Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
April 24, 2002
Byron White remembered for voice against abortion
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Retired Supreme Court Justice Byron White, a football hero turned jurist who died April 15, was remembered for dissenting from some of the most controversial court rulings of his time, including the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
White, 84, died of complications of pneumonia at his home in Denver. He had retired from the court in 1993 after serving 31 years, a term stretching from his appointment by President John F. Kennedy to the first months of the Clinton presidency.
One of his more famous dissents at the Supreme Court was in the 1973 Roe case.
He wrote that "the court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life which she carries. ... I find no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities on the people and legislatures of the states."
White said the majority opinion was "an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial rule."
In future cases, White continued to vote to allow states to regulate or prohibit abortion. He also was part of the majority in the 1990 opinion saying the state of Missouri's role in protecting life gave it the prevailing interest in whether Nancy Beth Cruzan should be kept alive in an irreversible coma.
On other issues, he voted to expand the powers of federal courts in ordering racial desegregation of public schools, and favored greater accommodation of religion by governments. He also wrote opinions that struck down capital punishment for rapists, said nude dancing is a form of expression protected by the Constitution, and said child pornography is not protected under free speech provisions.
White had been a college football star for the University of Colorado, named an All-American player. He was the highest-paid professional football player in the country, earning $15,800 for the 1938-39 season with the Pittsburgh Steelers. At the end of the season, he accepted a deferred Rhodes scholarship and left for England.
After World War II began in Europe, White returned to the United States and entered Yale Law School. He continued to play football for the Detroit Lions while studying. In 1942 he joined the Navy and served as an intelligence officer in the Pacific.
He met John F. Kennedy first in England, when the future president's father was ambassador to the Court of St. James. They later crossed paths again in the Navy, when White wrote an intelligence report on the sinking of Kennedy's ship, the PT-109.
White completed his law degree after the war, served as a clerk to Chief Justice Fred Vinson and then returned to Colorado and a law practice specializing in corporate and antitrust law. After working for Kennedy's election in 1960, White became deputy attorney general under the president's brother, Robert F. Kennedy. He was named to the Supreme Court in 1962.
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