By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer

During a recent interview with The New York Times, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she always believed Medicaid should cover abortions and admitted that she expected Roe v. Wade to facilitate such coverage in order to control the population of groups “that we don’t  want to have too many of.”

Justice Ginsburg was commenting on why Medicaid doesn’t cover abortions, which makes the procedure less available to poor women.

“Reproductive choice has to be straightened out,” said Ginsburg, lamenting the fact that only women “of means” can easily access abortion.

“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,” Ginsburg told Emily Bazelon of The New York Times. 

“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.”

Harris v. McRae is a 1980 court decision that upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.

During the same interview, Justice Ginsburg praised the morning-after-pill, saying “I think the side that wants to take the choice away from women and give it to the state, they’re fighting a losing battle. Time is on the side of change.”

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