ERIN SCHAFF/POOL/AFP via Getty Judge Sonia Sotomayor
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor shared an optimistic view during an appearance Thursday as the country braces for a series of decisions, including on abortion rights, expected in the coming weeks.
“If it doesn’t kill me, it makes me stronger,” Sotomayor, 67, told attendees at the American Constitution Society conference in Washington, according to ABC News. “That’s what adversity does to you.”
Following a leak of a draft opinion in May indicating the court would likely overturn two landmark cases guaranteeing nationwide abortion access, Sotomayor offered no clue as to when — or what — the court will officially decide on the hot-button issue, as well as others such as gun rights, immigration, religion and climate change.
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Whatever the final outcome, Sotomayor pointed to history as evidence that “mistakes” can be corrected by other branches of government or when “people have worked to bring about change.”
“Dred Scott lost his 11-year battle for freedom in the courts… But he won the war,” Sotomayor said, according to Reuters, referring to an 1857 decision that denied the rights of enslaved and free blacks in the pre-Civil War United States.
“That’s why I think we need to continue to have confidence in the judicial system, in our system of government, in our ability – I hope not through war, but through constitutional amendments, through changing legislation, through lobbying, through continuing the battle every day to regain public confidence that we, as a court and as an institution, have not lost our way,” he continued.
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Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Supreme Court Judges
The judge, who was appointed by President Barack Obama and has served on the Supreme Court since 2009, admitted she doesn’t always feel optimistic.
“There are days when I get discouraged. There are times when I feel deeply, deeply disappointed,” she said, according to The New York Times“And yes, there have been times when I’ve stopped and said to myself, ‘Is this worth continuing?’ And every time I do, I lick my wounds for a while, sometimes cry, and then I say, ‘Okay, let’s fight.'”
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Sotomayor urged people who believe the country is headed in the wrong direction to “keep fighting for justice” and repeated an adage used by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to encourage persistence over time.
“I truly believe in the magic words: ‘The arc of the universe bends toward justice,'” he said, according to HuffPost.
