Ruth Bader Ginsburg

[[File:Ruth Bader Ginsburg, SCOTUS photo portrait.jpg|thumb|165px|Official photo, circa 2006.]]
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{{cquote|Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.|||Ruth Bader Ginsburg<ref>[https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news-and-ideas/ruth-bader-ginsburg-tells-young-women-fight-for-the-things-you-care-about Ruth Bader Ginsburg Tells Young Women: 'Fight For The Things You Care About'] by Alanna Vagianos (06.02.2015) ''Harvard Radcliffe Institute''.</ref>}}
'''Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg''' (March 15, 1933 - September 18, 2020) was a [[United States Supreme Court]] Justice and the first Jewish woman to serve in this capacity.<ref>[https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/ginsburg-ruth-bader "Ruth Bader Ginsberg"], Encyclopedia of the ''Jewish Woman's Archive''.</ref> Part of the court's [[liberal]] wing, she was the only [[American]] Supreme Court Justice who has ever carried a powerful [[feminist]] voice. Prior to her appointment to the Supreme Court in 1993,<ref name="CNN-cancer"/> Ginsburg was an attorney for the [[American Civil Liberties Union]]; she was the founder of their Women's Rights Project. As the oldest liberal Justice, this Clinton appointee was the last civil rights lawyer on the Court. She often wrote dissents in politically charged cases.<ref>[https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33103973 Supreme Court Justice Kennedy: Who are the nine justices?] BBC News Magazine. October 8, 2018. </ref>

==Political sphere==
As a judge, some of her comments in the political sphere have gained somewhat unwanted attention for Ginsberg. In 2016, a fake quote was put about by supporters of [[Donald Trump]], claiming that Ginsberg would resign if Trump became POTUS. This was based off comments Ginsberg made about "the next president, [[Hillary Clinton|whoever she will be]]," which was obviously seen as an attack on Trump. The website making these claims was a "hybrid" site of truthful and satirical news.<ref>Evon, Dan (July 9, 2016). [http://www.snopes.com/ruth-ginsburg-president-resign/ "Ruth 'See Ya Later' Ginsburg"], ''Snopes''.</ref> In the same year, she also called Colin Kaepernick's refusal to stand for the national anthem "dumb and disrespectful," whilst arguing that it was within his constitutional rights to do such a thing.<ref>Couric, Katie (October 10, 2016) [https://www.yahoo.com/katiecouric/ruth-bader-ginsburg-on-trump-kaepernick-and-her-lifelong-love-of-the-law-132236633.html "Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Trump, Kaepernick and her lifelong love of the law"]. ''Yahoo! News''.</ref>

==Judicial views==
In 1975, RBG suggested that the [[Equal Rights Amendment]] shouldn't be opposed because of the "potty issue". This statement was about the [[manufactroversy|manufactured fear]] that a constitutional amendment barring sex discrimination would force the creation of unisex bathrooms.<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/05/09/prominent-feminist-bans-on-sex-discrimination-emphatically-do-not-require-unisex-restrooms/</ref> Though, this view is clearly [[transphobic]] it would be fallacious to state that she has held this view in modern times.

Justice Ginsburg was one of four dissents to ''[[Bush v. Gore]]''. She outlined what has been seen by many as a clear violation of the role of the SCOTUS, and did not hold back in her written dissent to chastise the Court at large. She stated in her opinion:
{{cquote|All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself.}}
She wrote the opinion in Stenberg v. Carhart (2000), where she commented that ''[[Roe v. Wade]]'' may have actually ''hindered'' women's rights, by making into "soft law" that which should have been legislated. While it was, she states, the right thing to do at the time, judicially, it caused a [[Judicial activism|backlash]] because it was only a ruling by the Court and not the law from elected representatives.

In 2007, she wrote two scathing dissents, one in [[Gonzales v. Carhart]] (in which the majority upheld the ban on late-term [[abortion]]s) chastising the Court for treating women as second class citizens, belittling their intelligence and ability to make decisions, and treating them like children by saying that the [[State]] must ''protect'' women from bad choices.<ref group="note">For comparison, in most European countries, abortion on demand is only permitted up to 12 weeks, or the end of the first trimester.</ref>

In 2014, she wrote a fiery dissent in ''[[Burwell v. Hobby Lobby]]'' which gave corporations religious rights. Her dissent centered on the dangerous precedent the court had set by broadening its definition on "[[religious freedom|religious liberty]]" and the burden it would levy on women's rights.

==Fighter of cancers==
Justice Ginsburg was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 1999, pancreatic cancer in 2009, and lung cancer in 2018, but had recovered from two.<ref name="CNN-cancer">[https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/11/politics/ruth-bader-ginsburg-recovery/?no-st=1547309969 Ruth Bader Ginsburg shows 'no evidence of remaining disease,' Supreme Court says]. CNN. January 12, 2019. </ref> Ginsburg succumbed to pancreatic cancer on September 18, 2020.<ref>Greenhouse, L. (September 18, 2020). "[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/us/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-dies-at-87.html Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court’s Feminist Icon, Is Dead at 87]". ''New York Times''.</ref>

==Quotes==
On a woman's reproductive rights:
{{cquote|I said on the equality side of it, that it is essential to a woman's equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling.}}
{{cquote|The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.}}

On her position as Supreme Court Justice:
{{cquote|I would not like to be the only woman on the court.}}

==See also==
*[[Sandra Day O'Connor]] — the first female Justice.
*[[Antonin Scalia]] — the ''other'' justice whose death set up a political crisis.

==External links==
*[http://notoriousrbg.tumblr.com/ Notorious R.B.G.]

==Notes==
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==References==
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[[Category:United States Supreme Court Justices]]
[[Category:Civil rights]]
[[Category:Educators]]
[[Category:Feminists]]
[[Category:Jews]]
[[Category:Lawyers]]
[[Category:Liberals]]
[[Category:New York]]
[[Category:Social justice]]

Categories: United States Supreme Court Justices, Civil rights, Educators, Feminists, Jews, Lawyers, Liberals, New York, Social justice