Harry Blackmun: Dissent in Bowers v. Hardwick

( 1986 ) Commentary by Renee C. Redman, Connecticut and Quinnipiac Universities Schools of Law

“I believe we must analyze Hardwick's claim in the light of the values that underlie the constitutional right to privacy. If that right means anything, it means that, before Georgia can prosecute its citizens for making choices about the most intimate aspects of their lives, it must do more than assert that the choice they have made is an ‘abominable crime not fit to be named among Christians.’… Only the most willful blindness could obscure the fact that sexual intimacy is ‘a sensitive, key relationship of human existence, central to family life, community welfare, and the development of human personality.’” - Bowers v. Hardwick

Harry Blackmun (Library of Congress)

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