Michigan Law Review Volume 93 Issue 6 1995 The Countermajoritarian Paradox Neal Davis College of William & Mary Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Constitutional Law Commons, Law and Gender Commons, and the Privacy Law Commons Recommended Citation Neal Davis, The Countermajoritarian Paradox, 93 MICH. L. REV. 1433 (1995). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol93/iss6/14 This Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Law Review at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. THE COUNTERMAJORITARIAN PARADOX Neal Devins* LIBERTY AND SEXUALITY: TEE RIGHT TO PRIVACY AND THE MAKNG OF ROE V. WADE. By DavidJ. Garrow. New York: Mac- millan Publishing Co. 1994. Pp. 981. $28. In 1970, judicial recognition of abortion rights seemed far- fetched. In January of that year, Linda Greenhouse wrote in the New York Times Magazine about a "right to abortion" - describ- ing "[s]uch a notion... [as] fantastic, illusory. The Constitution is searched in vain for any mention of it. The very phrase rings of the rhetoric of a Women's Liberation meeting."' While Greenhouse's bit of hyperbole was a setup to one of the first full-blown popular press treatments of burgeoning judicial recognition of abortion rights, no one could have foreseen the prospect of a sweeping Supreme Court decision invalidating forty-six state antiabortion laws - at least not in 1970.