Ruth Bader Ginsburg Gets It

If she wasn’t your hero already, take a look at the interview Justice Ginsburg gave to Elle magazine for their October issue, and you might reconsider.

Writer Jessica Weisberg asks the 81-year-old Clinton appointee about topics all over the map—from the conservative pendulum swing on abortion issues to work/life balance to the Justice’s own first appearance in front of the Supreme Court. 

On the subject of abortion, Ginsburg cuts to the quick regarding the socio-economic disparity in access to abortion care in the US: 

The impact of all these restrictions is on poor women, because women who have means, if their state doesn’t provide access, another state does. I think that the country will wake up and see that it can never go back to [abortions just] for women who can afford to travel to a neighboring state… It makes no sense as a national policy to promote birth only among poor people.

She also notes that she doesn’t think the pendulum can swing any further to the right on abortion issues, and muses that 50 years from now, people will not understand the Hobby Lobby decision.

Weisberg calls out the seasoned Justice as an optimist, and Ginsburg readily agrees—but she’s also a realist. When asked if she will resign while Obama is in office in order to insure continuity in the court’s makeup, she replies, “Who do you think President Obama could appoint at this very day, given the boundaries that we have? If I resign any time this year, he could not successfully appoint anyone I would like to see in the court.”

Ginsburg, despite her age and health setbacks with colon and pancreatic cancer, says she will continue to “do the job full steam” until she no longer can.

The online version of the interview is a powerful excerpt, but Weisberg’s full sit-down with the Supreme Court’s greatest champion for reproductive rights can be found in the hardcopy of Elle’s October issue.