Justice Harry Blackmun on Roe v. Wade

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When Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun first took his seat on the bench, it was widely thought that he would strengthen the Court’s conservative wing. But within three years, Justice Blackmun spoke for the majority in one of the Court’s most liberal, historic and controversial decisions of the century: Roe v. Wade, granting women constitutional protection for abortion. In this 1987 Moyers Moment from In Search of the Constitution, Blackmun describes the decision as a necessary step towards the emancipation of women.

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