Interview With Ruth Bader Ginsburg

[Hassan]

[quote name='Luigi' post='1916341' date='Jul 9 2009, 11:53 PM']Basically, Ginsberg is admitting that abortion was legalized in an effort to reduce the number of poor and or Black babies born in the US. At the time, there was a fear that Black people were having more babies than non-Blacks, and therefore the white majority would lose its privileged position in society. As it happens, the white majority will become a minority anyway, just not as a resulr of Black population growth - Blacks in the US make up about 12% of the population, and that number has very stable for a long time.[/quote]

She could not admit that. Prior to Roe numerous states had already legalized abortion. Unless she is claiming that those states legalized abortion do to some sort of popular demand for eugenics she must be talking about Roe. If she is talking about Roe the legalizing body was the USSC. I have never seen any evidence that the justices of the time passed the bill to promote eugenics, most reaserch shows it was in the stream of USSC decisions expanding privacy rights, she would have no privileged access into the mind set of court members as she did not arrive on the court until 1993.

I think it is a comment you all are jumping onto because you want it to be there.

[Luigi]

Eugenics has had a long history in the US, and one of its strongest proponents was Margaret Sanger, the birth control suporter/promoter/leader. Hitler took it to the most extreme form we've seen in history with his efforts at developing a super race, but the foundations were in place - in this country and others - well before Hitler was ever heard of. Planned Parenthood and similar organizations still have eugenic undertones in much of their approach - the "Every child should be wanted" argument, the argument that abortion will reduce poverty (and with it, under-education, crime, the need for welfare programs, etc.).

Various states, and I believe the US gov't (but I could be wrong about that), have supported efforts to sterilize mentally retarded citizens without necessarily getting the approval of the family - another form of eugenics. The practice was stopped after court cases outlawed it. Deaf people used to be advised not to have children because it would increase the number of Deaf (read: defective) people in the country - Alexander Graham Bell was a strong promoter of this position, which is another form of eugenics. I consider genetic counseling a form of eugenics (friends of mine who married in their late thirties were sent, by the woman's gynecologist, for genetic counseling before the marriage because of the increased risk of birth defects).

Whether Ruth Bader Ginsberg was on the Supreme Court at the time of the Roe decision is irrelevant. She was a practicing lawyer at the time, and based on her comments in the interview, she was aware of the legal history, rationale, and implications of the time of the Roe decision; she had clear expectations that the federal government would pay for abortions through Medicaid.

[MissyP89]

"Populations we don't want too many of," Justice?

So I'm a burden on society because I'm disabled. Well, isn't that nice.

Edited July 10, 2009 by MissyP89

[Winchester]

Man is she ever a dumbbutt.

Edited July 10, 2009 by Winchester

[Skinzo]

It's an amazing statement, all the more shocking that it comes from a Jewish person. Did the Holocaust mean nothing to her? It is much like Justice Thurgood Marshall's bizarre remark when the USCC ruled that public authorities did not have to pay for abortions. Marshall said:
" The enactments challenged here brutally coerce poor women to bear children whom society will scorn for every day of their lives. Many thousands of unwanted minority and mixed-race children now spend blighted lives in foster homes, orphanages, and "reform" schools. Many children of the poor, sadly, will attend second-rate segregated schools."

See, if they were dead, they would not have to be suffering in those schools. And would therefore be better off! Prior to the civil rights era, most blacks lived in similar conditions. Indeed, many still do. Had abortion been freely available and paid for by the state, the justice seemed to argue it would have been better to abort all the poor! Born to a poor family himself who was forced to attend segregated schools, he might well have been aborted too!

S.