Americans at the End of the Age

When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, the surviving 16 million men and women who had served in World War II had reached an average age of 56 years. 

The president at the time, Richard Nixon, was just a bit older at 60, but he had been a Navy commander in the Pacific war, so a little seniority would be expected. Nixon and his fellow veterans had been in civilian life for more than 25 years, long enough to have mostly raised their...