BLACKMUN, J., Dissenting Opinion

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

448 U.S. 297

Harris v. McRae

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, dissenting. ^[*]

I join the dissent of MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, and agree wholeheartedly with his and MR. JUSTICE STEVENS' respective observations and descriptions of what the Court is doing in this latest round of "abortion cases." I need add only that I find what I said in dissent in Beal v. Doe, 432 U.S. 438, 462 (1977), and its two companion cases, Maher v. Roe, 432 U.S. 464 (1977), and Poelker v. Doe, 432 U.S. 519 (1977), continues for me to be equally pertinent and equally applicable in these Hyde Amendment cases. There is "condescension" in the Court's holding that "she may go elsewhere for her abortion"; this is "disingenuous and alarming"; the Government "punitively impresses upon a needy minority its own concepts of the socially desirable, the publicly acceptable, and the morally sound"; the "financial argument, of course, is specious"; there truly is "another world ‘out there,' the existence of which the Court, I suspect, either chooses to ignore [p349] or fears to recognize"; the "cancer of poverty will continue to grow"; and "the lot of the poorest among us," once again, and still, is not to be bettered.

* [This opinion applies also to No. 79-4, Williams et al. v. Zbaraz et al., No. 79-5, Miller, Acting Director, Illinois Department of Public Aid, et al. v. Zbaraz et al., and No. 79-491, United States v. Zbaraz et al., post, p. 358.]