself prepared and later published as a law-review article (and that she repeated on several occasions).
2. Speaking of something that maybe “didn’t get out quite right” (but maybe did): As part of her broad-ranging discussion of abortion, Ginsburg offers this, er, interesting comment why the Court’s 1980 decision in Harris v. McRae, which ruled that the Hyde Amendment’s exclusion of nontherapeutic abortions from Medicaid reimbursement was constitutionally permissible, “surprised” her:
Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.
Gee, Justice Ginsburg, would you like to tell us more about your views on those populations that “we don’t want to have too many of”?
Original article in the NY Times here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12ginsburg-t.html?pagewanted=print
July 12, 2009
The Place of Women on the Court
By EMILY BAZELON
In late February, three weeks after she had an operation for a recurrence of cancer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to Barack Obama’s first address to Congress. Given the circumstances, it wasn’t an event anyone expected her to attend. She went, she said, because she wanted the country to see that there was a woman on the Supreme Court.
Now another woman, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, is about to begin the confirmation hearings that stand between her and a seat near Ginsburg on the high bench. After 16 years on the court — the last three, since the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, as the only woman working alongside eight men — Ginsburg has a unique perspective on what’s at stake in Sotomayor’s nomination. I sat down with the 76-year-old justice last week to talk about women on the bench and their effect on the dynamics and decisions of the court...
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Michael Gerson of the Washington Post comments.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071603485_pf.html
Justice Ginsburg In Context
By Michael Gerson
Friday, July 17, 2009
There was a scandal this week concerning the Supreme Court, though it didn't concern the nomination of its newest member.
The New York Times Magazine printed a candid interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, including this portion:
Q: "Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid abortions for poor women?"
Justice Ginsburg: "Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae -- in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion."
A statement like this should not be taken out of context. The context surrounding this passage is a simplistic, pro-choice rant. Abortion, in Ginsburg's view, is an essential part of sexual equality, thus ending all ethical debate. "There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to be so obvious," she explains. "So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don't know why this hasn't been said more often." Of pro-lifers, she declares, "They're fighting a losing battle" -- which must come as discouraging news to litigants in future abortion cases that come before the high court.
Given this context, can it be argued that Ginsburg -- referring to "populations that we don't want to have too many of" -- was merely summarizing the views of others and describing the attitudes of the country when Roe v. Wade was decided? It can be argued -- but it is not bloody likely. Who, in Ginsburg's statement, is the "we"? And who, in 1973, was arguing for the eugenic purposes of abortion?
It is more likely that Ginsburg is describing the attitude of some of her own social class -- that abortion is economically important to a "woman of means" and useful in reducing the number of social undesirables. Neither judge nor journalist apparently found this attitude exceptional; there was no follow-up question.
At the very least, Ginsburg displays a disturbing insensitivity to Supreme Court history. It was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. who wrote the 1927 decision approving forced sterilization for Carrie Buck -- a 17-year-old single mother judged to be feebleminded and morally delinquent. "It is better for all the world," ruled Holmes, "if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind." Such elitism has been discredited; it is not extinct.
The entire Ginsburg interview is a reminder of the risks of lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court. Immune from criticism, surrounded by plump cushions of deference, the temperament of a justice can become exaggerated over time. For Ginsburg, complex arguments are now "so obvious" and "can never be otherwise" -- and opposition is fated to failure. Such statements, made during Ginsburg's own nomination hearing, would have been disqualifying. Now she doesn't give a damn.
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