U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks at an annual Women's History Month reception hosted by Pelosi in the U.S. capitol building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. This year's event honored the women Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court: Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
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Supreme Court rules on Texas abortion law
01:25 - Source: CNN

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg's use of a French phrase drove up its searches on Merriam-Webster's website by 495,000%

"Faute de mieux" is roughly translated as "for lack of a better alternative"

Washington CNN  — 

There wasn’t much Ruth Bader Ginsburg needed to add on Monday to a landmark opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer that struck down a Texas law that would have closed all but nine abortion clinics in the state.

So she threw in some French.

“When a state severely limits access to safe and legal procedures, women in desperate circumstances may resort to unlicensed rogue practitioners, faute de mieux, at great risk to their health and safety,” she wrote in a brief concurring opinion.

Excusez-moi?

“Faute de mieux” is roughly translated as “for lack of a better alternative.” Ginsburg was emphasizing that the so-called clinic shutdown law might force women without the means to resort to unsafe illegal clinics to perform their abortions.

Supreme Court strikes down Texas abortion law

After the release of the opinion, Merriam-Webster said look-ups for the French phrase “spiked 495,000%” on its website.

Helpfully, Mirriam-Webster added that the phrase “has been in English use since at least 1766, often employed by those who seek to provide a Gallic flair to their writing.”

Pronunciation? Foht-duh-MYUH.

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 15: In this handout from the the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia's Bench Chair and the Bench in front of his seat draped in black after his death on February 15, 2016 in Washington, DC. Scalia died February 13, reportedly of natural causes, at a resort in Texas. (Photograph by Franz Jantzen/Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 15: In this handout from the the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia's Bench Chair and the Bench in front of his seat draped in black after his death on February 15, 2016 in Washington, DC. Scalia died February 13, reportedly of natural causes, at a resort in Texas. (Photograph by Franz Jantzen/Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States via Getty Images)
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But les mots justes aside, Ginsburg was hammering home a point she has made before. Two decades after Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that re-affirmed Roe v. Wade, the women who will be most impacted by laws restricting abortions are the poor.

How Ruth Bader Ginsburg steered the court on Texas’ abortion law

At oral arguments, Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller stressed that the majority of women in the state would live within 150 miles of a clinic. But that wasn’t good enough for Ginsburg.

“We know from Casey that the focus must be on the ones who are burdened,” she said. “This is not a problem for women who have means to travel … those women will have access to abortion.”

Ginsburg wrote separately, with flair, to make sure that point wouldn’t be lost.