Justice Ginsburg, a ‘Flaming Feminist,’ Says Legal Challenges Won’t Stop Abortion
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is confident that abortions will continue to be available despite legal challenges by opponents of Roe v. Wade.
Speaking Thursday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Ginsburg said she doesn’t see a return to a ban on abortion, Politco reports. “Over a generation of young women have grown up, understanding they can control their own reproductive capacity, and in fact their life’s destiny,” Ginsburg said. “We will never go back to the way it once was.”
Ginsburg described herself as a “flaming feminist” and said she looked forward to Elena Kagan joining the court, the Aspen Daily News reports. Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor also remarked on Kagan’s nomination as she introduced Ginsburg.
“It took 191 years to get the first woman on the Supreme Court,” O’Connor said. “I served 12 years before we got the second, and it was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. … I know that she is looking forward to now getting another woman on the court to serve with her.”
Ginsburg talked about the collegial nature of the court and the type of persuasion that goes on behind the scenes. The justices, she said, are “constantly trying to persuade each other” to change their minds, but there is no horse trading, the Politico story says. About twice a year, she said, the votes in the final opinion turn out different than the way the justices indicate they will decide the case in private conferences.
She also spoke about her husband, Martin Ginsburg, a lawyer and tax expert who died last month of complications from cancer. He was “the first boy I met that cared that I had a brain,” she recalled.
