Sometimes you just gotta love your enemies, like, when they tell you the absolute truth. Thanks, Ruth Bader.
In an astonishing admission, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she was under the impression that legalizing abortion with the 1973 Roe. v. Wade case would eliminate undesirable members of the populace, or as she put it "populations that we don't want to have too many of."
Her remarks, set to be published in the New York Times Magazine this Sunday but viewable online now, came in an in-depth interview with Emily Bazelon titled, "The Place of Women on the Court."
The 16-year veteran of the high court was asked if she were a lawyer again, what would she "want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda."
Ginsburg responded:
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 [to make abortion legal] 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.
Question: 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. [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.
Think about that statement. Go ahead and try to figure out what she could have meant by it.
Anyway you slice it it is still among the most ugly, anti-human statements ever uttered by a major figure on the American political scene.
19 comments:
Y'know, with a little green makeup she kinda looks like the WIcked Witch of the West. . .
. . .And with statements like that ought to be treated as such.
Abortion rights are individual rights, about the choices of individual women. To put it on the basis of eugenics is essentially no different from the excuses the Chinese government uses to force unwilling women to have abortions.
RRA,
Exactly. And, that's why I decided to post this here.
This statement by her is astonishingly ugly. And, coupled with Grant Jones' post we have to wonder what is wrong with our country that we have people like this in power.
MR,
I'll get you my pritty, and your little dog Toto too. Eee-hahahahahaha!
Actually, Roe was about the right to privacy. We all, not just women, have the right to make health care choices UNIMPEDED by the government. Per Roe, health-care choices are to be made by the patient in consultation with the patient's doctor, and, with God (can you believe they mentioned God in that decision??)
The government has no rights to interfere with health care choices, as those are covered by the Constitutionally protected right to privacy.
That is also why the Roe court also left room for government regulation for late-term abortions - as the fetus got closer to "viability", the decision to abort implicated the government's obligation to protect human life of the fetus. And that decision included the idea that the state's rights in protecting the life of a human being might trump a woman's right to privacy.
That is why infanticide is NOT protected under Roe. It is no longer a woman's right to privacy that is implicated. It is the state's obligation to protect human life. You have no right to "choose" to kill your child. Ever.
Roe's "progeny" decisions have blurred that. But, the fact that late-term and partial birth abortion are decried as violative of Roe is bizarre to me.
We all have a right to privacy (particularly with respect to health-care decisions) under Roe.
That is just one more reason I do not believe that government run/mandated health care is legal.
Rp
Sorry - meant "regulations regarding late-term and partial-birth abortions are violative of Roe"
Ro
Pastorius,
Actually its not just Ginsburg who has made arguments for legalized abortion in recent years that could easily be use to justify forcing women into having them. This troubling commentary from David Vecksler comes to mind.
Note, that Vecksler never specifically advocates forcing Palin or anyone else into having an abortion, but some his arguments could easily be used for that purpose, think about it, and you might see what I mean.
In fact I went even further when I commented on what he said, and argued that it would be very difficult to accept what he was saying and come up with a decent argument against forcing women into having abortions.
Damien,
Thank you for sharing that with me. I liked your comments. You're very fair with the guy, especially considering how horrendous his ideas are.
So, are you a member of Libertarians for Life? If so, how did you come to that conclusion?
Pastorius,
I have a problem with abortion in general, but I'm not a member of libertarians for life, nor would I really qualify as a strict libertarian. But I do think they make a few valid points that are worth considering.
If you want to know how they came to some of their conclusions, you could read their blog.
No, I'd like to know how you have come to your conclusion? Why do you have a problem with abortion?
Pastorius,
There are many reasons, such as the issue of late term abortion. Where if a doctor performs an abortion, just before a babies is about to be born, its considered okay, but if it happens one second after he's born we call it murder. There is a lot of debate over when life begins, but from a logical stand point, it does pretty much have to start at conception. There are those who might say that it can't be alive, but bacteria is alive, so why aren't those few cells. I've even read high school biology text books that say they are alive.
There is some debate over when personhood begins. But that is problematic and not knowing seems to go against abortion being moral.
Also, if we have no problem with abortion at all, what about euthanasia, and than what about involuntary euthanasia.
On the other hand I do have sympathy for women who are rape victims, and so it is not easy for me. I also feel bad for people like Micheal J Fox who is suffering from Alzheimer.
I didn't think at all about abortion very much until I came across the libertarian and Atheists for life websites and realized that it wasn't just religious right that opposed it, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had some problems with it.
I feel pretty much the same as you do about it, and have come to the same general conclusion through the same mental process.
One thing I have noticed is women who are extremely pro-choice, and who like to say that a fetus is not a human being, will suddenly turn around and say, "I have a baby in my tummy", when their desperation pregnancy takes hold in their early 40's.
I agree, the hair-splitting it takes to figure out when cells turn into "human beings" is impossible. And, I also have trouble telling women they should not have an abortion in the case of rape, incest, or a life-threatening situation.
Pasto -- it's Murphy, Murphy. The little dog is Murphy. Toto is some little twit wannabe who appeared in a movie a long time ago. All washed up after one flick. Couldn't handle the fame, too many biscuits and bitches. . .
Not sure if anyone realizes she was nominated in 1993. Therefore she was speaking on why she made the decision. She was saying why she thought the decision was made. Sounds more like an accusation than her stating her belief system.
I mean she was NOT speaking on why she made the decision because she wasn't a supreme court justice at the time of the ruling.
Anonymous,
I'm well aware of that, but she is a supporter of Roe vs. Wade, and in this statement, she revealed her thinking vis a vis Roe vs. Wade.
There might be a bit of a connection there, don't you think?
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