At the request of sources, Mr. Beckwith and his editor postponed publication until January 17, 1973, when the Law decision was to be announced. This article was included on page 46 of the issue that hits newsstands on January 22nd.
When Chief Justice Warren E. Berger unexpectedly delayed issuing his opinion (perhaps so as not to affect President Richard M. Nixon’s second inauguration), Mr. Beckwith said: I had the news to myself for several hours.
“Last week, Time magazine learned that the Supreme Court had decided to nullify nearly all anti-abortion laws in the country,” he wrote.
He bolstered that revelation with the following prediction.
David Cameron Beckwith was born on October 30, 1942 in Seattle, the eldest of two brothers. His father, Cameron Beckwith, was a typesetter. His mother, Lord (Bjorge) Beckwith, was a stay-at-home mom.
The family moved to Binghamton, New York, and then to the Chicago suburb of Lyons Township, Illinois, where David graduated from high school. He studied history at college in Carlton, Minnesota, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1964 and his master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1965. Before he entered law school, he was a reporter for the Minneapolis He Star and Houston He Chronicle.
In addition to his former teacher and librarian wife, whom he married in 1979, he has two daughters, Fuller Beckwith and Valea Beckwith, and two grandchildren.