In a rare and wide-ranging interview last night, Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke eloquently about reproductive rights, feminism, and drinking before the State of the Union. A long-time fighter for abortion rights, the 81-year-old justice's most powerful statements were about the future of reproductive rights access:
"We will never see a day when women of means are not able to get a safe abortion in this country," she said. But, just because she doesn't think Roe v. Wade will be overturned, she cautioned that the recent spate of state-level restrictions on abortion could create a two-tiered system — where poor women who cannot afford to travel have no access to reproductive services.
She addressed concerns about her health — a worry for some, especially since she, one of the Court's leading liberals, would likely be replaced by a more conservative judge if she were to retire under a Republican president. She has had two bouts of cancer and recently had a stent put in her heart, but she assured interviewer Irin Carmon that she's fine. “I will step down when I feel I can no longer do the job full steam,” she said.
The interview, which aired first on the Rachel Maddow Show, wasn't all serious: Carmon showed the Justice a picture of a Ruth Bader Ginsburg tattoo on someone's arm. RBG seemed dismayed, wondering why anyone would ever do something so permanent, noting one of her granddaughters had recently stopped wearing a nose-ring and, fortunately, the hole had healed.
Ginsburg also neatly nixed any urge you might have to think of her as a doddering old lady. Last week, she told a crowd that she'd fallen asleep at the State of the Union speech because she'd had a bit of wine beforehand. Asked about it again last night, she added the fact that she'd been up all night writing the evening before. "My pen was hot, and I couldn't stop," she said.
Sounds like a woman at the top of her game, to us. Watch the interview below.
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