Of Judge O’Connor and Her Enemies

Concerning Mr. Reagan’s choice for the Supreme Court, a few obser• vations : 1) To favor Mrs. O’Connor’s con• firmation is not the same as saying that there wasn’t a better qualified jurist around. But that much can said at almost any moment any president is called on to make a selection. Clearly Mr. Reagan’s thought was dominated by his anxiety to name a woman. While skeptical of the proposition that the Supreme Court should be sexually (or racially) representative, in fact the presence of a woman in the court serves two purposes. The first is to demonstrate that Mr. Reagan’s political promises are not mere campaign oratory. These~- ond is to demonstrate that a president who opposes the Equal Rig~ts Amendment is not for that reason insensitive to the desire of women to demonstrate that there are no political boundaries to their ascendancy. The Abortion Question 2) On the question of whether Mrs. O’Connor is for or against abortion, we are told by the president that she opposes abortion. Presumably_ he had this confidence from her, smce Mrs. O’Connor has hardly been volu• ble on the subject, one way or an• other. Her opponents point especially to her blocking, in 1973 in the Arizona legislature, a resolution that _was proposed as an appendag~ to a p1~ce of legislation, a resolution callmg for a constitutional amendment to prohibit abortion. But Mrs. O’Connor pointed out that her opposition was procedural. Because under Arizona 1aw, nongermane resolutions are forbidden. She was