Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O鈥機onnor, an unwavering voice of moderate conservatism and the first woman to serve on the nation鈥檚 highest court, has died. She was 93.
The court says she died in Phoenix on Friday, of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness.
In 2018, she announced that she had been diagnosed with 鈥渢he beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer鈥檚 disease.鈥� Her husband, John O鈥機onnor, died of complications of Alzheimer鈥檚 in 2009.
O鈥機onnor鈥檚 nomination in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan and subsequent confirmation by the Senate ended 191 years of male exclusivity on the high court. Born in El Paso, she grew up on her family鈥檚 sprawling Arizona ranch. O鈥機onnor wasted little time building a reputation as a hard worker who wielded considerable political clout on the nine-member court.
The granddaughter of a pioneer who traveled west from Vermont and founded the family ranch some three decades before Arizona became a state, O鈥機onnor 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.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 do all the things the boys did,鈥� she said in a 1981 Time magazine interview, 鈥渂ut I fixed windmills and repaired fences.鈥�
On the bench, her influence could best be seen, and her legal thinking most closely scrutinized, in the court鈥檚 rulings on abortion, perhaps the most contentious and divisive issue the justices faced. O鈥機onnor 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.
Then, in 1992, she helped forge and lead a five-justice majority that reaffirmed the core holding of the 1973 ruling. 鈥淪ome of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that can鈥檛 control our decision," O鈥機onnor said in court, reading a summary of the decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 鈥淥ur obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.鈥�
Thirty years after that decision, a more conservative court did overturn Roe and Casey, and the opinion was written by the man who took her high court seat, Justice Samuel Alito. He joined the court upon O鈥機onnor鈥檚 retirement in 2006, chosen by President George W. Bush.
In 2000, O鈥機onnor was part of the 5-4 majority that effectively resolved the disputed 2000 presidential election in favor of Bush, over Democrat Al Gore.
O鈥機onnor was regarded with great fondness by many of her colleagues. When she retired, Justice Clarence Thomas, a consistent conservative, called her 鈥渁n outstanding colleague, civil in dissent and gracious when in the majority.鈥�
She could, nonetheless, express her views tartly. In one of her final actions as a justice, a dissent to a 5-4 ruling to allow local governments to condemn and seize personal property to allow private developers to build shopping plazas, office buildings and other facilities, she warned the majority had unwisely ceded yet more power to the powerful. 鈥淭he specter of condemnation hangs over all property,鈥� O鈥機onnor wrote. 鈥淣othing is to prevent the state from replacing ... any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.鈥�
O鈥機onnor, whom commentators had once called the nation鈥檚 most powerful woman, remained the court鈥檚 only woman until 1993, when, much to O鈥機onnor鈥檚 delight and relief, President Bill Clinton nominated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The current court includes a record four women.