
Wade, which had legalised abortion, would be repealed. Supporters of abortion sought a similar result, while conservatives hoped that Roe vs. Previous courts have claimed that any limitations on abortions were unlawful. Reproductive Health Services, in which the state of Missouri established various limits on the practise of abortion, which had been legalised by the court in 1973. However, in 1989, the court became the focus of national interest and O’Connor the centre of that attention. She also attempted to shun the spotlight. She built a moderate to conservative record on the court by judging each issue as narrowly as possible, avoiding making precedent. However, she liked working alongside her old friend William Rehnquist, who became Chief Justice in 1985. Suprene Court, she was astonished by the level of attention she got. Her candidature attracted broad plaudits and she was approved overwhelmingly. Still, as a little-known state judge who was regarded legalistic and aloof on the bench, she was not supposed to be a viable pick, and she was as astonished as anybody when Reagan nominated her. Reagan himself had a ranch and had a strong connection with the frontier, and O’Connor’s heritage and enthusiasm for the American southwest made a good influence on him. However, Goldwater brought O’Connor to Reagan’s notice, and she visited him at the White House. A member of the high court, Associate Justice Potter Stewart, announced his retirement, and the Reagan Administration examined numerous female Federal judges among those to appoint. The year before, Ronald Reagan had been elected President and had vowed to select a woman to the U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, who rated her very highly. She served with distinction again and came to the notice of U.S. She served with distinction and in 1979, Democratic Governor Bruce Babbitt named her to the state Court of Appeals, in spite of her being a Republican. However, her focus was for law rather than politics and in 1975, she was elected Maricopa County Superior Court Judge. She was well-regarded by her colleagues In 1973, she became the first woman in the country to become Majority Leader in an American state Senate. Her life changed in 1969, when she was appointed to the Arizona state Senate to replace a vacant seat, and she was reelected. In 1965, she was named Assistant Attorney General for the state of Arizona. She subsequently formed her own private practise in Phoenix in 1960, and got interested in Republican politics. But women attorneys were a rare in those days and she served as a prosecutor in several county offices. She married in 1952 and pursued job in large legal firms.

Ironically, the valedictorian was future fellow Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, whom she briefly dated. In school, she was a high achiever and finished from high school at the age of 16, then she graduated from Stanford Law School third in a class of 102. But when she reached of school age, her parents moved her to El Paso to live with her maternal grandmother, Mamie Scott Wilkey, who she believed had the biggest effect on her life.


She subsequently wrote about her life in the memoirs “Lazy B: Growing up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest.
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She was a real kid of the frontier, learning how to brand cattle and operate a family on her parents’ 155,000 acre ranch. She was the daughter of cattle ranchers Henry Day and Ada Wilkey. A mild-mannered justice who thinks carefully before she speaks or takes judgements, Sandra Day O’Connor does not portray the image of a pioneer.
