![]() Although I wrote critically about O’Connor’s pragmatic, split-the-difference jurisprudence while she was on the Court, her approach looks far better than that of her more conservative and increasingly influential replacement, Justice Alito, a pro-executive power justice who is often less sympathetic than O’Connor was to individual rights and liberties. And, as I interviewed O’Connor, who remains as sharp, fit, and formidable as ever at the age of 81, I was struck by how unfortunate it was for the Court and the country that she resigned when she did. (Her husband quickly deteriorated after she resigned, and he died in 2009). O’Connor told Newsweek in 2007 that she would have stayed on the Court much longer, except that her husband was ill with Alzheimer’s disease and she needed to care for him. Here is a sampling of the range of other cases that might have come out differently if O’Connor were still on the Court: the federal partial-birth abortion law likely would have been upheld rather than struck down affirmative action in public schools likely would have been permitted rather than restricted and gender discrimination suits and suits by taxpayers challenging state-funded religious expression likely would likely have been allowed to go forward rather than being cut off. After Casey, such laws would be considered unconstitutional only if they constituted an “undue burden” on women seeking to obtain an abortion.It’s not only America’s campaign financing system that would look very different if Justice O’Connor hadn’t retired in 2006 and been replaced by Justice Samuel Alito. Wade (1973) but also lowered the standard that legal restrictions on abortion must meet in order to pass constitutional muster. The Court’s opinion, which O’Connor wrote with Justices Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, reaffirmed the constitutionally protected right to abortion established in Roe v. Casey (1992), the Court refashioned its position on the right to abortion. Through her stewardship in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Reproductive Health Services (1989)-in which the Court upheld a Missouri law that prohibited public employees from performing or assisting in abortions not necessary to save a woman’s life and that required doctors to determine the viability of a fetus if it was at least 20 weeks old-she reduced the Court’s opinion to a plurality. ![]() By “defecting” in part from the conservative majority in Webster v. In a series of rulings, she signaled a reluctance to support any decision that would deny women the right to choose a safe and legal abortion. In similar fashion, O’Connor’s views on abortion rights were articulated gradually. Vera ), and sided with the Court’s more liberal members in upholding the configuration of a congressional district in North Carolina created on the basis of variables including but not limited to race ( Easley v. Reno ), declared unconstitutional district boundaries that are “unexplainable on grounds other than race” ( Bush v. In her decisions in election law she emphasized the importance of equal-protection claims ( Shaw v. In such disparate fields as election law and abortion rights, she attempted to fashion workable solutions to major constitutional questions, often over the course of several cases. O’Connor quickly became known for her pragmatism and was considered, with Justice Anthony Kennedy, a decisive swing vote in the Supreme Court’s decisions.
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