Follow this link to an interview with Sandra Day O’ Connor that appears on The Daily Beast. It is a concise and excellent read. I have long been conflicted about this erstwhile Justice. She had the wisdom to vote against the ban on intact dilation and extraction in 2000. Yet, she voted in favor of allowing states to put onerous abortion restrictions in play, often forcing young women to beg for the right to have control over their own bodies or forcing women and girls to lengthen the times they must wait to terminate unwanted pregancies. Her ruling also opened the door to mis-informed consent, which is often practiced today.
She is not perfect, yet there is much to be admired in this woman.
She was our first female role model as a SCJ. When I hear her speak her intelligence is astounding. She talks on PBS about the dangers of presidents who don’t follow the rule of law, and the problems that inevitably follow. On DB, when asked about empathy she says : I’m not quite sure what that means…..”
Exactly! One person’s empathy is another’s prejudice.
And…On it goes.
I hated to hear Obama talk about empathy. It is such a slippery slope: empathy for whom? For fetuses at the expense of women, for whites at the expense of blacks, or for blacks at the expense of Hispanics, for the poor at the expense of the middle class, for a particular species of owls at the expense of humans, or for humans at the expense of all life forms, etc., etc., etc.

Here is one Q & A, extract:

Are you happy that a woman, Sonia Sotomayor, has been nominated to fill the latest vacancy on the Supreme Court?
I should say so. I was disappointed when I stepped down that I wasn’t replaced by a woman. It’s important for people to look around and see that women, who make up slightly more than 50 percent of the population, are represented on the court.

The comments are interesting.
One says that O’ Connor stayed on the bench into Bush’s second term in hopes of being appointed the 1st woman chief justice. Of course, Roger37, the commenter, excoriates such female ambition. SNORE.
Note to Roger37, all justices are invested in one party or the other, it is just that they are usually male. I was NOT happy with her vote on Bush v. Gore, but that was not a surprise by any means. And I have come to be hopeful that Iraq, as bumbling as Bush was, may be a roadmap to Middle East peace. This requires an open mind, but I will say this again and again: since this mess, Kuwait has its first women in parliament and in the last Iraqi elections over a quarter of the candidates were female. 25%!!!!!!!!!!
In Iran, women are finding a new freedom and respect from peers in open political dissent that I’ve never witnessed before—something I feel is related to the new distaff political freedoms invading Iraq. Sisters do get jealous, that we know! I won’t bite good results no matter how bumbled the plan.

Another commenter finds fault with O’Connor b/c she wants women represented on the Court in relation to their percentage of the population.
Josh say O'Connor is a hypocrite b/c she would phase out affirmative action in another 50 years. I think we all need to be clear the difference btw affirmative action and gaining representation in relation to population.
No one is saying we need to lower the bar to put women in powerful spots at rates that equal their percentage of the population. On the contrary, we want qualified women put in power. On the court we now have one black justice, and blacks are 12% of the U.S. population. Thus this is a proportional representation. Women, on the other hand, are 51% of the U.S. population and there is one on the Court—that clocks women in at 10% representation.
When women don’t pass a test, we will not sue to say there was discrimination in the test. Women MUST pass those tests. Period.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-06-29/a-justice-refl...