Science Will Make Abortion Issue Moot, Ginsburg Says

Newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Sunday that future medical advances may make the law “irrelevant” to the abortion issue.

“I expect that, more and more, science is going to make that problem much less turbulent,” she told reporters. “Science is going to put this decision in women’s own hands, and the law will become irrelevant.”

Ginsburg, who maintains that the Constitution guarantees a right to abortion, said “a woman will be able to purchase at a pharmacy what she needs to determine whether or not to bear a child.” She said she expected the development of “much-improved versions” of the so-called “morning-after” pill to terminate pregnancies.

She was here to receive an award from the American Bar Assn.’s Commission on Women in the Profession.