From The New York Times Magazine from July 7th, 2009:
The Place of Women on the Court
In late February, three weeks after she had an operation for a recurrence of cancer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to Barack Obama’s first address to Congress. Given the circumstances, it wasn’t an event anyone expected her to attend. She went, she said, because she wanted the country to see that there was a woman on the Supreme Court.
Now another woman, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, is about to begin the confirmation hearings that stand between her and a seat near Ginsburg on the high bench. After 16 years on the court — the last three, since the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, as the only woman working alongside eight men — Ginsburg has a unique perspective on what’s at stake in Sotomayor’s nomination. I sat down with the 76-year-old justice last week to talk about women on the bench and their effect on the dynamics and decisions of the court.
And the line in question - you can read the whole interview to see that I am not taking it out of context. Also, although I disagree with Justice Ginsberg on some of her decisions, she was intellegent and an excellent Justice.
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.
Emphasis mine. Eugenics? Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood and she was very much a eugenicist. Here, here, here, here and here for starters.
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