A justice's files released: Behind-the-scenes battles to uphold Roe v. Wadeabortion ruling are highlighted in Blackmun's papers
WASHINGTON - As the 1992 presidential election approached, the author of the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade ruling worried that there were no longer enough votes on the court to uphold the right to abortion - and that his ideological opposites on the court would play politics with the issue.
Justice Harry A. Blackmun suspected that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wanted to neutralize or overturn Roe but would wait until after the fall elections so that Republicans wouldn't pay a political price, the late justice's private papers show.
A majority of justices on both sides of the abortion fight seemed ready to hear a case that tested Roe, but with the deadline for the year's calendar of cases approaching, Rehnquist postponed a discussion of the case.
"The obvious reason," Blackmun wrote in an internal memo in January 1992, was to avoid "the political repercussions of a decision by this court in an election year."
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