"Justice Blackmun in Roe resisted the unborn’s claim, so devastating to the appellant’s case, for several articulated reasons: (1) No case could be cited holding the fetus a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment; (2) none of the many uses of the term “person” in the Constitution indicated, “with any assurance, that it ha[d any possible pre-natal application; (3) abortion restrictions were “far freer” (Backmun’s phrase) when the Amendment was adopted “than they were today”, suggesting that the unborn were not “persons” in some whole sense he thought presupposed by counsel for the unborn. In this connection, Justice Blackmun took note of some alleged inconsistencies between Texas’ very restrictive law, and how even it fell short of the constitutional requirements which would be implied by a finding of fetal personhood. Specifically, abortion was not “murder” in Texas, but a lesser form of criminally punishable homicide. And, abortions were permitted to save the life of the mother. Blackmun cleaved closely to constitutional text, history contemporaneous with its enactment, and decided cases. He examined the “coherence” on controversial propositions asserted by the parties with settled principles of law. This is a good general approach to constitutional construction; indeed, it is originalism, or something very close to it."