News

WASHINGTON, March 4, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The New York Times was given a sneak peek at Justice Harry A. Blackmun’s private papers yesterday. The Times reveals that the 1992 Supreme Court case of Planned Parenthood of South-Eastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, in which Justice Blackmun struck down paternal notification, calling it an “undue burden” on the right to choose, was not a “done deal.” In fact, the Times wrote that “the right to abortion he had articulated for the Supreme Court two decades earlier was headed for bitter failure.”  Then the papers revealed that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whom Blackmun did not regard as an ally sent a letter which said “I need to see you as soon as you have a few free moments. I want to tell you about some developments in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and at least part of what I say should come as welcome news.” Justice Kennedy revealed in a private interview the next day that three justices had formed a secret alliance in order to preserve the Roe v. Wade-given right to abortion.  The Times revealed that, after the meeting, Blackmun scribbled a note which said “Roe sound.”  The closing quotations taken from his papers, as quoted by the Times, are filled with irony. “From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death,” was meant to be a statement of his denunciation of capital punishment, while in the next paragraph he expresses the sentiment that, through Roe v. Wade, he had assisted “the progress of the emancipation of women.”  Read the New York Times coverage at: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/politics/04BLAC.html?hp   Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage which, using the Casey case as a precedent, ruled that a woman’s right “is not subject to being vetoed by a woman’s husband or partner. … Neither an ex-boyfriend nor a fetus has standing to interfere with a woman’s choice to terminate her pregnancy” at: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/aug/02080605.html