O'Connor's Retirement Means First Supreme Court Vacancy in Eleven Years.

WASHINGTON (July 5)--When Associate Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a 24-year veteran of the High Court, unexpectedly announced her retirement, her impending departure touched off a media frenzy of speculation. Her announcement came as NRL News was about to go to press, so NRLC cannot comment on her replacement in this edition. (Be sure, however, to check www.nrlc.org.)

In the immediate aftermath, pro-abortion organizations bragged about their ability to raise money to fight President Bush's nominee. For example, NARAL said in a July 2 press release that it has "surpassed its fundraised [sic] goals in the hours following Justice O'Connor's announcement. Pro-choice Americans from all over the country have made financial contributions, because they understand the importance of a mainstream nominee who recognizes the impact his or her decisions will have on the average American."

As explained on page five of this edition, President Bush's nominee "must survive the minefield of Senate confirmation. Senators Boxer, Leahy, Schumer, Clinton, Kennedy, and others will stand in the way. In some ways the coming fight to confirm a true constructionist who respects the words and real meaning of the Constitution will be every bit as bitter as the fight to confirm Robert Bork in 1987."

National Right to Life's grassroots effort needs your help. Please read the alert on page five, contribute as much as you can, and pass the message along to your pro-life family, friends, and colleagues.

O'Connor, 75, assumed her seat September 25, 1981. Regarded with deep suspicion at the time by pro-lifers, O'Connor would play an increasingly pivotal role in helping to protect the widely criticized Roe v. Wade decision.

After initially making conciliatory-sounding remarks in the 1983 Akron case, by the time of the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, O'Connor was firmly in the pro-Roe camp.

"Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt," she wrote, along with Justices Anthony Kennedy and David Souter. "Yet, 19 years after our holding that the Constitution protects a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy in its early stages, Roe v. Wade (1973), that definition of liberty is still questioned. We are led to conclude this: the essential holding of Roe v. Wade should be retained and once again reaffirmed."