Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Friday she remains “fully able” to serve on the Supreme Court, after revealing that she is receiving chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer. She was also discharged from a Baltimore hospital earlier this week after being treated for a possible infection.
“I have often said I would remain a member of the Court as long as I can do the job full steam,” Ginsburg wrote in a statement issued Friday. “I remain fully able to do that.”
Ginsburg was released from Johns Hopkins Hospital on Wednesday after treatment for a possible infection, Supreme Court spokeswoman, Kathleen Arberg, said in a statement obtained by The New York Times. She underwent a procedure to clean a bile duct stent that had been inserted last August.
In her update Friday, Ginsberg that her recent hospitalizations — “to remove gall stones and to treat an infection” — were unrelated to a course of chemotherapy she started in May to treat a recurrent bout of cancer following a biopsy that revealed lesions on her liver in February. The chemotherapy, she said is “yielding positive results,” which prompted her to share the details of her recovery publicly, adding that her most recent liver scan indicated significant reduction of lesions and no new disease.
“I am tolerating chemotherapy well and am encouraged by the success of my current treatment,” Ginsburg wrote, adding that she will continue bi-weekly chemotherapy to keep her cancer at bay and has “kept up with opinion writing and all other Court work.”
Concerns about Ginsburg’s health have attracted particular attention since a sudden vacancy on the bench would likely allow President Donald Trump to nominate a conservative judge who would further tilt the ideological balance of the nation’s highest court for years to come.
Ginsburg’s treatment for the possible infection came after the Supreme Court delivered landmark decisions that closed its most recent term last week, marking the completion of the first full term with Trump’s appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, together on the bench. The justices will next hear arguments in October.
Read Ginsburg’s full statement below:
