The present Chief Justice, who was busy with pending cases (including the imminent abortion ruling), allowed Mr. Tobey a half-hour in which to sketch him.

Several have reached the Supreme Court in preliminary form as emergency pleas by men who, having failed to convince state judges, asked the High Court to block imminent abortions.

The legal dispute involved the Supreme Court's 1976 decision declaring unconstitutional a Missouri law that gave husbands a veto over their wives' decisions on abortion - whether that decision bars lower courts from ever considering a man's argument against an imminent abortion.