One Steps Down. Who Steps Up?

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Among the issues that may face future Justices, many conservatives argue that the "takings" clause of the Fifth Amendment is ripe for swift attention to protect property owners from such government restraints as zoning laws and environmental regulations that reduce the value of their property without compensation. The information highway promises multiple collisions between intellectual-property rights and the free-expression rights of those who would use the data they find there. And the potential of genetic testing to detect a predisposition to illness or undesirable behavior will challenge the privacy rights of all Americans. Any of those issues could consume the court years from now -- or sooner. At Justice Blackmun's Senate confirmation hearings in 1970 -- just three years before he wrote Roe v. Wade -- no one asked him about abortion.