"The meanings associated with the phrase “abortion on demand” were in flux at the time Roe was handed down. As we saw in Part I, the feminist movement used the phrase in seeking abortion rights during the movement’s Strike for Equality in 1970 [see page 44, the illustration of the flyer]. The feminist claim for abortion “on demand” sought repeal of abortion restrictions; the claim challenged as paternalistic new abortion-reform laws based on the “therapeutic” model. Those laws gave doctors the power to decide whether a woman had a sufficient reason to have an abortion, and so reduced women to supplicants of men and the state. In claiming abortion on demand, feminists asserted that women were fully competent to decide for themselves whether to continue a pregnancy, and should not have such a question decided by a stranger, even a medical professional. But women’s assertion of decisional authority was disturbing to many. What feminists understood as a question of dignity and self-governance their critics saw as an invitation to self-indulgence. Critics of the abortion-repeal movement argued that decriminalization would allow women access to abortion for insufficient reasons, and some suggested that liberalizing access to abortion would encourage moral laxity—sexual license, abdication of maternal responsibility, and a general breakdown of self- and social control. Thus, where feminists asserted that abortion’s criminalization was wrongful because it was insufficiently respectful of women, their critics expressed doubt that women’s judgment in matters of abortion was respect-worthy. Backlash came to torque and flip the very meaning of “abortion on demand.” In the early 1970s, the meaning of the phrase remained unsettled as feminist and antifeminist usages circulated. In April 1971, President Nixon invoked the phrase in his official statement repudiating the Pentagon’s liberal policy that permitted servicewomen to obtain abortions in any military hospital. [see annotation on p. 198, brief in the Struck case.] “Unrestricted abortion policies, or abortion on demand, I cannot square with my personal belief in the sanctity of human life,” the president said. Whether or not Justice Blackmun was aware of the original meaning of the phrase, it is highly likely that he was aware of the negative meaning that “abortion on demand” was then acquiring. In striking this original concluding paragraph of the hand-down, Justice Blackmun appears to have decided that he would address the concerns of Chief Justice Burger and others less contentiously, and emphasize Roe’s moderation in language that distanced the Court from the claims of both abortion rights advocates and their critics."