Justice Ginsburg: When Roe Was Decided I Thought There Was Particular Concern About The "Growth In Populations That We Don’t Want To Have Too Many Of"

Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was interviewed by thew New York Times recently. Remember that Ginsburg was involved in legal issues at the time. She had established in 1970 the first law journal exclusively devoted to feminist issues and held a tenured position at Columbia from 1972-80. And her perception of the Court's intent in Roe v. Wade is astonishing. For seven years she though the purpose of Roe was to rid the country of undesirables. She thought this was the case for seven years. And yet I wonder whether she ever spoke up against Roe in those seven years?

The following is the relevant exchange that took place in the interview:

Q: If you were a lawyer again, what would you want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: 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.
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. [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.

Here is the link to the full interview: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12ginsburg-t.html Tweet