It is 41 years since the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision, effectively legalizing abortion everywhere in the United States. Ever since it has been a source of controversy — and confusion.

Some of that confusion is owed to the fact that the opinion was written by Justice Harry Blackmun, the only one of America’s 112 Supreme Court justices to sped most of his prejudicial legal career defending doctors, as counsel for the Mayo Clinic. Doctors, not women, were the targets of abortion prosecutions.