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Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose 27-year tenure as the second female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court culminated a legal career dedicated to advancing the rights of women, has died.
She was 87, and her death less than two months before the election gives President Donald Trump a chance to try to shift the already conservative court further to the right.
Ginsburg died due to complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer and was surrounded by her family at her home in Washington, the court said in a statement Friday.
Her health had been a top-of-mind concern at the court and throughout Washington in recent years. Ginsburg battled with five bouts of cancer, most recently liver lesions that she described as a recurrence of a previous episode.
“Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague,” Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement. “Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her – a tireless and resolute champion of justice.”
Trump now has a chance for a third high court appointment, which would boost Republican appointees’ majority to 6-3, potentially increasing the chances of a decision overturning or severely curtailing the Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion. The current court has often divided 5-4 on ideological grounds in major cases. The Affordable Care Act would be another target for a more c onservative court.
Long before President Bill Clinton appointed her to the Supreme Court in 1993, Ginsburg argued cases before the court as a scholar and advocate of the women’s rights movement. She was a high-profile proponent of the unsuccessful effort to adopt an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S Constitution.
On the court, she built a record as one of the court’s most liberal members, supporting gay and abortion rights, President Barack Obama’s health-care law and restrictions on the death penalty.
Her strong dissents from rulings that cut back on voting rights and affirmative action won her the admiring nickname “Notorious R.B.G.” Two films about her were released in 2018: The documentary “RBG” and a Hollywood biography, “On the Basis of Sex.”
She drew criticism during the 2016 presidential campaign when she denounced Trump, who had clinched the Republican nomination, as a “faker” in a media interview. Ginsburg later said she regretted the comments. Trump called on her to resign, saying on Twitter that “her mind is shot.”
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