Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has prevailed despite the several health scares that happened toward the end of this year.
After fracturing three ribs last month, Justice Ginsburg’s doctors examined her lungs and discovered potentially dangerous growths. Doctors decided a pulmonary lobectomy was in order, during which the affected lobe was removed.
The procedure she underwent has a high success rate when growths are detected early. Had she not been hospitalized for cracked ribs, it’s possible doctors would not have discovered the growths.
This isn’t Ginsburg’s first cancer scare, either. She has fought both colorectal and pancreatic cancer. Additionally, she has undergone a procedure to have a stent placed in the right coronary artery of her heart.
Justice Ginsburg will officially return back to work on January 4, 2019.
Ginsburg’s journey to her position on the Supreme Court was hard-fought. After her time in undergrad, Ginsburg was demoted at her job with a social security office because she was pregnant. At the time this discrimination was legal.
Despite being at the top of her class in law school, she struggled to find work. Eventually she became a professor at Rutgers Law School, where she co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In 1973, she became the ACLU’s general counsel.
After years serving on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, she was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1993.
In her confirmation hearing before Congress, Justice Ginsburg stated, “It is essential to women’s equality with man that she be the decision-maker. If you impose restraints that impede her choice, you are disadvantaging her because of her sex.”
Ginsburg is a key democrat on the Supreme Court and, despite President Trump’s calls for her retirement, she continues to stand strong in her position. “As long as I can do the job full steam, I will do it,” Justice Ginsburg stated last year.
There is no indication that cancer had spread anywhere else in Justice Ginsburg’s body. At 85, she is not letting anything stand in the way of performing her duties on the Supreme Court.
In addition to Ginsburg’s inspiring dedication to her role as Supreme Court Justice, she is also the topic of a new film, released on Christmas Day. The biopic, entitled On The Basis of Sex, focuses on Ginsburg’s life and career-long battle for gender equality, and can be seen in select theaters now.
Featured Image by European University Institute on Flickr
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Sign Up For Our Newsletter
