Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
ohfortheloveofdog:bingoparaphernalia:wooliebear:
Someone posted this quote earlier in the week. I keep waiting to hear more about it—someone at least try to explain but I guess I’ve missed it or it is indeed being ignored. It’s not the abortion issue I have a problem with but this quote is incredible, even more so as no one’s reporting about it.
via UK Telegraph:
The mainstream media have been incredibly slow to pick up on a creepy comment by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a New York Times interview published today but flagged last week. In it, Ginsburg talks about Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalised abortion:
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.
What? You can find the full context of the remark here, in the Times interview, but it doesn’t settle matters. And the (pro-choice) media haven’t exactly jumped on the story. Bloggers are incredulous. This is what Creative Minority Rreport had to say yesterday:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s comments about using abortion as population control raised a lot of eyebrows in the blogosphere. Over 9,236 to be precise, according to Google blog search.
Huge sites too like Hot Air featured the story prominently. Even Drudge ran with the story yesterday.
But as of this morning the mainstream media have completely ignored the story about one of the most powerful people in the country essentially endorsing eugenics on populations “we don’t want to have too many of”.
What the heck is going on here? What are we to make of the media’s complete silence on this issue? They don’t see a little eugenics between friends as a big deal? They thought it was taken out of context?
As the large metropolitan newspapers die, they’re wondering why. This is why.
Fair point. You might think the New York Times might want to trumpet its exclusive. But the mindset of that pompous, prickly, boring, self-regarding publication is so overwhelmingly liberal that it didn’t even realise it had a story on its hands.
Honestly, the Telegraph is a stultifyingly conservative paper and I think the journalist is wilfully misreading the quote. She says that was her perception - she uses that exact word - of the mood at the time. She does not say it was her view or that she endorses that “concern”. She’s explaining why she assumed it would go on Medicaid.
I’ll admit that my knowledge of RBG and her rulings is far from comprehensive. It’s not my country. But perhaps the reason the NYT didn’t “trumpet its exclusive” is because there was no story? Because none of her many rulings display any evidence of a belief in eugenics?
That’s my reading of it, anyway. But I’d love to hear from more informed people.
I read it the same way, Bingo. I mean, just the other day, that racist Nixon quote surfaced - “There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white. Or a rape.” Attitudes like Nixon’s are what RBG was referring to. She was not giving HER OWN opinion on eugenics.
That is also how I read it. However, I would like to point out we had another person make some big eugenics-y statements this week—an anchor on Fox & Friends, no less—and the media didn’t pick up on that, either. So…who knows? Maybe they didn’t pick it up because there is no story, or maybe they didn’t pick it up because nobody wants to touch the topic of pro-eugenics ideology in America with a 10 foot pole.
