Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 8, 1994 TAG: 9404090008
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Blackmun is resigned to being remembered for the landmark decision that established abortion as a woman's constitutional right, though he was only one justice among a seven-member majority on the court that decided the issue. But Blackmun believed passionately in the decision, and still does. The 85-year-old justice remained on the court long enough to give a president who believes in abortion rights the chance to appoint a successor.
And it is an honorable legacy. Though the legal underpinnings of Roe vs. Wade have been much criticized, the decision itself is right. It was an emancipation proclamation for women, giving them the chance to better their lives as few other advancements have in history. It was also a pragmatic balancing act, allowing women the freedom to decide when and if they bear children, while acknowledging rights for fetuses after they have reached a stage of development more or less equivalent to viability outside the womb. The heated, hate-filled debate engendered by Roe vs. Wade often ignores this latter effect.
The obvious anguish Blackmun felt in writing the decision reflected his goodness and humanity. Fellow Justice John Paul Stevens said of Blackmun upon his colleague's announcement this week: "Far more than most of us, he has labored to make the law the servant of justice and decency."
Thus it was that a man appointed by Richard Nixon 24 years ago as a strict constructionist and tough law-and-order judge evolved over the years from one of the court's most conservative members to one of its most liberal. Blackmun scoffs at the label, saying it has more to do with the court's shift to the right than any movement on his part to the left. There is certainly something to that.
Blackmun advocated individual rights and privacy - which are essential elements of a conservative philosophy, if not always of conservative politics. They led him to become an eloquent defender not just of the rights of women, but of the dispossessed in general. Recent dissenting opinions have championed the causes of abused children, Haitian refugees and homosexuals.
His concern for individuals spurred him over the years to prod colleagues to consider real consequences when pondering legal abstractions. That pragmatic bent has changed Blackmun during his long legal journey, despite his protestations to the contrary. There is more than shifting political landscape behind his recent denunciation of capital punishment as unconstitutional. He once supported the death penalty - but after years of witnessing its application, concluded that it is only retribution, not deterrence, and cannot be administered fairly.
Blackmun says conservatives consider him a traitor and liberals don't trust him, and he likes that just fine. He has been his own person, trying to apply wisdom and compassion to the ideal of justice. The nation will be fortunate if his replacement, whoever he or she may be, shares that much with the man.
by CNB