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A true American hero was born on this date 103 years ago and Americans should be grateful. Harold Andrew Blackmun was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994 and died in 1999. Harry Blackmun is one of the most famous Justices in history, and not just for his authorship of Roe v. Wade, perhaps the Court's most controversial landmark opinion.
Blackmun is also remarkable for his evolution from one of the Court's more conservative appointees into its most liberal voice by the time he retired. Blackmun, like fine wine, aged extraordinarily well.
Blackmun, born in Nashville, IL, had the résumé one would expect of a Justice. He earned a summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, A.B. degree in math as an undergraduate at Harvard and went on to Harvard Law School where his professors included SCOTUS Justice Felix Frankfurter. Blackmun's first visit to Washington, D.C. came as a member of the Harvard Glee Club when they performed for President Hoover.
He held a variety of positions after graduation, including private practice and teaching. He married Dorothy Clark in 1941 and had three daughters with her--Nancy, Sally, and Susan (a fact that may have helped to shape his views on women's rights, according to this PBS video). He was counsel for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, for the entire decade of the 1950s.
He loved baseball and
Blackmun is the only Supreme Court justice to have played one in a motion picture. In 1997 [at age 89], he portrayed Justice Joseph Story in the Steven Spielberg film Amistad.
Wiki
In 1970, President Richard Nixon was looking for a Supreme Court nominee that would be confirmed by the Senate. He had experienced two consecutive rejections with his nominations of the odious segregationists Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell. Nixon found the solution in Blackmun.
Blackmun had impeccable credentials, was widely recognized as a top-notch legal mind, was a lifelong Republican, and was good friends with conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger. His nomination sailed through the Senate in less than six weeks, ending in a 94-0 vote for confirmation.
At first, Nixon got what he bargained for. From 1970-1975, Blackmun voted with Burger in 87.5 percent of the closely divided cases, but that number slipped to 54.5% from 1976-1980. By 1981-1985, Blackmun had flipped, siding with liberal justices William J. Brennan and Thurgood Marshall over 75% of the time, and from 1986-1990, the percentage rose to over 95%. In his final years, 1991-1994, he was the Court's most liberal voice.
It was mainly social issues that began the rift between Blackmun and Burger. They split on women's rights, homosexual rights, and the death penalty, and "their lifelong friendship degenerated into a hostile and contentious relationship," according to Wiki.
Not only did Blackmun grow more liberal, but he also vociferously defended his controversial 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade and became a strong advocate of women's rights in speeches and lectures. In Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Blackmun wrote these words that should be chiseled in stone on the walls of the Supreme Court Building:
Few decisions are more personal and intimate, more properly private, or more basic to individual dignity and autonomy, than a woman's decision – with the guidance of her physician and within the limits specified in Roe – whether to end her pregnancy. A woman's right to make that choice freely is fundamental...
Wiki
When he retired in 1994, he was replaced by Clinton appointee Stephen Breyer, a solidly liberal voice on the Court to this day.
All Americans, and especially American women, should take a moment and remember Justice Harry Blackmun, a man with an open mind and a clear conscience who became a true champion of civil rights.
PHOTO CREDITS
Top: Official SCOTUS photo courtesy Wiki.
Middle: Informal Blackmun courtesy nytimes.com.
Bottom: Blackmun and family at his swearing-in courtesy nytimes.com.
IMAGE CREDIT
Choice image courtesy etienoetuk.com
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November 11, 2011
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