No Single Issue

SENATE confirmation of Judge Sandra O’Connor to the U.S. Supreme Court should not depend on whether, 10 years ago, she voted for or against a facet of the abortion issue. She was not acting in a judicial capacity back then, nor is the record clear as to whether one vote was triggered by opposition to a rider or by opposition to the main bill. In any event, Judge O’Connor reportedly told President Reagan that “she is personally opposed to abortion” and that it was especially abhorrent to her. What is important, in deciding whether the O’Connor nomination should be confirmed, is whether her Supreme Court decisions would be based on law. Judging from the record, they will be. Even the most extreme of the anti-abortion groups admits that Judge O’Connor is a strict constitutionalist who acts in accordance with the law and who believes, perhaps owing to her own legislative experience , that the Supreme Court’s job is to interpret the law, not to make it. .Justices quite obviously need a wide and varied background, which is an excellent reason for not using a single issue to decide a person’s qualifications. The pro-life people, best exemplified by Rev. Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority, have a tendency to focus on the single issue of abortion. It was this tendency that led Sen. Barry Goldwater, who said he had “supported right-to-life groups all the way down the line,” to tell a reporter that “every good Christian ought to kick Jerry Falwell right in the ass.” Such heated hyperbole