RBG fought for her legacy in her final Supreme Court term

Editor’s Note: Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect Ginsburg’s death on September 18, 2020. “But Ginsburg is a fighter, and knows she can do her job on the court as no one else can at this moment.” The diagnosis represented Ginsburg’s fifth bout of cancer, and as CNN’s Joan Biskupic reported, some, but not all of the justices were aware of the diagnoses last term. Ginsburg furiously wrote in dissent that doing away with that section of the law was “like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” This time, she noted that Covid-19 had become a public health crisis and gathering at polling places posed “dire health risks.” She said that she didn’t doubt the “good faith” of her colleagues, but that the court’s order would result in “massive disenfranchisement.” “The Court’s suggestion that the current situation is not ‘substantially different’ from ‘an ordinary election’ boggles the mind,” she said. She noted that by the government’s own numbers “between 70,500 and 126,400 women would immediately lose access to no-cost contraceptive services.” An endless term Even after the court’s 2019-20 term wrapped up, the justices were still battling over emergency petitions related to the federal government’s decision to reinstate the death penalty after 17 years. Hours later, the court’s public information officer released a statement saying that Ginsburg had been admitted to the hospital in Baltimore for treatment of a “possible infection.” It hadn’t stopped her from voting in the case.