Who wrote the majority opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade?

Who wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade? Justice Harry Blackmun wrote it.

Blackmun joined the Supreme Court in 1970 after serving as general counsel for the Mayo Clinic, a background that influenced his careful discussion of medical practice in the opinion. He was assigned Roe v. Wade after the Court heard arguments in 1971 and reargued the case in 1972.

The Court announced its 7–2 decision on January 22, 1973. Blackmun’s opinion held that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause protected a qualified right to terminate a pregnancy, while also recognizing state interests in maternal health and potential human life. Its trimester framework governed abortion regulation for decades, though later decisions modified that approach.

The majority included Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justices William O. Douglas, William Brennan, Potter Stewart, Thurgood Marshall, and Lewis Powell. William Rehnquist and Byron White dissented; Warren Burger joined the majority rather than writing the opinion. Roe was overturned by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022, but Blackmun remains the author of Roe’s majority opinion.