Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 4.0

4  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

Syllabus 

liberty sets limits and defines the boundary between competing inter-
ests.  Roe and Casey each struck a particular balance between the in-
terests of a woman who wants an abortion and the interests of what 
they termed “potential life.”  Roe, 410 U. S., at 150; Casey, 505 U. S., 
at 852.  But the people of the various States may evaluate those inter-
ests differently.  The Nation’s historical understanding of ordered lib-
erty does not prevent the people’s elected representatives from decid-
ing how abortion should be regulated.  Pp. 11–30.

(3) Finally, the Court considers whether a right to obtain an abor-
tion is part of a broader entrenched right that is supported by other 
precedents.  The Court concludes the right to obtain an abortion cannot 
be justified as a component of such a right.  Attempts to justify abor-
tion through appeals to a broader right to autonomy and to define one’s 
“concept of existence” prove too much.  Casey, 505 U. S., at 851.  Those 
criteria, at a high level of generality, could license fundamental rights 
to  illicit  drug  use,  prostitution,  and  the  like.  What  sharply  distin-
guishes the abortion right from the rights recognized in the cases on 
which  Roe  and  Casey  rely  is  something  that  both  those  decisions 
acknowledged:  Abortion  is  different  because  it  destroys  what  Roe 
termed “potential life” and what the law challenged in this case calls 
an  “unborn human  being.”   None  of  the  other  decisions  cited  by  Roe 
and Casey involved the critical moral question posed by abortion.  Ac-
cordingly, those cases do not support the right to obtain an abortion, 
and the Court’s conclusion that the Constitution does not confer such 
a right does not undermine them in any way.  Pp. 30–32.

(b) The  doctrine  of  stare  decisis  does  not  counsel  continued  ac-
ceptance of Roe and Casey.  Stare decisis plays an important role and 
protects the interests of those who have taken action in reliance on a 
past  decision.    It  “reduces  incentives  for  challenging  settled  prece-
dents, saving parties and courts the expense of endless relitigation.” 
Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 576 U. S. 446, 455.  It “contrib-
utes  to  the  actual  and  perceived  integrity  of  the  judicial  process.” 
Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 827.  And it restrains judicial hubris 
by  respecting  the  judgment  of  those  who  grappled  with  important 
questions in the past.  But stare decisis is not an inexorable command, 
Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U. S. 223, 233, and “is at its weakest when 
[the Court] interpret[s] the Constitution,” Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 
203, 235.  Some of the Court’s most important constitutional decisions
have overruled prior precedents.  See, e.g., Brown v. Board of Educa-
tion, 347 U. S. 483, 491 (overruling the infamous decision in Plessy v. 
Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, and its progeny).  

The Court’s cases have identified factors that should be considered 
in  deciding  when  a  precedent  should  be  overruled.  Janus  v.  State, 
County, and Municipal Employees, 585 U. S. ___, ___–___.  Five factors