Abstract:
In Roe v. Wade much of Justice Blackmun's judgment was devoted to the history of abortion in Anglo-American law. He concluded that a constitutional right to abortion was consistent with that history. In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 281 American historians signed an amicus brief which claimed that Roe was consistent with the nation's history and traditions. This article respectfully questions Justice Blackmun's conclusion and the historians' claim.
Constitutional litigation, perhaps more than any other kind of legal determination, should be based on fact not fiction, truth not untruths, reality not myth. For it makes a unique contribution to shaping us …