Feminist icon and legal powerhouse Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday at the age 87 due to complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, the Supreme Court announced. She died in her home in Washington, D.C., surrounded by her family.
It’s hard to overstate Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg‘s contributions to the legal fight for women’s rights over the years. During her 27-year career on the Supreme Court, she argued for equal pay for men and women, women’s participation in the military, and for reproductive rights.
In many of her famous cases, she was a dissenting voice: In 2014, she wrote a powerful dissent from the court’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which allowed some companies to refuse to comply with a federal mandate to cover birth control in healthcare plans on religious grounds. She said this would “deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs, access to contraceptive coverage.”
Ginsburg’s death will have a deep effect on the Supreme Court and the country. It gives Republicans their long-awaited chance to have a 6-3 conservative majority in the highest court, which they would get with another Trump appointment. A week after the upcoming presidential election, the court is scheduled to hear a challenge brought by Republicans to the Affordable Care Act. While the court has upheld the ACA before, this time, the outcome could be chilling.
“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,” Ginsburg said to her granddaughter Clara Spera days before her death. Unfortunately, her wish may not come true, and her death will set in motion a significant political battle ahead of the presidential election.
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