Sandra Day O’Connor’s Disgraceful Legacy

By Cliff Kincaid

December 21, 2023

Fox News calls her a “moderate conservative.” That is a lie. The truth must be told, even though Washington’s elites have gathered to honor her. Her funeral service is taking place at Washington National Cathedral, and pro-abortion President Joe Biden is delivering a eulogy.

Conservative Caucus founder Howard Phillips was a true conservative who predicted that Sandra Day O’Connor, a Reagan nominee, would turn out to be pro-abortion on the court. He noted that she was a pro-abortion member of the Arizona State Senate and a liberal judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals. “She was chosen because of her gender and a desire to attract to the GOP the support of feminists,” he said. Again, Howard stood with principle, and he was correct.

When O’Connor gave a speech declaring that the court would increasingly make its decisions in deference to international law and foreign opinion, Phillips said she had violated her oath of office — swearing allegiance to the U.S. Constitution — and that she should be removed from office.

Howard didn’t make excuses for conservatives — even if it was Ronald Reagan — when they bowed to liberal pressure.

The process that began with Roe v. Wade in 1973 has left more than 60 million dead. This is a form of slavery that has made unborn babies into the property of others, subject to whims about when and if they live, or die.

“Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves,” President Ronald Reagan said. “Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide.”

But his nomination of O’Connor undermined those words.

Dr. Paul Kengor notes, “Though O’Connor generally was considered a court ‘moderate,’ she was a decisive swing vote in favor of preserving so-called ‘abortion rights,’ including the outrageous January 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, a judicial abomination with no basis whatsoever in the U.S. Constitution.”

In its Dobbs decision, the Supreme Court did throw the issue back to the states, ruling there is no right to abortion in the Constitution. That was correct. But that does not mean politicians should acquiesce in the decision by states or individuals to permit abortions.

What is needed is a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution, making it crystal clear there is an individual right to life. Anything short of that risks the soul of America and the souls of those who endorse the murder of the unborn.

I was switching channels all day, after so-called “abortion advocates” won in Virginia and Ohio, trying to figure out why some “conservatives” are now saying that Republican politicians must somehow “compromise” and permit the killing of the unborn under some circumstances. Senator Ted Cruz was on Newsmax, arguing for the “state’s rights” approach approved by the Supreme Court. But if an innocent unborn human being is in fact an innocent unborn human being, how can any death sentence be justified?

I can understand abortion in the rare case of self-defense, or when a woman’s life is in danger, but how is it to be rationalized as a matter of convenience to the woman when the woman had a role in making this life possible? A baby is not the property of the mother or anybody else.

If a woman cannot for medical or health reasons carry the baby to term, that is one thing. That is not a deliberate abortion.

Republican Rep. Nancy Mace says we must find a “middle ground” on abortion. But our nation did not find a “middle ground” on slavery. The outcome was supposed to demonstrate that people are not the personal property of other people. I thought this issue was settled with the American Civil War.

In cases of rape or incest, the baby is still innocent.

NBC News says that O’Connor regularly attended services at the National Cathedral and served on its governing board. “Grounded in the reconciling love of Jesus Christ,” the institution proclaims, “Washington National Cathedral is a house of prayer for all people, conceived by our founders to serve as a great church for national purposes.”

What national purpose is served by killing the unborn?

Like feminist Ruth Bader Ginsburg, O’Connor was an example to young women, and a very bad example. She led women to believe that they had property rights over the unborn babies within them, and that they alone could decide their fate.

Women should be in the forefront of the motherhood movement, dedicated to the proposition that all lives matter and all lives are created equal.

E-Mail Cliff Kincaid: kincaid@comcast.net