O’Connor Wins 17-0 Approval of Senate Panel

WASHINGTON – The Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday recommended by 17 to 0 that the Senate confirm Sandra Day O’Connor to be the Supreme Court’s first woman justice, with Sen. Jeremiah Denton CR-Ala.) abstaining on grounds he was uncertain about her position on abortion. Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), the committee chairman, said after the panel’s vote that O’Connor could win the unanimous backing of the Senate when it votes on the nomination, possibly as early as Friday. Denton Undecided An aide to Denton said the senator, who ranked the abortion issue as overshadowing “virtually all other considerations,” has not made up his mind on how he will vote in the full Senate. “He’s really wrestling with this one ,” the aide said. Two other committee Republicans who expressed concern over how O’Connor would vote on the abortion question as a Supreme Court justice, Sens. John P. East of North Carolina and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, said they based their committee votes for her partly on the belief that President Reagan knows more about her abortion views than the committee. “I suspect he (Reagan) knows some things I don’t,” East said. “I feel down in my heart of hearts that had she been on the court she would have joined Justices (William H.) Rehnquist and (Byron R.) White” in dissenting from the 1973 Supreme Court decision that held that women have a qualified constitutional right to abortion. Last week, O’Connor told the committee she generally is opposed to abortion and admitted