Ruth Bader Ginsburg has surgery to remove cancerous growths

Doctors find growths in lungs of the Jewish 85-year-old US Supreme Court judge following tests she had after fracturing ribs in a fall

WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court said Friday that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery to remove two malignant growths from her left lung.

It’s Ginsburg’s third bout with cancer since she joined the court in 1993.

The court said the 85-year-old Ginsburg, who is Jewish, had the surgery Friday in New York and will remain in the hospital for a few days.

The court says doctors found “no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body.” The court says no additional treatment is planned currently.

The growths were found during tests Ginsburg had after she fractured ribs in a fall on Nov. 7.Ginsburg is being treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

“If she doesn’t need anything but the surgery, it is a very good sign,” said Dr. John Lazar, director of thoracic robotic surgery at MedStar Washington Hospital Center.

It’s not uncommon to see slow-growing lung cancers in women in their 80s, and they tend to respond well to surgery and go on to die of something unrelated, he said.

“This is just luck” that the growths were found through those rib X-rays because accidentally discovered lung tumors tend to be early-stage when surgery works best, said Dr. Giuseppe Giaccone, an oncologist at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

While doctors will have to see the final pathology report to know exactly what kind of tumors Ginsburg had and how aggressive they were, her previous bouts with cancer were so long ago they’re unlikely to be related, Giaccone said.

Both doctors said patients typically spend three or four days in the hospital after this type of operation.

It was unclear whether Ginsburg would be back on bench when the court next meets on Jan. 7. She has never missed Supreme Court arguments in more than 25 years as a justice.

The justice, who was appointed by president Bill Clinton in 1993, is one of four liberals on the nine-member court.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has had the opportunity to replace two retiring justices, tipping the balance in the conservatives’ favor.

Heavy attention is given to Ginsburg’s health amid liberal worries that, if she dies or has to retire for health reasons, Trump would get another pick and lock the high court into a conservative ideology for a generation to come.

The justices of the US Supreme Court gather for a formal group portrait to include the new Associate Justice, top row, far right, at the Supreme Court Building in Washington, Friday, Nov. 30, 2018. Seated from left: Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Associate Justice Samuel Alito Jr. Standing behind from left: Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan and Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Breaking barriers

The court’s oldest justice, Ginsburg — fondly known as “The Notorious RBG,” a riff on slain rapper The Notorious B.I.G. — is a liberal stalwart who has said she will not retire as long as she feels she can do the work.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, into a Jewish family, she attended Cornell University and married a classmate, Martin Ginsburg, right after graduation.

She then studied law, first at Harvard and then Columbia University, at a time when the profession was almost exclusively male.

She graduated at the top of her class at Columbia, yet still, New York law firms snubbed her.

“I had three strikes against me. One, I was Jewish. Two, I was a woman. But the killer was I was a mother of a four-year-old child,” she said in an interview with CBS.

Federal Appeals Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg addresses reporters in the Rose garden of the White House on Monday, June 14, 1993 in Washington as President Bill Clinton looks on after the president nominated Ginsburg to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Partly due to the barriers she faced, she became a stubborn advocate for women’s equal rights.

She helped start the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1973, she was named general counsel of the ACLU.

Between 1972 and 1978, Ginsburg argued six gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court, winning five times, while raising two children.

Almost 40 years later, when people asked her when she’ll be satisfied with the number of women on the Supreme Court, she said: “When there are nine.”

She was the second woman ever to serve on the court, after Sandra Day O’Connor. Only three members of the 100-member Senate opposed her in a confirmation vote.

Since then, she has been a reliable member of the court’s liberal wing, defending abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

Her husband died in 2010, and despite her age, she has missed few days of work at the high court. She works out regularly, and is often seen at the Supreme Court gym in a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words “Super Diva.”

Her health and impressive stamina keep her supporters transfixed.

She was treated for colon cancer in 1999, and a decade later, pancreatic cancer that was caught at an early stage.

In August, she broke three ribs in a fall in her office, and was hospitalized overnight for observation.

She was back at work as soon as the court opened its session at the beginning of September.