FILE - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is shown before administering the oath of office to members of the Texas Supreme Court, Jan. 6, 2003, in Austin, Texas. O'Connor, who joined the Supreme Court in 1981 as the nation's first female justice, has died at age 93.(AP Photo/Harry Cabluck, File)
Obit Sandra Day O’Conner
WASHINGTON – Retired Supreme Court Judge Sandra Day O’Connor has died at the age of 93. O’Connor was the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. She was appointed to the high court 1981 by President Ronald Reagan. O’Connor was an unwavering voice of moderate conservativism on the court. She retired in 2006 and was replaced by Samuel Alito. Chief Justice John Roberts says she blazed a historic trail as the first female justice and “met that challenge with undaunted determination, indisputable ability, and engaging candor.” The court says O’Connor died in Phoenix on Friday of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness.
The granddaughter of a pioneer who traveled west from Vermont and founded the family ranch some three decades before Arizona became a state, O’Connor had a tenacious, independent spirit that came naturally. As a child growing up in the remote outback, she learned early to ride horses, round up cattle and drive trucks and tractors.
“I didn’t do all the things the boys did,” she said in a 1981 Time magazine interview, “but I fixed windmills and repaired fences.”
On the bench, her influence could best be seen, and her legal thinking most closely scrutinized, in the court’s rulings on abortion, perhaps the most contentious and divisive issue the justices faced. O’Connor balked at letting states outlaw most abortions, refusing in 1989 to join four other justices who were ready to reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that said women have a constitutional right to abortion.
—Copyright 2023 Red Apple Media. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. AP contributed to this report
