Sandra Day O'Connor, pathbreaking woman on Supreme Court, dies at 93

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

58% : She supported, for the most part, traditional boundaries between church and state.
55% : Despite a stellar law school record, she described being offered only secretarial jobs at law firms.
54% : And the inevitable question will be whether, beyond the symbolism and the equity of her appointment, her status in life, so different from her colleagues then, actually mattered to the law.
52% : Instead, she co-wrote the principal opinion in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), setting a new standard for judging abortion cases but reaffirming the core holding of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973.
51% : But when Justice Potter Stewart announced his retirement, there were precious few Republican women serving on appellate courts, state or federal.
49% : She wrote an opinion justifying race-conscious admissions in law schools.
49% : "The Lawrence case helped pave the way for one of the most important landmarks in the nation's history, the 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage, which came not quite 10 years after Justice O'Connor's retirement.
48% : "In virtually every area of constitutional law, her key fifth vote determines what will be the majority's position and what will be the dissent.
45% : She never went far enough in any area of the law to fully satisfy either conservatives or liberals of the day, Republicans or Democrats.
45% : Still, she wrote in her 2002 book "The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice": "I have experienced gender discrimination enough - such as when law firms would hire me, a 'lady lawyer,' only as a legal secretary - to understand how one could seek to minimize interaction with those who are intolerant of difference.
42% : Justice O'Connor effectively, albeit just for a time, saved the constitutional right to abortion, co-authoring the majority ruling in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), reaffirming the central holding of the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade.

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