Ruth Bader Ginsburg , the liberal icon who had served on the Supreme Court since 1993 and who crusaded for womens rights before that, died on Friday at the age of 87.

Ginsburg died from complications of cancer, according to the Supreme Court. She was surrounded by her family at her home in Washington, D.C.

The justice dictated a statement to her granddaughter in the days before her death, NPR reported. Ginsburg said: My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.

Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement: Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tireless and resolute champion of justice.

Ginsburg, who was treated for colon cancer in 1999 and for pancreatic cancer in 2011, ignored calls to step down from the Supreme Court as she got older. In May, she was hospitalized for treatment for a gall bladder conditio n , and again in July for a possible infection. In August 2019, she successfully completed three weeks of radiation treatment after a tumor was discovered in her pancreas. The previous December, she had surgery to remove two malignant nodules in her lung, causing her to miss her first oral arguments since joining the court. She continued working through her recovery, including casting a vote from her hospital bed.

Ginsburg, who was once passed over for a clerkship on the Supreme Court because of her gender, was the second woman to sit on the nations highest court after Sandra Day OConnor, and the first Jewish woman to do so. President Bill Clinton nominated her to the Supreme Court in 1993 after she had served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 1980. From 2006 until 2009, she was the only woman on the Supreme Court.

With Ginsburg, who was one of the Supreme Courts more liberal justices, now gone, the court is split between three liberal justices and five conservative ones. If President Donald Trump is able to nominate and get another conservative justice confirmed, that would cement conservatives hold on the nations most powerful court, likely for years to come.

When conservative Justice Antonin Scalia a close friend of Ginsburgs died in February 2016, Republicans in the Senate blocked former President Barack Obamas nominee , Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, saying the president shouldnt make the selection in a presidential election year.