The Pre-Roe Pro-Life Movement in Minnesota and New York

Conclusion
Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun returned again to his home state of
Minnesota two years after the Roe decision was announced. Far from the welcome he
received at the Mayo Clinic half a decade before, many Minnesotans soon rebelled
against the Supreme Court justice the state once helped foster. On August 2, 1975,
MCCL staged a demonstration entitled “Liberty and Justice for All” at the Town and
Country Club in St. Paul, Minnesota. The focus of the demonstration was Blackmun and
the Roe decision he authored as he returned to Minnesota for his 50 th reunion of the
Mechanic Arts class of 1925. Frustrated by two years of protesting from afar, MCCL
decided to take its message, with its argumentative language based in the Declaration of
Independence, to the Justice himself. Protesters compared the decision to the 1858 Dred
Scott case, in which a slave was ruled a non-citizen; “similarly,” one demonstrator
declared, “Blackmun and his colleagues have defined the pre-born child as a nonperson.”
1
Carrying signs asking for “Life, Liberty and ‘Justice’ for All,” and proclaiming
“Justice Blackmun is a Fetal Veteran,” entire MCCL families marched and protested
along the entrance and front driveway of the country club. 2 The event was aired on local
television networks, and reached a significant Minnesota audience. The same ethics of
community and active citizenry Minnesota fostered in Blackmun as a child were directed
against him and his decision just two years after he made it. This instance highlighted the
sharp divisions the abortion debate had spurred within Minnesota and the nation more
1 “Justice Blackmun the Focus of St. Paul Pro-Life Rally,” MCCL Newsletter, September 1975,
page 6, MCCL Archives.
2 Ibid.
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