Bader Ginsburg noted the court has had a series of 5-4 decision despite the initial consensus that followed Chief Justice John Roberts' first year in 2005. She said she has read two dissents aloud from the bench — a high-profile move to send a message about her disapproval of some of those opinions.
One of those decisions allowed states to outlaw a procedure known as partial-birth abortion; Bader Ginsburg complained that the state law in question allowed no exception to protect the health of the mother.
The justice said she did not expect the court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision that made abortion a constitutional right. But she contended that even if the court disposed of the right, abortion would still be widely available.
The difference would be that middle-class women would be able to travel to a state that allowed the procedure, while poor women would be trapped — much as in the days before Roe v. Wade, when a woman who could afford to do so could go to New York, California or Hawaii to have an abortion.
"It would have a devastating impact on poor women," she said of any reversal of the 1973 decision.
Of the court's decisions, Bush v. Gore was an "endurance" contest that the minority thought should be handled by political process, involving Congress if necessary, rather than through judicial fiat, she said. The majority thought the nation preferred the court to end the matter.
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