biography
| name: |
Blackmun, Harry A(ndrew)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1908–99)
|
| biography:
| Jurist, born in Nashville, Illinois, USA. He studied mathematics and law at Harvard, and was called to the Minnesota bar in 1932. He was judge of the eighth circuit of the US Court of Appeals (1959–70), and in 1970 was nominated as an Associate Justice to the Supreme Court, where he was an effective influence in moderating the views of his more conservative colleagues. He wrote the Court's majority judgment in Roe v. Wade (1973), the landmark decision establishing women's rights to abortion without undue government interference. He said of himself, ‘I've been called a liberal and a conservative. Labels are deceiving.’ In 1989 and 1990, he held that the First Amendment to the American Constitution protected those who burnt the American flag during political protests. He retired in 1994. |
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