Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg chided fellow Justice Clarence Thomas Tuesday in her dissenting opinion, saying that he was wrong to call a woman who has an abortion a “mother.”
The court upheld an Indiana law that governs the way fetal material is disposed of after an abortion — but refused to hear an appeal to a judge’s injunction of Indiana’s ban on abortions because of the sex, race or disability of the fetus.
Justice Thomas wrote that the court will eventually have to tackle that issue — and in his opinion, he referred to pregnant women as “mothers.”
That irked Justice Ginsburg.
“(A) woman who exercises her constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy is not a ’mother,’ ” she wrote, saying Justice Thomas showed “more heat than light” in his opinion.
She agreed with the court’s decision to refuse to hear the race and sex abortion ban ruling but said she would also have rejected hearing Indiana’s fetal material disposal law, calling it a “waste” of resources to have the justices weigh in at this point.
Justice Thomas said Justice Ginsburg’s opinion “makes little sense.”
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.