Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 35.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

27 

Opinion of the Court 

been  discredited,38 and it has come to light that even mem-
bers of Jane Roe’s legal team did not regard them as serious
scholarship.  An internal memorandum characterized this 
author’s  work  as  donning  “the  guise  of  impartial  scholar-
ship while advancing the proper ideological goals.”39  Con-
tinued reliance on such scholarship is unsupportable. 

The Solicitor General next suggests that history supports
an abortion right because the common law’s failure to crim-
inalize  abortion  before  quickening  means  that  “at  the 
Founding  and  for  decades  thereafter,  women  generally 
could terminate a pregnancy, at least in its early stages.”40 
Brief for United States 26–27; see also Brief for Respond-
ents 21.  But the insistence on quickening was not univer-
sal, see Mills, 13 Pa., at 633; State v. Slagle, 83 N. C. 630, 
632 (1880), and regardless, the fact that many States in the 

—————— 

38 For critiques of Means’s work, see, e.g., Dellapenna 143–152, 325– 
331;  Keown  3–12;  J.  Finnis,  “Shameless  Acts”  in  Colorado:  Abuse  of 
Scholarship  in  Constitutional  Cases,  7  Academic  Questions  10,  11–12
(1994);  R.  Destro,  Abortion  and  the  Constitution:  The  Need  for  a  Life-
Protective Amendment, 63 Cal. L. Rev. 1250, 1267–1282 (1975); R. Byrn, 
An American Tragedy: The Supreme Court on Abortion, 41 Ford. L. Rev. 
807, 814–829 (1973). 

39 Garrow 500–501, and n. 41 (internal quotation marks omitted). 
40 In  any  event,  Roe,  Casey,  and  other  related  abortion  decisions  im-
posed substantial restrictions on a State’s capacity to regulate abortions
performed after quickening.  See, e.g., June Medical Services L. L. C. v. 
Russo, 591 U. S. ___ (2020) (holding a law requiring doctors performing
abortions  to  secure  admitting  privileges  to  be  unconstitutional);  Whole 
Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 579 U. S. 582 (2016) (similar); Casey, 505 
U. S.,  at  846  (declaring  that  prohibitions  on  “abortion  before  viability”
are unconstitutional); id., at 887–898 (holding that a spousal notification
provision was unconstitutional).  In addition, Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 
(1973), has been interpreted by some to protect a broad right to obtain 
an abortion at any stage of pregnancy provided that a physician is willing 
to certify that it is needed due to a woman’s “emotional” needs or “famil-
ial” concerns.  Id., at 192.  See, e.g., Women’s Medical Professional Corp. 
v. Voinovich, 130 F. 3d 187, 209 (CA6 1997), cert. denied, 523 U. S. 1036
(1998); but see id., at 1039 (THOMAS, J., dissenting from denial of certio-
rari).