Sonia Sotomayor’s Retirement Is Not the Point
Sotomayor, by comparison, has not given Americans nearly as much to be worried about with her health. Her only publicly known medical condition is type 1 diabetes, which is not life-threatening if treated properly. She received treatment from paramedics for low blood sugar in 2018, but no other serious incidents have been reported beyond that. As macabre as it may be to point out, at 69 years old, she has not even reached the average U.S. life expectancy yet.
Other justices have had much greater health scares over the years. Roberts, for example, was hospitalized overnight for a fall he suffered at a country club in 2020. He previously suffered major seizures in 1993 and 2007. Thomas, who is 74 years old, spent a week in the hospital in 2022 for an unspecified infection with “flu-like symptoms,” according to the court. Serious medical problems can arise suddenly and without warning, of course. Antonin Scalia had no publicly known health issues before he died suddenly in his sleep during a hunting trip in 2016. But that is as true for the other eight justices as it is for Sotomayor.
If anything, it may be Scalia’s death that is the most instructive here for liberals. His death was a potential ideological turning point for the court in the other direction. If Obama had been able to confirm a replacement, it would have given the high court its first liberal majority since the 1960s. Not only would it have secured the future of precedents like Roe, but it also would have allowed liberals to break new ground on civil rights, worker protections, LGBT rights, and more.