http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=50819 Justice Ginsburg Says She Originally Thought Roe v. Wade Was Designed to Limit 'Populations That We Don’t Want to Have Too Many Of' (CNSNews.com) – In an interview to be published in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she thought the landmark Roe v. Wade decision on abortion was predicated on the Supreme Court majority's desire to diminish “populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” In the 90-minute interview in Ginsburg’s temporary chambers, Ginsburg gave the Times her perspective on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s first high court nomination. She also discussed her views on abortion. Her comment about her belief that the court had wanted to limit certain populations through abortion came after the interviewer asked Ginsburg: “If you were a lawyer again, what would you want to accomplish as a future feminist agenda?” “Reproductive choice has to be straightened out,” Ginsburg said. “There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe (to make abortion legal) are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often.” Ginsburg discussed her surprise at the outcome of Harris v. McRae, a 1980 decision that upheld the Hyde Amendment, which prohibited the use of Medicaid and other federal funds for abortions. Here’s a transcript of that portion of the Times' interview: Q. 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? Justice Ginsburg: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. 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 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.” The comment suggested Ginsburg eventually changed her mind and concluded that Roe was not decided with the idea that abortion could be used to limit "growth in populations we don't want to have too many of." But she did not qualify her position that the policy enacted under the case put an unacceptable burden on poor women. During the interview, the justice also affirmed a position she took on abortion during her Clinton-era confirmation hearing, suggesting the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was a better grounds for justifying abortion on demand than the "right to privacy." “The basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman,” Ginsburg told the Times. In 1993, she told the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing: “(Y)ou asked me about my thinking on equal protection versus individual autonomy. My answer is that both are implicated. The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When the government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a full adult human responsible for her own choices.” The Court legalized abortion under Roe v. Wade based on a “right to privacy” that it found in the 14th Amendment---and not the Equal Protection Clause. In doing so, it said the state had an interest in protecting the unborn child that increased as pregnancy progresses. Ginsburg's position that women have an equal right to abortion as a result of their gender would appear to allow for no state restrictions on abortion.
I happen to be pro choice and agree with much of what she says. I don't agree that there should be no restrictions, the trimester business is quite fair. The bit about "certain populations to get rid of" is a really big part of why I don't like lefties. At least she has the balls to come out and say it. I generally think all the justices are quite smart and deserving of their place on the court.
That is a bit disturbing, to hear a supreme court justice believing in a conspiracy theory. Next thing you know she'll be claiming that all the climate scientists are liars. barfo
She's a student of the law and constitution. I seriously doubt she saw it as some conspiracy theory, but saw it in the legal reasoning in the decision.
To me, Presidents can nominate and place who they want on the Supreme Court. But two things I do not like are people generally unqualified or who are nothing more than activists and not real judges. I mean, some justices are conservative, some centerists and some liberals, and that's fine so long as they keep an open mind and play it straight. The right has two activists as justices (Alito & Scalia) and Ginsberg was an activist for the left. To me, they have their minds made up long beore the oral arguments as if they could simply mail in their votes. I just never had any respect for her.
She probably knows more about this issue than anyone else on the court: from 1972 - 80 she was the founder and Chief Litigator of the ACLU Women's Rights Project.
Which "populations that we don't want too many of" did she think the liberal court of the time was targeting?
She was right but she didn't know why. Of course the government wanted poor black women to have abortions. They just didn't want to use more government money to do it. They figured after all of the welfare they gave the women, they could spend some of it on an abortion. It was a win win situation. Plus, the woman's current boyfriend/s would rather give up a few 40 ounce Olde English 800s
You don't think Thomas is that way? I mean, granted, he never says anything...for all we know Denny Crane could be Justice Thomas.
Um, are you aware of the history of Eugenics in this country? Hardly a conspiracy theory more like a fact. Oregon had eugenics related procedures done on Mental patients into the early 1980's. Remember our governor apologized for it? Creepily some of those original articles are gone... Do you realize the reduction in population these sorts of measures achieved in the past? I mean lets say one person sterilized in 1917 and they would have had the standard 2.5 we will round up to 3 for ease of the math. Now assume generations are 25 years apart so there have been 3 almost four generations since then each having 3 kids who have three kids. It's about 27 people who would be 17 years old right now just about ready to have kids of their own. Of course this is nothing compared to the population reduction you initially get from huge wars, famines and diseases. None the less at that rate there were at least 10's of thousands of Oregonians less now then there would have been potentially quite a lot more then that. I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing that there are less people. I think I can safely say that forced sterilizations however, are a bad thing. I also get a little annoyed with blanket denials of conspiracy. What do you have to be Sicilian (La Cosa Nostra, the Italian mafia) or Russian (Russian mafia) to behave in a conspiratorial manner? Crack a history book once in awhile and you will see that prior to the late 1600's it was extremely common to have palace coups and kings killed by their brother etc. It kills me that people never believe people in power might do bad things and try to hide it. Where do you think all this financial corruption came from? You really think Madoff and Stanford are rare exceptions? When Billions of dollars are involved people do crazy shit. People also do weird things in the name of their ideologies (Eugenics, Anti-abortion doctor killers, far left, far right). It just so happens that people are people and some people conspire in a criminal manner and some of those people that conspire in a criminal manner are rich and powerful. Justice Ginsburg is a realist and her comment I found to be refreshingly real politik instead of the PR friendly vagaries of our 21st century communications.
you are right that the "limousine liberals" of the 1920's through 40's really pushed the Eugenics movement. especially this guy's mother: No, not Stalin the guy on the right W. Avrell Harriman. One of the founders of Brown Brother's Harriman & Co. one of the world's largest private investment banks. One that got in trouble during WW II for holding the accounts of Fritz Thyssen the biggest of all Nazi Industrialists. Yep W. Avrell Harriman and his young buddy Prescott Bush (Father of H.W. Bush) helped the Nazi's launder money during WW II. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Averell_Harriman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Brothers_Harriman_&_Co. Right wingers forget that the Bush family was seen as part of the Limousine Liberal set until H.W. Bush packed up and moved to Texas. They used to call H.W. Bush "Rubbers" because he was such a big advocate of birth control (for eugenical reasons). I'm sorry to say that his is how power politics actually works guys. Power players work with one another until the other guy is no longer useful. Remember when W. bush stared into Putin's eyes and saw into his soul that he was a good man? Or Rummy shaking hands with Saddam. Alliances are like so many shifting sands and all the while the little people are none the wiser.
I'm aware of it but I don't see any connection to Roe v. Wade. You don't, of course. But that doesn't mean that any crackpot conspiracy theory that someone comes up with is somehow more plausible. Crack a calendar once in awhile and you will see that it is no longer the late 1600s. It's clear that politicians do, although mostly it seems to involve sex or small-time bribery. Considering how bad they are at hiding the little stuff, it isn't credible that they could be hiding something really really big. Criminals exist, sure. People steal money. Again, that doesn't mean that Nazis are controlling the Senate or that Obama is really a member of the Saudi royal family. Yes. Conspiracies that actually exist, actually exist. I personally think it is useful to make a distinction between the ones that actually exist and the ones that are fantasies. Ok. I don't really care whether she once believed that the supreme court voted for Roe v. Wade in order to depopulate certain groups. It sounds kind of stupid on the face of it, since there is no way that enough abortions would be done to make any significant difference. I only posted so that I could call Denny a conspiracy theorist. barfo
Who knows what the heck she was talking about, but I do know that if you read anything about the history of Roe v. Wade, it is all about women dying from illegal abortions, and privacy rights as outlined in the case Griswold v Connecticut.
No, not at all. I've read some of his decisions and he plays it straight. He is the court's business specialist as he has a strong backround in that area. Again, it's not whether a justice is left or right, only that they apply law and various aspects of law due to honest interpretation. The 3 justices I mentioned seem to ignore law & precedent... in making decisions and make them more along the lines of political party ideaology.
Justice Ginsburg connecting Eugenics and the elite push for freely available contraception isn't unplausible which is why she as a high intelligent woman with a sense of history knew probably wouldn't be in the law books if it wasn't for quite alot of backing of power playing political types of that era, many of whom were still big believers in Eugenics. Thanks for the tip. The late 1600's is when the Vatican, due to the establishment of the printing press and the access to information it allowed to the lower classes, espoused the theory of propaganda being in the best interests of both the elite and the little people who ought not to trouble themselves with the business of the elite (in this case the Vatican but it soon caught on). So my point there was that history prior to that era is influenced by the victor but not white washed to the degree of post-Enlightenment history and after it which is actually a history of bloodshed, imperialism, racism, genocide, torture, murder and robbery by western powers. You mean like the pentagon papers, or watergate, or Iran contra or the office of total information awareness (started by Iran contra alumn [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Poindexter" ]admr. John "The Buck Stops Here." Poindexter[/URL]) or other Bush transgressions continuously coming to light. Tell me that symbol isn't creepy. Now are you assuming that everything illegal done by Bush has come to the surface yet? I know you hate W so I will leave it at him. Now just think about how this sort of thing might not always be caught, which of course is the reason people do crime. You think most crimes are found out about and correctly prosecuted and punished? Why did the judge allow the guilty plea bargain that kept Madoff from having to testify under oath and eliminated the discovery process wherein his fellow conspirators (which doubtlessly exist) might be uncovered. Obviously not all conspiracy theories are true anymore then all crimes are discovered and punished. On the other hand criminal prosecutors who go after the mob assume a conspiracy in order to attempt to prosectue a John Gotti or other mafia boss. That is merely an example to illustrate that criminal investigation often involves discovering some amount of evidence pointing towards a conspiracy and then investigating it thoroughly. Government investigations are notoriously bad for investigating the full lengths of a crime. It is a historical fact that the drug running part of Iran/Contra was barely investigated and that whenever discussion of "Continuity of Government" information came up that Inoue and others would call for closed door discussion for "reasons of national security", much like "reasons of national security" are being invoked to not let us in on the full extent of the Bush warrantless wiretapping program which is increasingly being discovered to be "vast in scope and range". I assure you criminal conspiracies exist within our govenrment as they exist in every large and powerful organization. Many people are caught and more are not. You see crime DOES pay. That's why criminals become criminals for the money and power. True, some exist some don't. People believe "Shape shifting lizard aliens" run the government. I'm quite sure they are wrong about that. I'm also certain that more criminal corporate and government conspiracies exist then you or I are aware of. Some are caught and some are not. Regardless Ginsburg's mention of Abortion having a eugenical connection is not off base at all. Contraception was pushed first and foremost by Eugenicists and later by feminists. I am a feminist man in that I support equal rights for women. I also am pro-choice. I also am aware that certain laws around contraception and it's availability is due to both the work of feminists and the support of eugenicists. This situation is analogous to me to southern evangelicals who are somewhat anti-semitic supporting the state of Israel for purely biblical reasons and their belief that the Jews will largely die in Armageddon that will begin in the holy land. So it's certainly not the first time that politics have created strange bed fellows. I guess that's sort of my point. There are so many more power plays, manipulations and defensive and obfuscated actions taken by the power elite in government and in the corporate world it's ridiculous. Watch the movie "The Corporation" when a guy talks about being a spy for a corporate interest wherein he assumes new identities and steals corporate secrets. The world has so much more cloak and dagger stuff then most people realize because it is invisible to them. This is what Cheney was talking about when he mentioned using the dark side and doing more shadow warfare. He was referring to Psy-ops campaigns like Abu Ghraib that are only partially about torture. The world of power is pretty dang nasty. Most people watch their TV, movies, listen to their favorite bands and have no idea about our support of death squads and coup de etat's for corporations in the 3rd world (Pinochet). Proxy wars, warfare over the metal in cell phones in Africa, pharmaceutical companies experimenting on poor people in the 3rd world it just goes on and on. Many things are discovered due to dedicated people who either are whistleblowers or reporters and criminal investigators that put their career (if not life) on the line to investigate criminal activities of governments and corporations. Many of them aren't succesful and are silenced. Others find safety with whistleblower laws. I also find it interesting that we have such poor whistleblower laws in the US. Ask Russel Tyce who has tried for years to talk about the NSA's spying programs and hints of a satellite system spying on US citizenry. Many "conspiracy theories" of the day are turned into historical fact after time and others are debunked, both correctly and incorrectly (obviously if one is powerful they will influence this debate and any investigation), and no longer examined. Occam's razor will only get you so far and certainly isn't enough to understand the diversity and complexity of this world. Nothing has changed since the 1600's but elite manipulation has bee largely cleansed from the history books. It was just a couple of generations ago that Slavery was hardly taught in schools let alone Native American genocide. Read "A people's history of the United States." by Howard Zinn to see just how many awful acts governments and corporations have done during our history. He picks up lots of things that were reported on but are largely out of mainstream histories taught to high school kids. This doesn't mean everyone is doomed it just mean you have to think critically and arm yourself with knowledge and work to make society more inclusive and more people having a say. I have discovered that contrary to my old beliefs Capitalism is one of best mechanisms for getting more people involved in decision making as it creates incentives and stakeholder situations unknown in the pre-capitalist era. Some things ought to be socialized for the poor and have a competing private sector for those who can afford it. These include education, housing, medicine, food and clothing. The necessities of life. Everything else ought to be determined by the free market wherein innovation will be encouraged. I'm an advocate of a luxury based society where the economic side of the equation is all about luxuries and improving standards of living but the safety net of guaranteed human rights is there. I also think there has to be a check on environmental destruction and that we ought to publicly subsidize the restoration of the environment for our own safety and for the future generations. Sorry to be so long winded but I wanted to both explain why I believe what I do but also show you that I agree with you on many things. I just think you underestimate the base motivations of many powerful people who operate more or less like sociopaths some of whom work together in a criminally conspiratorial manner. Some criminals are so successful they "go legit" and turn their criminal proceeds into a business, some of them then go into politics to aid themselves and their buddies by winning subsidies and protected markets (the Bush family). I could go on and on. I just know that after years of studying world systems theory and the power elite that their can be little doubt that history has continued much the same for 1000's of years the only difference being the openness with which the elites operate in a brutal manner and the technology we have to witness it or be steered away from it (entertainment the roman circus).
