Research topic: Harry Andrew Blackmun

Harry Andrew Blackmun , 1908-99, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1970-94), b. Nashville, Ill. Educated at Harvard, he practiced law privately, was general counsel to the Mayo Clinic (1950-59), then became a federal circuit court judge. He was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Nixon . Blackmun was initially allied with the conservatives on the court, including his boyhood friend Warren Burger , but is best known for his 1973 majority opinion in Roe v. Wade , legalizing abortion. By the 1980s he tended toward a liberal view in most areas, particularly civil-rights... Read more