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Reagan Diary Says O’Connor Was Anti-Abortion

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President Reagan quickly summed up the controversy over his historic nomination of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in a short diary entry. O’Connor was the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Already the flack is starting & from my own supporters,” he wrote, in an entry quoted by the Washington Post. “Rite to Life people say she’s pro-abortion. She declares abortion is personally repugnant to her. I think she’ll make a good justice.”

O’Connor later supported the right to abortion. Historian Douglas Brinkley has published excerpts of his upcoming book about the Reagan diaries in Vanity Fair.

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