"Stevens says he thinks if Roe v. Wade had been written more narrowly, the court might have avoided some of the criticism that ensued. “In all candor,” he told me, “I think Harry [Blackmun] could have written a better opinion. I think if the opinion had said what Potter Stewart said very briefly” — namely that the right to marital and family privacy previously recognized by the court included a right to choose abortion — “it might have been much more acceptable, instead of trying to create a new doctrine that really didn’t make sense.” When he went through the confirmation process in 1975, just two years after Roe, Stevens recalled, he was not asked a single question about it. Only later, because of the reaction that followed Roe, did abortion become a central issue in national politics. “I’m really not sure that it’s fair to blame the court for the hostility that’s come on, but I do think that a better opinion might have avoided some of the criticism.”"