81-year-old SCOTUS justice and her eugenic beliefs are not going away any time soon

Politicians and average Americans on both sides of the party divide have rallied behind the idea of SCOTUS Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg retiring.  In his second presidential campaign, Obama used her potential resignation to whet the appetites of activists who would like to see fresh blood carry on their liberal agenda.  And Democrats have tried to temper Ginsburg’s ill-conceived conviction that Republicans would override any unlikeable appointment by the president with a filibuster.  (In reality, pro-Ginsburg-resignation liberals claim Senate Dems would simply enact a rule change to ensure an acceptable replacement.) 

But the 81-year-old justice, an anti-Life fixture in the legislative debate on abortion in America, says that she plans to remain firmly planted on her bench because she doesn’t think Obama will be able to replace her with anyone she “would like to see” taking her place.  Apparently, for Ginsburg to view a replacement as acceptable, he or she would need to be a eugenicist. 

Back in 2009 Ginsburg made some comments on race and abortion that would be difficult to construe as a harmless opinion.  She said, responding to a question about the fact that there is no Medicaid coverage for abortions:

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.  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. 

In short, Ginsburg admitted not only that there are populations that she “didn’t want to have too many of,” but that she thought the legalization of abortion – which she defends staunchly – had to do with a desire to keep unwanted populations from growing too large.  Ginsburg’s ideals align eerily with those of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood.  Like Ginsburg, Sanger believed that a very narrow class of individuals she deemed “fit” deserved to be born and given opportunities in the world. 

To be found acceptable to her, Ginsburg’s replacement would also need to hold the so-called “right to choose” – a flimsy creation of judicial activist judges – higher than any other right that exists.  And that includes the fundamental ones, like the rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  But really, how can a justice value any of those last three at all if she views the ‘right to murder’ as a basic right of all women? 

Photo via Tulane Publications/Flickr