Papers from late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun were released today (the fifth anniversary of his death). Those papers paint a portrait of Supreme Court politics that almost proved the death-knell of abortion rights:
http://my.netscape.com/corewidgets/news/story.psp?cat=50700&id=2004030413390001152291
Blackmun detailed the behind the scenes jockeying that led to the bare-majority decision of Planned Parenthood v. Casey 91-744 http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-744.ZS.html. Casey allowed a number of restrictions on abortions, but upheld the overall logic of Roe v. Wade, which Blackmun authored.
Now, I'm not entirely comfortable with the publications of a Justice's papers while other justices, most notably Kennedy, are still on the court makind decisions regarding this issue. Given the past terrorist tendencies of anti-abortion crazies, if there were one person that could be blamed for Roe v. Wade, let's just say I wouldn't want to be that one person. It is worth noting that Blackmun's life was threatened more than once as a result of his authorship of Roe. The only member of the court that Blackmun did not serve with was his replacement, Stephen Breyer.
Blackmun, as a stauch defender of Roe, was probably more than a little biased himself as he kept the notes. But the story he tells is that an end to abortion rights in America hinged on a reluctant vote from Anthony Kennedy.
Kennedy, part of a Rehnquist coalition that included Scalia, Thomas and Byron "The Whizzer" White, got cold feet about actually overturning Roe and sent a message to Blackmun that he would participate in the decision to uphold Roe as long as certain restrictions were allowed.
Now, five years after Blackmun's death, choice supporters can see how desperately close they were to losing the battle and how much they owe to Kennedy for stepping away from the anti-choice majority on the court.
Perhaps it will serve to put a new spin on the 2004 election, as if anybody had any question what the stakes are.