"Blackmun had little notion of the firestorm he had just ignited. Within days, his mailbox was flooded with missives from angry pro-lifers. Some compared him to Herod and Hitler, while others pleased with him to reconsider the case. Many predicted the imminent legalization of euthanasia, a development that pro-lifers had long warned about. Blackmun was taken aback by the uproar. “The mail has been voluminous and much of it critical and some of it abusive,” he complained to a friend on January 31, a week after delivering the majority opinion in Roe. “I suspect, however, that the furor will die down before too long. At least I hope so. NARAL president Lee Gidding similarly dismissed the pro-lifers’ apocalyptic laments as the words of “fanatics.” Before you know it this will be past history and abortion will be just another medical procedure,” she confidently predicted. “People will forget about this whole thing.” Gidding and Blackmun could not have been more wrong."