Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on Tuesday afternoon for treatment of a possible infection. She underwent a brief procedure, and will remain in the hospital for the next few days while receiving IV-antibiotics. Her hospitalization is not connected to the COVID-19 pandemic, and does not reflect any new major illness. Instead, it’s related to a stent put in place during surgery that took place just under a year ago.
Though every indication is that this hospital stay is precautionary and likely to have a good outcome, any hint that Justice Ginsburg is ill results in an immediate national intake of breath. After all, despite everything he’s said in the past, there’s absolutely no doubt that Mitch McConnell would find it perfectly acceptable to conduct Senate confirmation hearings at ten minutes to midnight on January 19, 2021. That’s true even if both Trump and McConnell were lame ducks on their way to history’s trash bin. In fact, it’s especially true if McConnell was on his way out. He would never miss one last chance to screw the nation.
Fortunately, in this case it doesn’t appear that McConnell is going to get that opportunity.
However, Justice Ginsburg has been plagued by health issues over the last two years. In 2018, she fractured three ribs in a fall. She had two cancerous nodules removed from her lungs in early 2019, and missed being present for oral arguments for the first time in her career on the bench. Then in August of 2019, she underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer after receiving chemotherapy over a decade before. It was during that surgery that a stent was implanted into her bile duct, and that stent was the location of the infection that was treated on Tuesday.
Justice Ginsberg is the second woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court. At age 87, she is “notorious” for her workout, her undiminished wit, and her relentless work ethic.