Ruth Bader Ginsburg Sees Bright Future For Roe v. Wade: 'We Will Never Go Back'

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the 77-year-old two-time cancer survivor and nearly 17 year veteran of the high court, made an appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival last week and expressed optimism about the future of Roe v. Wade.

"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 told a crowd during the public interview moderated by legal scholar Jeffrey Rosen. "We will never go back to the way it once was."

Ginsburg, who in the past has evoked worry among abortion activists for her skepticism of the durability of Roe v. Wade's majority decision, maintained that the 1973 ruling was not as divisive a debate as it has since become, and argued that any change to the decision would only hurt disadvantaged women.

"It wasn't all that controversial. It was a 7 to 2 decision with only two dissenters," Ginsburg said. But if the Supreme Court decides to strip parts of Roe v. Wade, "there won't be any real change for anyone in this audience or any daughters of anyone in this audience," Ginsburg continued. "The only women who would be truly affected are poor women. Because even at the time before Roe, women who wanted abortions could have a safe, legal abortion...Women could travel from one state to another and didn't have to go to Japan or Cuba...Whatever the court may do, it's only the poor women who will suffer. When people realize that, maybe they will have a different attitude."

Last month, Bill Clinton's former acting Solicitor General, Walter Dellinger, argued that the state of Roe v. Wade was much more tenuous, and predicted that the monumental abortion ruling would actually be overturned sometime soon.

"I absolutely believe it," Dellinger said of the potential abortion reversal at a forum cosponsored by Politico in June.

Comments

[vetxcl]

11:28 AM on 08/10/2010

uh oh!! a woman speaking her mind!!! stand by for severe repugnicant blowback!!! (i.e., isn't she a known lesbian??)

[HerrMonk]

11:23 AM on 07/13/2010

Roe v. Wade is pretty weak.

I'm pro-choice. Very pro-choice. I think the fact that it's even an debate is a little sad: too much religion mixed in with government.

However, from a strictly legalistic standpoint Roe v. Wade is really weak, and probably shouldn't stand.

IMHO true protection of a woman's right to choose needs to come from a constitutional amendment. We need to stop thinking of the courts as a legislative bypass: it politicizes them.

[Cleo McDowell]

01:29 PM on 07/13/2010

Amazingnly enough, as a pro life conservative, I totally agree with your statement . I don't believe that there is a Constitutional problem with states passing liberal abortion rights laws. There is no explicit prohibition of them doing so in the Constitution, and my recourse is to elect different lawmakers or move to a different state.

Defenders of R v W imply that there was specific intent during the ratification of the 14th amendment to create National abortion policy. In the 1860's. Within a statute that gave citizenship rights to former slaves and their offspring.

It's an absurd argument and to defend it threatens any law put in place by the people that a handful of activist judges don't like.

[Hardyman1966]

02:03 PM on 07/13/2010

Has anyone ever noticed that the only people who use the phrase "activist judges" are people who personally disagree with them, regardless of the subject, and regardless if there's an established consensus?

It's always interesting.

[vetxcl]

11:34 AM on 08/10/2010

yeaahhh, sure. you're pro-choice, but then most of your words are used to refute progress that supports pro-choice without providing anything but opinion. what do you base your second paragraph's opinion on? also, you're sad? do you have something personally invested or have you just learned to repeat repugnicant memes?

[demsrsilly]

05:37 AM on 07/13/2010

Very interesting, all comments regarding other justices are allowed, but evidently, but if you dare make a comment on how Justice Ginburg is beholden to a certain national organization for women, it gets deleted.

[vetxcl]

11:34 AM on 08/10/2010

gossip. no proof = no fact.

[liberal4lifee]

03:06 AM on 07/13/2010

i am still going to re-post this link http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html (thank you smile and act nice)

[LittleMittens]

02:20 AM on 07/13/2010

Why are men so eager to destroy womens rights. If men carried children, they would make sure they would be afforded every right possible

[Hardyman1966]

11:39 AM on 07/13/2010

If men carried children they's shoot themselves with the first labor pain.

[EnterUsernameHere]

12:25 PM on 07/13/2010

>>Why are men so eager to destroy womens rights

Why are leftnuts so eager to destroy innocent lives?

[Hardyman1966]

02:04 PM on 07/13/2010

It's not just leftnuts. Many people of a certain intelligence do not believe there is a 3rd person in the room the moment the man has it off.

[vetxcl]

11:35 AM on 08/10/2010

correction: absolutes.

[realitycitizen]

01:04 AM on 07/13/2010

If abortion ever did become illegal then just make sure you hang any jury that tries to jail or fine an abortion doctor if your on jury duty.

[SmileAndActNice]

12:28 AM on 07/13/2010

One way to create divides in society, and for the top to maintain leverage over anyone below who has to much integrity to be bought, is to get a lot of laws on the books that can be selectively enforced. Something the powerful can easily get around but the common man is hurt by.

Abortion bans never work. Ever. No abortion ban in the history of the world has been even remotely successful in stopping abortions. But they do create just such a social imbalance of power.

I have a policy of donating to clinics when I see protesters outside. My donations are earmarked for abortion coverage only to poor women who can't afford it. I do not donate if the picketers leave and don't come back. Recently a woman who benefited from my donation sent me a letter via the doctor thanking me, pouring out her heart about how grateful she was and how terrified she'd been. She was a kid who'd been debating trying to induce miscarriage herself - despite the known dangers of doing so - since she couldn't afford the services of a doctor.

I probably could have made her do just about anything for access to that procedure.

And if it were illegal, I could make her do even more after with the threat of outing her.

[kimleehan]

11:53 PM on 07/12/2010

So all the women who get abortions are Democrat??? My niece has had two abortion and she hates President Obama and the Democrats and she is pro-life, but she says that her's is a special case because of her job.

[luvU2]

11:55 PM on 07/12/2010

Funny how that work's isn't it.

[SmileAndActNice]

11:56 PM on 07/12/2010

http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html

[luvU2]

12:15 AM on 07/13/2010

Wow. The hypocrisy is amazing.

[brt929]

11:47 PM on 07/12/2010

Ginsberg is wrong. The Christian Taliban even condones murder of doctors, they will fight this tooth and nail to the end.

As for going backwards, there are young women out there who do not understand what they have, and take it for granted.

She is right, the only women that are really hurt, are the ones with limited means.

[soisay]

11:47 PM on 07/12/2010

When abortions are outlawed, only rich women will have safe ones. . . .

Just like the 1960's, 1950's, 1940's, etc.

[luvU2]

12:04 AM on 07/13/2010

Back then it was called a "therapeutic abortion". A woman had to get a psychiatrist to go to a medical board at a hospital and convince the board that the woman could not continue the pregnancy.

[luvU2]

11:36 PM on 07/12/2010

Love the fetus, hate the child. Pro lifers are the same people who,once the child is born say NO!
NO FOOD STAMPS, NO WELFARE, NO HEALTH CARE, NO EDUCATION, NO SUBSIDIZED HOUSING, NO ENTITLEMENTS !!!! NOT ON MY TAX DOLLAR!!! Sorry kid you are on your own. Bunch of judgmental, hypocrites.

[Hardyman1966]

04:57 PM on 07/13/2010

I decided a long time ago not to respect the position of anyone claiming to be pro-life who:

-Hasn't adopted
-Supports the death penalty

Consistency is worth a lot of points in my book, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Politiplasm]

11:28 PM on 07/12/2010

" "there won't be any real change for anyone in this audience or any daughters of anyone in this audience," Ginsburg continued. "The only women who would be truly affected are poor women."

Ah, well. That doesn't count, does it..

[demsrsilly]

10:21 PM on 07/12/2010

She will vote however NOW tells her to.

[Scentedflower]

09:40 PM on 07/12/2010

Miss. Ruth, retire now and give Obama another chance to appoint another SC judge.
Three times would be a charm to the President and destruction to the GOP.

[brt929]

11:51 PM on 07/12/2010

You are a nasty piece of work aren't you?

[luvU2]

09:39 PM on 07/12/2010

Roe v Wade will never be overturned. Why, because it is how the right manipulates it's base. Republicans talk about being pro life but very few do anything about it. The abortion issue is a powerful political tool.

[kinnycut]

11:53 PM on 07/12/2010

Yes, many issues are in reality nothing more than political tools to push a portion of the electorate that is passionate about a issue toward one political party, or another. Another good example is gun enthusiasts support and donate to Republican candidates hand over fist, but in reality President Obama has been better to them by doing absolutely nothing on gun control than any Republican President that came before him. If they actually stopped to listen to gun control supporters, they would have heard many of them say on television that he has the worse record on gun control than any democrat elected in recent history. However, gun enthusiasts are are as a group consistently sought out by Republican Party. Many people would be surprised to find out just how many Democrats in Congress go hunting on a regular basis with their Republican friends.

[jobrien1950]

11:47 AM on 07/13/2010

agreed.

[brt929]

11:55 PM on 07/12/2010

So people say. I'm not so sure. At the very least, they are slowly chipping away at the right every day.