Justice John Paul Stevens didn’t face a single question about abortion at his 1975 Senate confirmation hearing two years after the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
At Sandra Day O’Connor 1981 confirmation hearing, abortion came up repeatedly, prompting Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kansas) to lament, “we have moved a long way in six years to say that if you are not exactly correct on this one issue you should not sit on the Supreme Court.”
Abortion became a focus at modern Supreme Court confirmations as it rose to prominence as a political wedge. Today, it’s as unresolved as it ...
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