Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Says She Is Cancer Free, No Trace of Pancreatic Cancer

US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at European University Institute Sept. 11, 2014 via Flickr.

There must be surveys confirming that US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg rivals Michelle Obama among women who know both women’s stories. As progressives reel under the weight of Donald Trump and his list of new federal court judges that threaten to overturn 50 years of progress in women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, environment, worker rights — really any value important to Democrats — Ginsburg’s health is of grave concern to progressives.

Trump is salivating to appoint yet another Supreme Court justice after Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh and prays that Ginsburg will step down from the court. But the justice isn’t having it, declaring on Wednesday that she is cancer free.

Justice Ginsburg, 86, the senior member of four liberal justices on the nine-member court, told CNN in a wide-ranging interview on Tuesday that treatment for a malignant tumor on her pancreas had been successful. Ginsburg, who is in extraordinary health with her physical exercise regimen, has undergone cancer treatment four times since her 1993 SC appointment by President Clinton.

The Times fills in Ginsburg’s cancer history: In 2018, surgeons removed two malignant nodules from Justice Ginsburg’s left lung and determined that the cancer had not spread. In 2009, she had surgery for early-stage pancreatic cancer, and in 1999 she was treated for colon cancer without missing a day on the bench.

While we all want Justice Ginsburg to live to 100 years old at least, we are desperate — and the beloved icon knows our pain — that she stay on the bench until we have the attempt to elect a new Democrat president this November, who can appoint her successor.