Ethics

Justice Ginsburg Has Pancreatic Cancer

By Ed Brayton

AP reports that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has undergone surgery for pancreatic cancer. This almost certainly means that she will have to step down from the court. No matter how early they caught it, pancreatic cancer is the most deadly form of the disease and only 5% of its victims make it past the first year.

So what does this mean for the court and for Obama? It means that the first vacancy will likely be Ginsburg rather than Stevens. I thought it was quite likely that the first nominee from Obama would be a woman anyway, but this makes that all but a mortal lock. There's no way they allow the court to have no female justice at all.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on February 05, 2009 (boomark / email).