{"id":302762,"date":"2023-12-01T16:38:11","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T22:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=302762"},"modified":"2023-12-01T15:42:24","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T21:42:24","slug":"sandra-day-oconnor-justice-supreme-court-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/sandra-day-oconnor-justice-supreme-court-died\/","title":{"rendered":"Sandra Day O’Connor, first female Supreme Court Justice, has died"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, has died<\/a> at age 93.<\/p>\n

Though appointed to the court by pro-life President Ronald Reagan in 1981, just eight years following the Roe v. Wade<\/em> decision, and considered a “constitutional conservative,” O’Connor was a pivotal player in keeping abortion legal despite claiming to be personally pro-life. In 1992, she co-authored the court’s decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey<\/em>, which upheld Roe<\/em> and created a new benchmark for abortion laws. Following Casey<\/em>, any pro-life law could be invalidated if it imposed an “undue burden” on women.<\/p>\n

Casey<\/em> centered around a 1989 Pennsylvania law that placed a 24-hour waiting period on abortion, required minors to get parental consent for an abortion, and established informed consent requirements. It also required married women to notify their spouse if they planned to have an abortion. Despite O’Connor’s personal opposition to abortion, in Casey<\/em>, she argued that requiring husbands to be notified of an abortion put a “substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.”<\/p>\n

Casey<\/em> could have been the case that overturned Roe<\/em> or even recognized that there is a right to life, law professor Mary Ziegler told Vox<\/a> in 2018. Instead, Casey<\/em> upheld Roe<\/em> and created confusion over what qualifies as an ‘undue burden’. Ziegler explained, “[Casey<\/em>] in many ways not only changed the law, but gave both sides a road map for what they would want to do going forward.”<\/p>\n