"While many of us associate the abortion right with Roe's author, Justice Harry Blackmun, mid-December 1971 correspondence actually identifies William O. Douglas to be the strongest advocate for abortion as an extension of his earlier opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) invalidating a Connecticut law limiting the use of artificial contraception. (Letter from William O. Douglas to Chief Justice Warren Burger, dated December 18, 1971. Following oral argument, the Justices discuss cases and take a straw vote. The senior justice in the majority [or the Chief Justice if he is in the majority] then usually assigns the opinion writing. Chief Justice Burger reports that the discussion following the first [Roe] argument was so confused, that there were "literally not enough columns to mark up an accurate reflection of the voting." [Letter from Warren Burger to William O. Douglas, dated December 20, 1971]. Out of expedience, perhaps, Burger assigned the draft writing to Blackmun, his fellow Minnesotan. This infuriated Douglas, since Blackmun was perceived by Douglas as then favoring state abortion restriction. (Blackmun had been appointed to the Court by President Nixon about a year earlier]. By mid-January 1972, Blackmun had looked at the cases and found the issue so unclear that he urged the Chief. Justice to ask for re-argument in both Roe and Doe. (Letter from Harry Blackmun to Warren Burger, dated January 18, 1972]."