Judge on top US court says abortion will always be accessible to 'women of means'

Abortion in the United States will always be available to "women of means" even if the top U.S. court's landmark decision on the issue is overturned, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Sunday.

The top U.S. court's only female justice compared abortion statutes to divorce requirements that differ by state, saying that women able to afford train or plane tickets could still access abortion in states that legalize the practice.

The Supreme Court established a constitutional right to abortion in the 1973 case Roe v. Wade, but the issue remains a highly sensitive one across the United States.

"I do not believe the court's overruling Roe v. Wade — which I don't think will happen — will prevent women of means from accessing an abortion," Ginsburg told a crowd of about 500 at Atlanta's Ahavath Achim synagogue. "It will have a devastating impact on poor women."

Divisive issues such as abortion underscore the need for a strong and vigorous minority on the top U.S. court, especially with the recent rightward tilt of the nine-member court, Ginsburg said.

She said some dissents are aimed at swaying the opinions of her fellow judges, while others are "an appeal to the intelligence of another day" in the hopes that it will provide guidance to future courts.

She said Chief Justice John Roberts' hopes to build more consensus among the court seemed "off the mark" in the last term, in which one-third of the cases were decided by a single vote.

Although she said she hopes the latest court term, which began this month, will be less divided, she said she will be no less aggressive.

"I will continue to dissent if in my judgment the court veers in the wrong direction when important issues are at stake," she said.

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