Justice Ruth Ginsburg

Much of the initial resistance to Ginsburg's nomination came from within the feminist movement because she had expressed reservations about the reasoning of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) upholding a woman's right to choose an abortion. Ginsburg would have preferred a more measured approach--an opinion that invited gradual liberalization of state abortion laws, one that might avoid a political backlash. At her confirmation hearings, however, Ginsburg dispelled any doubts about her commitment to a woman's reproductive choice. She characterized a woman's right to choose an abortion as "something central to a woman's life, to her dignity... And when government controls that decision for her, she's being treated as less than a full adult human being responsible for her own choices."

The Senate voted 97-3 to confirm Ginsburg's nomination, and she took the oath of office on August 10, 1993. Ginsburg's second major opinion on the Supreme Court displayed her characteristic tendency to approach legal questions in terms of real-world experience. In Ratzlaf v. United States (1994), Ginsburg wrote the Court's opinion reversing a criminal conviction for "willfully violating" a prohibition on "structuring" cash transactions so as to avoid a reporting requirement applicable to transactions involving more than $10,000. A majority of the Court concluded that the prosecution had to prove the defendant knew of not only the reporting requirement, but also the prohibition on breaking up transactions to evade it. The government had argued that the very act of structuring suggested an involvement in criminal activity, such as money laundering or tax evasion, and thereby demonstrated the necessary bad intent. In rejecting this argument, Ginsburg listed several innocent reasons that might motivate an ordinary citizen to break up cash deposits into small sums, such as a fear of burglary