Roe v. Wade: The Banality of Evil in Mr. Justice Blackmun

By Andrew M. Greenwell
1/21/2013
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

In 1973 or thereabouts, the devil also paid a visit to another banal man, this time in Minnesota

When the case of Roe v. Wade, which started at the U.S. District Court in Texas, reached the "end of the line," Justice Blackmun wrote the majority (7-2) opinion. The decision he made was wrong, not wrong in any banal sense, but deadly and horrendously wrong. And from the terrible "end of the line," we have endured the terrible beginning of, and so-far have seen nothing but, unending lines of death. Endless women have lined up before abortionists to end the lives of their children in a Holocaust bequeathed to the Nation courtesy of Blackmun's banal moral vision.

Justice Harry Blackmun

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CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - In Hannah Arendt's famous work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, she related her observations on the trial of one of Hitler's henchmen and major organizers of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann. Arendt shared her belief that great evils in history, such as the Holocaust in particular, were not the result of abnormal ideologues or sociopaths, but rather of regular, mild-mannered folks who blindly and unquestionably accepted the conventions of the day.

In her famous words, evil reared its worst face in the morally banal human being, in the human who is, from outward appearances, commonplace. He runs his life by platitudes, by trite statements that mean really nothing. The banal man is not overtly evil, but he is wholly morally obtuse. He can be, nevertheless, the architect of great moral evil It was a phenomenon she called the "banality of evil." The worst part of it is that he never realizes it, and in his banality he may even defend his actions as good without even knowing what good is.

The devil went down to Georgia sings Charlie Daniels, but he was only wielding a fiddle, and a fiddle cannot do great wrong. Sometime in the late 1930s, I suppose, the devil visited a rather banal character named Adolf Eichmann in Berlin, and, eventually, with the power of the Nazi state behind him, this diminutive man became a chief instrument in the horrendous evil we call the Shoa, the Holocaust.

In 1973 or thereabouts, the devil also paid a visit to another banal man, this time in Minnesota. Unfortunately, the devil's choice of instrument was again not a fiddle, but an assortment of curettes and sundry other medical devices, and some strange ideas about viability and penumbras and emanations.

What the devil found in Minnesota was another "little Eichmann," a mild-mannered Methodist by the name of Harry Blackmun. Born in St. Paul, Harry Blackmun was a man who--even as an adult--would sing Methodist hymns at the piano with his mother. I suppose, like Eichmann, he was a Gottgl�ubiger, a "god believer" a banal believer of an equally banal god.

This banal god, the god of Eichmann and the god of Blackmun--I do not recognize their god as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--is one who, like Blackmun's Methodist pastor William Holmes stated in a sermon in support of Mr. Justice Blackmun in 1995, allows us to disregard "unwanted children," and apparently finds Roe v. Wade a "conscientious and civilized opinion." These are banal sentiments, pavestones to Hell.

I don't know who the banal god of Mr. Justice and Reverend Holmes might be--whether this god ought to be called Baal, Moloch, Tlaloc, Beelzebub, or modern Progress I cannot tell--but whatever or whoever it was I know it or he or she certainly was not the God of the Ten Commandments, who with His finger wrote on stone tablets the command in Hebrew: lo' tirsah, "Thou shalt not murder," and really meant it.

Blackmun was not an entirely untypical Midwesterner. In short, he was what in days of yore we would have called a WASP. A bright boy, however, he eventually went to Harvard College, was graduated in Mathematics summa cum laude, and then attended Harvard Law School. He practiced law in private practice, handling trusts, estates, taxation issues, and litigation. Eventually he became resident counsel to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He was a bourgeois lawyer, if perhaps a little on the clever end of things.

He never outgrew his conventional ways. A "conservative old fuddy-duddy," he once described himself. Probably similar to how Eichmann would have described himself, though I don't know the precise German equivalent, perhaps altmodisch or old-fashioned.

His tastes were simple. Blackmun liked baseball. He was a penny-pincher, not pretentious or ostentatious, hardly a spendthrift, and drove a blue VW Beetle even as a justice of the Supreme Court.

A self-deprecating, hard-working sort of guy once he was selected on the Supreme Court by President Nixon (as Nixon's third choice), Justice Blackmun described himself as "Ol' Number Three," and often joked that he had to work long hours because he was "dumber than the rest of the guys" he worked with.

Unfortunately, Justice Blackmun was not only visited by the devil, but at the time of that visit he also sat on the Supreme Court of the United States and was the one to whom had fallen the duty of writing the majority opinion of Roe v. Wade, a decision which with its companion case Doe v. Bolton served to find unconstitutional--on highly specious and questionable constitutional grounds--the laws of the various states that prohibited the killing of our youngest and ...

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1 - 10 of 29 Comments

Harry Reyhing
3 months ago
Mr Greenwell My apologies to you.Point taken.Im sorry I took the ending too literal.It is an excellent article.I just am sick of liberal priests out there who have greatly watered down God's word since vatican 2.For instance some say that the catholic church teaches that no one is in hell.That is universalism and is a greatheresy.But what the church says is we cant say a PARTICULAR person is in hell.Because that person may have repented beforedeath and made it to heaven.But by the same token we cannotsay a particualrp[erson is in heaven because maybe a godly catholic in his last years ecame an immoral wicked atheist and died and went tohell.What the church does teach is heaven and hell is very populated but only God knows whomadeit or who didnt.Thats the realteaching.But thanks Great article
angie
3 months ago
at first while i was reading i agreed with everything that was being said then i took a break then came back to finish........and now as much as I still agree that the "...banality of morals has indeed led to an endless line of deaths..." I am not sure focusing the article on one individual was the right approach...The approach could have ruined this man's chances of conversion...its never good to focus on the sinner rather the sin especially if its in public....moreover in a catholic website...am sorry the approach has not impressed me; God's mercy is to be shown to all as the sun rises to the good and the evil....the article should have taken a closer look at the judgement,its effect then and now and how banal morals were the cause....the banal morals of this particular individual was plainly in poor taste not to ever dare look at its effect on the soul....
Louis Barta
4 months ago
Another brilliant commentary by Mr. Andrew M. Greenwell. Esq., that unfortunately (and myopically) short-circuited into Holocaust propaganda by stating "millions upon millions of Jews will cry out against the pleas of Eichmann." At that time, no such large numbers of Jews (communists) dwelt within the Third Reich's sphere of tyranny. Many fled or were expelled.The vast majority of the Reich's victims were Christians and non-Jews. Don't they count? If so, why weren't they even mentioned?
Emma
4 months ago
FYI .....please register to attend this webcast tonight. Hosts are trying to set a record. 40daysforlife.org to register or for more info.
Andrew M. Greenwell
4 months ago
@harry reyhing. Do not take the ending to be theologically rigorous; you must give me some poetic license. It is in fact kind of tongue in cheek and trying softly to suggest where Blackmun may be. It is somewhere along the line of C. S. Lewis' quip that he could see how a hell for humans and a heaven for mosquitoes could be conveniently combined. A banal "heaven" is a literary euphemism for Hell.
michael
4 months ago
Excellent article...two things should be emphasized. First, Blackmun was appointed by a Republican named Nixon..enough said. Furthermore, the "inspiration" from Harry's decision came not only from Lucifer and his usual offspring, but also from Justice Brennan, Roman Catholic, who was the brains behind the decision. Secondly, all of these issues are not a part of supernatural revelation essentially, but rather something that can be arrived at by human reason. All men are bound to follow the natural moral law, including those things surrounding abortion, sterilization, contraception, and sodomitical activity. There are many souls going to hell for such crimes and not all are Catholic.
EJH
4 months ago
"Many Americans rightly place more value on the lifetime of a 13 year old victim of rape or incest than on the potential life of the product of such an evil act. Those Americans are protected by our constitution - through the Supreme Court - from those who would impose their version of morality on us all."

It is not a "potential life" but a human life.
So you want to punish the innocent victims: the 13 y/o old and the unborn baby with an abortion? Not only will the 13 y/o suffer the trauma of rape but also the traumatic experience that is abortion and the post traumatic stress disorder that oftentimes comes along after an abortion.
Why should the unborn baby be punished for the crime? Shouldn't we punish the real criminal in this case and not these innocents? Are you not imposing your own morality as well in this case?
harry reyhing
4 months ago
Great article.But I dont like the ending.what do u mean t6hat Eichman and Blackmun are in some banal heaven?What are you talking about?Both men IF they died unrepentent are in hell according to the Bible and 2000 years of church teaching.Unless you are one of the phony liberal post vat 2 catholics who water down Gods clear truth on hell.Both men if they truly repented could have made heaven after perhaps a long stay in purgatory.But if unrepentent they died with a mountain of mortal sins on their soul and are in hell
Father James Farfaglia
4 months ago
To Mr. Mark Holder - You are more than welcome to post any opinion on this website. But, please be open to honest, sincere and objective discussion: not ad hominem, but ad rem. Having said that, please feel free to read and listen to my Sunday homily for this weekend at http://www.fatherjames.org/2013/01/18/building-a-culture-of-life/.
johnblaster
4 months ago
Mark Holder, I regret to inform you that you suffer from a lack of understanding on Catholic teaching. As you readily admit, you being a non-catholic you are not aware of Catholic teaching concerning contraception. Contraception is an evil that has led to many of the issues we face in our society today such as underpopulation where we as humanity are no longer replacing ourselves. In reference to your comment earlier on, the 'potential' life is not potential at all. It is a human being! I would agree with you that the victim needs to be cared for! Amen to that! However, the child that was conceived due to the rape/ incest did not choose to be in that situation. That is something that we as humans have understood for a long time. That we do not choose what social class, family or situation we are born into! Therefore, I would argue that the child in the womb of the rape victim would much rather have a father who loves and cares both the child AND the mother. Also, I would like to point out that the child in the womb is having another persons morality (or lack of) forced on them when they are not afforded the basic rights that should be granted unto them. Lastly, the Supreme Court was in direct violation of their Consitutional boundaires when they ruld on Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Balton. It is sad that we had nine justices that ruled on a law that was never a law. The issue should have stayd with the states instead of being tackled by our federal government. This is where the issues of homosexual 'marriage' and abortion should stay. Thank you for your comments, they were a pleasure to read!

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