Abortion and Supremes

 

Justice Ginsburg, an “icon to the left,” unashamedly criticizes Texas pro-life law

By Dave Andrusko

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

As they say, pro-abortion Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is on a roll. We talked three last week about the excerpts that appeared from a forthcoming story in the October issue of Elle magazine and are coming back to another interview today.
In her Elle interview, Justice Ginsburg lowered the boom on fellow Justice Anthony Kennedy, Congress the “Hobby Lobby” decision, “those people” having too many babies (“It makes no sense as a national policy to promote birth only among poor people”), younger feminists who aren’t as gung-ho as she is about abortion, and, indirectly, President Obama for signaling that maybe, just maybe, she might be stepping down in time for Obama to appoint a younger clone of Ginsburg. (She is having none of that!)
Well, Ginsburg also gave a long interview to the New Republic’s Jeffrey Rosen. Writing at National Review Online, Ed Whelan asks if the following comment doesn’t amount to an obligation on Ginsburg’s part to recuse herself.

[Rosen]: So how can advocates make sure that poor women’s access to reproductive choice is protected? Can legislatures be trusted or is it necessary for courts to remain vigilant?

[Ginsburg]: How could you trust legislatures in view of the restrictions states are imposing? Think of the Texas legislation that would put most clinics out of business. The courts can’t be trusted either. Think of the Carhart decision or going way back to the two decisions that denied Medicaid coverage for abortion. I don’t see this as a question of courts versus legislatures. In my view, both have been moving in the wrong direction. It will take people who care about poor women. The irony and tragedy is any woman of means can have a safe abortion somewhere in the United States. But women lacking the wherewithal to travel can’t. There is no big constituency out there concerned about access restrictions on poor women. [Emphasis added]

Well, of course she should not be involved. This law could well come before the High Court and Justice Ginsburg has prejudged the outcome. But, of course, she won’t. 

There is more very much worth reading at newrepublic.com.  Here at two items.
#1. In the quote above Ginsburg bashes the “Carhart” decision which upheld the ban on partial-birth abortion. Only the most zealous, eyes-shut-tight ideologue could be so hard-hearted as to allow this incredibly brutal abortion technique to remain legal. But to Ginsburg Gonzales v. Carhart was nothing more than “a new form of ‘Big Brother must protect the woman against her own weakness and immature misjudgment.’”

#2. The ability to completely miss the point. She told Rosen

“Going back to the 1980s, I was speaking at Duke, not about abortion in particular, but about equal opportunities for women to be whatever their God-given talent allowed them to be, without artificial barriers placed in their way. During the question period, an African American man commented: ‘We know what you lily-white women are all about. You want to kill black babies.’ That’s how some in the African American community regarded the choice movement. So I think it would be helpful if civil rights groups homed in on the impact of the absence of choice on African American women. That would be useful.”

An African-American correctly understands that people just like Ginsburg have as a priority making sure that “those people” don’t have too many kids. Answer to his trenchant observation? Certainly not to address the truth that African-American babies are aborted in wildly disproportionate numbers. Rather focus on the impact of the “absence of choice.”
Amazing. No wonder Ginsburg has become, in Rosen’s fawning words, “an icon to the left, inspiring fanwear and Tumblr tributes.”

Source: NRLC News