A Catholic friend send me this, from the forthcoming Times Magazine:
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. Which some people felt would risk
coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them.
But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And
then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.
Populations that we don't want to have too many of? Egad.
Why'm I blogging this? My source is against abortion rights, I'm for 'em. Yet I recognize a component of my support as flowing from my Jewish feminist-secular culture, which while I adore it, still I see a shadow of the sense of Jewish superiority I grew up with, unreconstructed in RBG's case. Interesting that the reporter, Emily Bazelon, who I believe is from my culture too, didn't call Ginsburg on it.
Call me dense, but she's referring to racial minorities – blacks, hispanics, etc. – not catholics per se, right? Or am I wrong? I took her words to mean essentially that she prefers whites, not Jews per se. Or am I wrong?
that was a big trend in the 70's. "the population bomb" and all that. a variation on malthus. the racial component seems like somehting else but it really isn't as the central idea of the population problem is scarcisty of resources. anyone seen or read "the lathe of heaven"?
That's definitely what I inferred from that line as well, and when I read it it was an instant eyebrow-raiser.
It depends on who you think she means by "we." I took it as a rather sardonic reference to the powers-that-be, not a statement of her personal preference.
Yeah, that occurred to me too. The statement is ambiguous–she might be a racist, or she might be referring to the views of others. I sometimes use the word "we" when I talk about what war crimes the US government has committed or supports–it doesn't mean I personally support these actions.
"Populations that we don't want to have too many of?" The Nazis had a few of those populations, too. Maybe they should have invoked overpopulation theories instead of race theories. They'd have met less resistance. Interestingly, Obama's new health care scheme is going to end up rationing treatment (for all intents and purposes) for the elderly, and those dying off due to deferred treatment will be dismissed as dead wood, in so many words. Populations that we don't want to have too many of. Godless Statist technocrats are uniquely evil.
Ginsberg's attitudes also gets me thinking about how Jewish populations are relatively small because Judaism doesn’t proselytize, so a lot of Jews infiltrate and grow the State and turn it on behalf of their own agenda, and to "even things out a bit," so to speak. And they also use the State to keep the big proselytizing religions from running roughshod over their puny one. The problem with all of this is that in the West, the State is supposed to be irreligious, and so we wind up with this insane secular-Jewish amalgamation Frankenstein monster that is perpetually waging war against Muslims and Christians per "secular" Jewish instructions and programming, but is essentially a soulless monster.
I had a Jewish woman who graduated from Harvard in sociology tell me that Aids wasn't so bad if it stay in the Black and Hispanic communities, so Ginsberg's comment does not surprise me a bit. In all other communities it's the uneducated that say things like this or at least this is what educated Jews tell us.
"Interesting that the reporter, Emily Bazelon, who I believe is from my culture too, didn't call Ginsburg on it." That's interesting. This morning an NPR talking head (Robert Siegel, I believe) brought up the fact that Francis Collins is a Christian when speaking of his work on the human genome– as if Collins' religion would make a difference in his work. I've never heard religion brought up in a questioning manner when discussing a Jewish scientist on NPR, and I seriously doubt that the Jewish angle would be brought up when discussing neocons and the Iraq war, other than to accuse anyone who would make the connection of anti-Semitism–which I have heard. A big part of the eugenics movement was to control the underclasses. I don't know exactly what groups Ginsberg means, but there is no way that abortion/reproductive rights have worked well for any group that planned to do anything other than wipe out the middle class. How can anyone take our government planners and social engineers seriously when they make such massive mistakes and miscalculations? The sad thing is that the social planners, managers and engineers are more confident today than they were 60 years ago.
I also reflexively understood her "we" to indicate the American popular-racist imagination circa 1974. Although the mindset is no less shocking, especially following the revelation in the Times a few weeks ago that Nixon supported abortion rights, but only in the case of biracial pregnancies.
As always, the issue for the left and for feminists on abortion rights is self-determination. In the welter of pro and con arguments on a specific subject, this is always to easy to forget. This makes it all about class. Women with financial independence do not face the same consequences from an unplanned pregnancy as poor women. On the other hand, if the right to "choose" is not accompanied to the right to child care, poor women do not really have the same choices. So, Ginsburg has a point that eugenicists (like Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger) can shape social policy to achieve eugenic ends. However, Ginsburg misses the point that women need and should have the social policies that actually give them a right to control their own bodies.
Do you think women in Islamic society’s do or don’t have “control over their own bodies”? What about women in the secular liberal West forced into the marketplace to make the rent and feed their children? Do you believe they have control over their own bodies? Do prostitutes? How about prostitutes in the bankrupt Soviet Union governed under hyper secular Marxist class and economic theories? Did they have any control? What is your opinion of the secular West waging war against Islamic countries in part in order to protect access to abortion and extend that right and other secular liberal values to Islamic women? Isn’t it a bit difficult for Islamic women to control their own bodies when they have been blown to pieces by secular liberal Western bombs rampaging for the right to abortion?
RE: " Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was 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. and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of." – Ginsburg MY COMMENT: To be fair, she does not really say that SHE shared the concern about population growth. You can read her comment narrowly as saying she had thought that "concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we [as a people, but not necessarily her individually] don’t want to have too many of " was an unspoken part of the rationale for the Supreme Court's decision. In other words, there might have been "impure" motives on the part of one or more of the justices supporting the decision in Roe vs Wade.
It would be interesting to know exactly what she meant. Too bad she wasn't asked on the spot.
I think we have to take her at her word. If she meant the state, she would have said so being the clever woman that she is.
Honestly, I don't see the need to ask. The real problem here is that so few people today seem to understand irony.
I would think that a supreme court justice would steer clear of irony when speaking to a journalist about eugenics or abortion. She should expect such statements to be misunderstood or twisted even if irony were the intent.
Exactly. I reiterate — the issue is self determination — meaning having the real ability to make choices, not creating isolated "rights" for women that they have no ability to exercise. To illustrate with another subject, the right to education in Gaza doesn't just mean the right to attend university. It means the right to attend a university with books, laboratory equipment, and scholarly contact with the world academic community. The three latter conditions are denied by Israel's siege and blockade so Gazans, despite the very high level of university enrollment, are being denied their right to education. However, I have to disagree that the secular West is waging war on Islamic countries "in part in order to protect access to abortion… and other secular liberal values to Islamic women." The issue is oil, oil, and oil. We don't care about countries that have no oil that deny women basic rights — viz. much of Africa.
Everyone seems to be assuming Ginsberg was referring to a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group/s that she didn't want to grow, but the reality is that statistically, low-income women in general make use of abortions the most often. Yes, in our country, there is a link between low-income communities and racial minorities, but that doesn't necessarily make her comment racist. When Freakonomics came out in 2005, the authors suggested that the legalization of abortion contributed to a drastically lower crime rate 20 years after the fact. This suggestion has been questioned by other respected economists, but the mere suggestion contributes to the legitimacy of Ginsberg's statement as basically meaning: unwanted children often do not end up contributing too terribly much to society.
"…the authors suggested that the legalization of abortion contributed to a drastically lower crime rate 20 years after the fact." – Given this reasoning we should strongly encourage those working on Wall Street and firms like Goldman Sachs to have abortions.
Thank you Laurie for that type two racist statement. Type one is you just make shit up. Type two is you take an aberrant example and portray it as being typical of the race/ethnicity you are slandering. Of course, you may have just made it up too.