Columnist Hits Justice Ginsburg for ‘Simplistic, Pro-Choice Rant’

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent comments about the right to abortion and concerns about population growth have provoked an op-ed columnist, who sees suggestions of eugenics in the “simplistic, pro-choice rant.”

Writing in the Washington Post, columnist Michael Gerson focuses on this portion of an interview Ginsburg gave to the New York Times Magazine:

“Interviewer: If you were a lawyer again, what would you want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda?

“Ginsburg: Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [v. Wade] are not going to change back. 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.

“Interviewer: 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 for abortions for poor women?

“Ginsburg: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [The ruling was Harris v. McRae, upholding the Hyde Amendment barring Medicaid funding 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. 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.”

Gerson cautions that Ginsburg’s comments shouldn’t be taken out of context—and concludes the context is “a simplistic, pro-choice rant.” Next he targets Ginsburg for her comments on "populations that we don't want to have too many of." Was Ginsburg merely describing the opinions of others when Roe v. Wade was decided?

“Not bloody likely,” according to Gerson. “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.”

Gerson goes on to criticize Ginsburg for the abortion remarks. “The entire Ginsburg interview is a reminder of the risks of lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court,” he writes. “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.”