[It was the issue of abortion that catapulted Blackmun to national prominence. When the case, Roe v. Wade, appeared at the Supreme Court, only seven justices were involved in the original oral arguments. For this...

Abortion raises moral and spiritual questions over which honorable persons can disagree sincerely and profoundly. But those disagreements did not then and do not now relieve us of our duty to apply the Constitution faithfully.

Disapproval of homosexuality cannot justify invading the houses, hearts and minds of citizens who choose to live their lives differently.

as a person of judicial integrity who wrote acceptably well and contributed in more than one field. I’d like to be known just as a good worker in the vineyard who held his own and...

In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.

[For the justices, Roe reflected earlier cases involving the right to privacy. That] right, … broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.

It is precisely because the issue raised by this case touches the heart of what makes individuals what they are that we should be especially sensitive to the rights of those whose choices upset the...

the potentiality of human life.

I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.

We’re all eccentrics. We’re nine prima donnas.

Butcher of Dachau, murderer, Pontius Pilate, King Herod. You name it, it’s all in there, … On the other hand, some of the letters I received, without any question, are some of the most wonderful...

Who is to say that 5 men 10 years ago were right whereas 5 men looking the other direction today are wrong.

The flaw in the statute [is] that in all its applications, it operates on a fundamentally mistaken premise that high solicitation costs are an accurate measure of fraud.

The right of an individual to conduct intimate relationships in the intimacy of his or her own home seems to me to be the heart of the Constitution’s protection of privacy.

By placing discretion in the hands of an official to grant or deny a license, such a statute creates a threat of censorship that by its very existence chills free speech.

If one’s in the doghouse with the Chief, he gets the crud. He gets the tax cases and some of the Indian cases, which I like, but I’ve had a lot of them.

Dear Chief: I had a feeling that at the very close of today’s Conference we may have fitted Matthew Arnold’s closing lines in ‘Dover Beach’ wherein he refers to those ‘Swept with confused alarms of...

What the Court really has refused to recognize is the fundamental interest all individuals have in controlling the nature of their intimate associations.

The states are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life, to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies.

Constitution compels abortion on demand.

Controversy over the meaning of our nation’s most majestic guarantees frequently has been turbulent,

If there is any truth to the old proverb that “one who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client,” the Court now bestows a constitutional right on one to make a fool...