Top 20 Harry A. Blackmun Quotes
#1. The mandated description of fetal characteristics at two-week intervals, no matter how objective, is plainly overinclusive. [It is] not medical information that is always relevant to the woman's decision, and it may serve to confuse and punish her and to heighten her anxiety.
Harry A. Blackmun
#2. I hope you will be yourself, human, even a little sentimental, possessed of a sense of humor and a sense of humility ... There are arrogant people in this world and, what is worse, arrogant judges.
Harry A. Blackmun
#3. 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.
Harry A. Blackmun
#4. From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death ... I fell morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.
Harry A. Blackmun
#5. The right to privacy ... is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.
Harry A. Blackmun
#6. 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.
Harry A. Blackmun
#7. 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 majority.
Harry A. Blackmun
#8. It is somewhat ironic to have us so deeply disturbed over a program where race is an element of consciousness, and yet to be aware of the fact, as we are, that institutions of higher learning ... have been given conceded preferences to the children of alumni.
Harry A. Blackmun
#9. 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 of himself.
Harry A. Blackmun
#10. Who is to say that 5 men 10 years ago were right whereas 5 men looking the other direction today are wrong.
Harry A. Blackmun
#11. This Court repeatedly has recognized that the whole subject of the domestic relations of husband and wife belongs to the laws of the States and not to the laws of the United States.
Harry A. Blackmun
#12. 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.
Harry A. Blackmun
#13. If [a United States Supreme Court Justice is] in the doghouse with the Chief [Justice], he gets the crud. He gets the tax cases.
Harry A. Blackmun
#14. The states are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life, to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies.
Harry A. Blackmun
#15. 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.
Harry A. Blackmun
#16. 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.
Harry A. Blackmun
#17. Disapproval of homosexuality cannot justify invading the houses, hearts and minds of citizens who choose to live their lives differently.
Harry A. Blackmun
#19. What the Court really has refused to recognize is the fundamental interest all individuals have in controlling the nature of their intimate associations.
Harry A. Blackmun
#20. When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs. A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some.
Harry A. Blackmun
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