Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 81.0

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

73 

Opinion of the Court 

more  than  130  amicus  briefs  filed  in  this  case  that  advo-
cated its approach.  The concurrence would do exactly what 
it criticizes Roe for doing: pulling “out of thin air” a test that 
“[n]o party or amicus asked the Court to adopt.”  Post, at 3. 

2 

The concurrence’s most fundamental defect is its failure 
to offer any principled basis for its approach.  The concur-
rence would “discar[d]” “the rule from Roe and Casey that a 
woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy extends up to the
point  that  the  fetus  is  regarded  as  ‘viable’  outside  the 
womb.”  Post, at 2.  But this rule was a critical component 
of the holdings in Roe and Casey, and stare decisis is “a doc-
trine of preservation, not transformation,” Citizens United 
v.  Federal  Election  Comm’n,  558  U. S.  310,  384  (2010) 
(ROBERTS,  C. J.,  concurring).    Therefore,  a  new  rule  that 
discards the viability rule cannot be defended on stare deci-
sis grounds.

The concurrence concedes that its approach would “not be 
available” if “the rationale of Roe and Casey were inextrica-
bly entangled with and dependent upon the viability stand-
ard.”  Post, at 7.  But the concurrence asserts that the via-
bility  line  is  separable  from  the  constitutional  right  they
recognized,  and  can  therefore  be  “discarded”  without  dis-
turbing any past precedent.  Post, at 7–8.  That is simply
incorrect. 

Roe’s  trimester  rule  was  expressly  tied  to  viability,  see 
410 U. S., at 163–164, and viability played a critical role in 
For  example,  in  Planned 
later  abortion  decisions. 
Parenthood  of  Central  Mo.  v.  Danforth,  428  U. S.  52,  the 
Court reiterated  Roe’s rule that a “State may regulate an
abortion to protect the life of the fetus and even may pro-
scribe abortion” at “the stage subsequent to viability.”  428 
U. S., at 61 (emphasis added).  The Court then rejected a
challenge to Missouri’s definition of viability, holding that 
the State’s definition was consistent with Roe’s.  428 U. S.,