[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 176 (Wednesday, November 14, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H13947]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE LIFE OF CATHERINE RORABACK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 
life and accomplishments of Catherine Roraback of Canaan, Connecticut. 
Ms. Roraback passed away on Wednesday, October 17 in Salisbury, 
Connecticut, and will be greatly missed by her family, by her 
community, and by her country.
  Ms. Roraback was best known for successfully arguing the landmark 
case of Griswold v. Connecticut in front of the United States Supreme 
Court in 1965. This groundbreaking case overturned an 1849 Connecticut 
law that banned the use of contraception. And this historic decision 
established the right to privacy that exists to this day as the 
foundation of many of our most revered constitutional freedoms.
  Ms. Roraback was the only woman in her graduating class from Yale Law 
School in 1948, and she quickly established a law practice dedicated to 
protecting the rights of those that she called the ``dissenters and the 
dispossessed.'' Her groundbreaking work in the Griswold case was simply 
an extension of her life's work, which included the founding of the 
Connecticut Civil Liberties Union and serving on innumerable boards and 
commissions to serve her community and her State.
  Mr. Speaker, Catherine Roraback was a national figure. But where she 
shined the brightest was at her desk in her law office in northwestern 
Connecticut, where she worked out of for almost her entire career. She 
was always a caring and fiercely intelligent adviser and advocate to 
her neighbors and her clients, and she was a mentor to generations of 
community leaders and advocates, including my friend and her cousin, 
State Senator Andrew Roraback, with whom I had the pleasure of serving 
in the State Senate for 4 years.
  I had the pleasure of getting to know Ms. Roraback just a little in 
the last few years, and though we only got to spend a brief few moments 
together, I feel so blessed to have had the fleeting chance to get to 
know one of Connecticut's true heroes. She was an incredible woman with 
an incredible drive and a never erring sense of right and wrong. I was 
deeply honored to be her representative for the last 10 months, and I 
will strive every day to live according to her example.
  In these very trying days, I think it's incredibly important to 
remember the lessons that Catherine Roraback leaves with us, the 
motivation that underlied her entire work as a lawyer and an advocate, 
because Catherine Roraback taught us that the basic rights that we 
enjoy every day to live and to speak freely cannot be dependent on 
one's lot in life. She also taught us that these rights, these precious 
civil liberties that we enjoy, cannot and should not be taken for 
granted. We must fight for them, now more than ever.
  Mr. Speaker, my thoughts and prayers go out to Catherine Roraback's 
family, her friends, and her beloved community.

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