Harry A. Blackmun

Associate Justice from 1970 to 1994 who wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade (1973), establishing a constitutional right to abortion under the Fourteenth Amendment. Initially a conservative Nixon appointee, Blackmun evolved into a leading liberal voice. In his dissent from the denial of certiorari in Callins v. Collins (1994), written two months before his retirement, he wrote: "From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death."