I'd be interested in hearing your opinion and your definition of "flimsy". I can't see any way you can tell a girl/ woman, impregnated by rape or incest that she can't terminate that pregnancy. To me that is simply indefensible. That's a compromise.
Originally Posted by HedonistForever
HF - i agree - it is a reasonable compromise - on an issue with uncompromising sides.
Originally Posted by oeb11
this one is more recent. Ginsburg didn't like the roe v wade ruling.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/u...oe-v-wade.html
in her words
Why Ruth Bader Ginsburg Wasn’t All That Fond of Roe v. Wade
The late Supreme Court justice believed the landmark ruling was too sweeping and vulnerable to attacks, explains Professor Mary Hartnett, co-author of Justice Ginsburg’s authorized biography
Ruth Bader Ginsburg on her first day as a justice, after being introduced to the Washington press corps as the newest member of the Supreme Court, on Oct. 1, 1993.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg on her first day as a justice, after being introduced to the Washington press corps as the newest member of the Supreme Court, on Oct. 1, 1993.Credit...Jose R. Lopez/The New York Times
By Alisha Haridasani Gupta
Sept. 21, 2020
“She would say, ‘You just have to move forward and get to work.’”
— Mary Hartnett, a law professor at Georgetown University and co-author of Justice Ginsburg’s biography
Ruth Bader Ginsburg wasn’t really fond of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that in 1973 established a constitutional right to abortion. She didn’t like how it was structured.
The ruling, she noted in a lecture at New York University in 1992, tried to do too much, too fast — it essentially made every abortion restriction in the country at the time illegal in one fell swoop — leaving it open to fierce attacks.
“Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped,” she said, “may prove unstable.”
It was because of her early criticism of one of the most consequential rulings for American women that some feminist activists were initially suspicious of her when President Bill Clinton nominated her for the Supreme Court in 1993, worried that she wouldn’t protect the decision.
Of course, they eventually realized that Justice Ginsburg’s skepticism of Roe v. Wade wasn’t driven by a disapproval of abortion access at all, but by her wholehearted commitment to it.
The way Justice Ginsburg saw it, Roe v. Wade was focused on the wrong argument — that restricting access to abortion violated a woman’s privacy. What she hoped for instead was a protection of the right to abortion on the basis that restricting it impeded gender equality, said Mary Hartnett, a law professor at Georgetown University who will be a co-writer on the only authorized biography of Justice Ginsburg.
Justice Ginsburg “believed it would have been better to approach it under the equal protection clause” because that would have made Roe v. Wade less vulnerable to attacks in the years after it was decided, Professor Hartnett said. She and her co-author on the biography, Professor Wendy Williams, spent the last 17 years interviewing Justice Ginsburg for the book and, though it initially didn’t have a release date, they are hoping to publish it some time next year, Professor Hartnett said in an interview.
In a way, Justice Ginsburg’s opinion on Roe perfectly encapsulates how she functioned. She was passionate about equality for women, L.G.B.T.Q. people and minority groups, and fiercely devoted to human dignity and respect, Professor Hartnett said. But she was also deeply thoughtful and measured on how to bring those conditions about, and her decisions — shaped by nuanced legal reasoning — sometimes ran counter to what many of her fans might have expected.
“She was very strategic but she was also very client-focused,” Professor Hartnett said. “She cared about people and about the real-life problems that these legal issues created. She did that as an advocate, as a judge and a justice.”
During the same term that Roe v. Wade was decided, Justice Ginsburg was preparing to appear before the court, on the other side of the bench, as a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union representing Capt. Susan Struck.
In that case, Captain Struck, an Air Force nurse who was stationed in Vietnam, had become pregnant. She was given two choices: have an abortion or leave the military (before Roe, though abortion was prohibited in most states, it was allowed on military bases). When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, the Air Force, realizing it had a very real chance of losing, changed its policy and let Captain Struck have her child and keep her job and the court never heard the case.
Ginsburg, though, believed the Struck case would have provided a stronger foundation for a woman’s right to choose, and tried to see if Capt. Struck could find other instances of discrimination to keep the case alive, Professor Hartnett said.
“Remember, she’s client-focused. The client got what she wanted — she got the regulation change,” Professor Hartnett explained. And that was that.
Another one of Justice Ginsburg’s unexpected opinions came earlier this year.
In January, Virginia became the 38th state to approve the Equal Rights Amendment, becoming the final state needed to add it to the Constitution. Though the deadline for ratification was in 1982, there was hope among feminist activists and supporters that the deadline might be extended and that, with Virginia’s decision, an amendment prohibiting gender discrimination could soon be enshrined in the country’s foundational legal document.
Justice Ginsburg didn’t agree.
“I would like to see a new beginning, I’d like it to start over,” she said of the ratification process during a February event at Georgetown Law. “There’s too much controversy about latecomers. Plus, a number of states have withdrawn their ratification. So if you count a latecomer on the plus side, how can you disregard states that have said ‘we’ve changed our minds’?”
In other words, Yes, let’s aim for equality, but let’s do it the right way — slow and steady — so that when we get there, it’s indisputable.
These examples provide just a tiny window into her thought process, but it was this sharpness and steadfast approach over her decades-long career that turned Justice Ginsburg into a feminist icon — not just for women but for men, too — whose presence on the Supreme Court led an entire generation of young girls and boys to take the image of a woman in a decision-making role in the country’s highest court as a given.
Justice Ginsburg, after twice surviving cancer, died on Friday because of complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer. As the country now mourns, Professor Hartnett suggests emulating her distinctive style and focusing on the bigger picture.
“She would say, ‘You just have to move forward and get to work, step by step, case by case.’”
In Her Words is available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox. Write to us at
inherwords@nytimes.com.
© 2020 The New York Times Company
