Paul Kengor, editor of The American Spectator, joined Lowman Henry on American Radio Journal to reflect on the legacy of late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

While she was often considered a moderate, O’Connor was no moderate on abortion. Her vote in the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey was critical in keeping abortion legal in all 50 states until the historic 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.

How could Ronald Reagan, a pro-life president, appoint such a justice? According to Kengor, “The answer is that Reagan thought he had a pro-lifer in O’Connor just as he also thought he had a pro-lifer in Justice Anthony Kennedy.”

Reagan and his advisers failed to ask the “hard questions,” about where both justices stood on “protecting the unborn child’s right to life,” Kengor explains.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, justified his stance with his infamous “mystery of life” clause: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” 

We have the moral clarity of Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh to thank for our new post-Roe America. But according to Kengor, Sandra Day O’Connor “will be remembered less as the first woman on the high court than for her crucial swing vote for abortion … that prolonged Roe and its millions of abortions for decades more to come.”

Listen to the interview here.

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