"As we now turn to the arguments that were formally presented to the Supreme Court in legal briefs, an intriguing question arises: What did the justices perceive of the turmoil over abortion outside their own quiet precincts? Clearly, they knew that they had on their hands “a most sensitive, emotional, and controversial” issue, as Justice Harry A. Blackmun described it when he announced Roe and Doe from the bench (see page 245). Further, as Justice Blackmun observed, the Court knew that “the controversy will continue.” The justices had not been hermetically sealed off in their chambers during the long months in which the cases were pending. They lived in the world as husbands and fathers. They had set the cases for a second argument, a sign that they regarded the cases as something other than routine. It does appear, however, that the justices in the 7-to-2 majority were responding to a consensus among the elites, particularly of the legal and medical professions, that change was appropriate and necessary. They appreciated that the decision would provoke controversy, but decided the case on grounds that they had reason to suppose would find broad public acceptance. Non-legal material in Justice Blackmun’s file included the Gallup Poll from the summer of 1972, reflecting substantial majorities supporting decriminalization, even among Catholics [see page 207.] The file also contained a series of articles from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, passed on to Justice Blackmun by Justice Potter Stewart. In these articles, prominently displayed in the newspaper during April 1972, an Atlanta physician, Robert A. Hatcher, M.D. asserted that Georgia’s ALI-type reform law had not gone far enough and was not making enough of a difference."