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Ginsburg, a stalwart liberal and feminist icon, died on Friday at age 87, prompting a political battle over her successor
Fatima Goss Graves is the president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center.
It is difficult to overstate the impact of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on women in the legal profession and the fight for gender justice. She was a defining figure in the lives of generations of women, bringing the law and the culture closer to reckoning with the realities of sex discrimination and its many manifestations. Even in her absence, future generations are likely to be inspired by her legal ingenuity and personal bravery. Given the towering legacy she leaves behind, the need to carry on Justice Ginsburg’s legacy in the courts is both humbling and more necessary than ever.
We have no greater opportunity to shoulder that responsibility than in the selection of her successor. Whoever fills her seat will be vested with immense power over the daily lives of millions of Americans, particularly as we face legal battles over health care and reproductive freedom. The very future of the fight Justice Ginsburg led is on the line. As she made clear in her final days, the gravity of this choice requires far more than a rushed nomination process held against the will of the American people.
Few decisions facing the Court in the coming days are of more importance to the women of this country than the future of the Affordable Care Act. The ACA is a critical part of our country’s public health infrastructure, ensuring tens of millions of Americans can access health care regardless of pre-existing conditions—including a previous coronavirus diagnosis. Just as we enter a long winter public health experts warn will worsen the coronavirus pandemic, the Court will hear arguments in a case designed to abolish the entire law, which if successful, could take with it health care coverage for at least 20 million Americans.
In our own brief filed before the Court on this case, we at the National Women’s Law Center made clear the ACA lies at the core of the fight for gender equality as understood by Justice Ginsburg herself. Before the law was passed in 2010, women, and women of color in particular, were subjected to higher premiums for the same coverage just for being a woman, denied coverage for health care essential to women’s equality, like maternity care, and denied coverage altogether if they had any number of pre-existing conditions shared by 67 million women in the US, including conditions like prior pregnancy or having a cesarean delivery.
While health disparities certainly persist, the ACA shifted our understanding of health care and what is required for people to be equal members of society while giving them more control over their own future. The erasure of the law would have a devastating impact on the entire country, but it would leave countless women especially vulnerable to worsened health outcomes, economic devastation, and an uncaged pandemic.
Justice Ginsburg’s successor could likewise determine the course of reproductive freedom in the US for decades to come, potentially turning back the clock on the right to equal protection and self-determination fought for by Justice Ginsburg herself. As she understood, deciding whether or when to have a child is a fundamental right central to women’s equality, dignity, and ability to shape our futures. And despite the overwhelming popularity of Roe v. Wade among the American people, the right to safe and legal abortions faces a growing threat in state legislatures and federal courts nationwide.
More than a dozen such legal challenges lie one step away from the Supreme Court, and anti-abortion state legislatures have already placed abortion out of reach for many Black, brown, and immigrant women. Justice Ginsburg’s successor could radically reshape abortion access in the U.S., making it virtually impossible for people to access abortion, or overturn the constitutional right to abortion altogether. President Trump has promised as much, declaring he would only appoint judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade.
Rushing such a nominee would defile Ginsburg’s legacy and put the health and equality of millions of people across the country at risk and their faith in the rule of law along with it. Justice Ginsburg’s memory has and will continue to inspire entire generations of women, but it is her work as a jurist that set the model for breaking down the barriers holding those very same women back. With gender equality at stake, no nominee should be put forward without hearing the voices of those whose rights and equality are on the line.
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