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Page Number: 80.0

72  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

Opinion of the Court 

decisis analysis, and the factors that our doctrine instructs
us to consider like reliance and workability are different for 
these cases than for our abortion jurisprudence. 

B 
1 
We now turn to the concurrence in the judgment, which
reproves us for deciding whether Roe and Casey should be 
retained or overruled.  That opinion (which for convenience
we will call simply “the concurrence”) recommends a “more 
measured course,” which it defends based on what it claims 
is  “a  straightforward  stare  decisis  analysis.”  Post,  at  1 
(opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.).  The concurrence would “leave 
for another day whether to reject any right to an abortion 
at all,” post, at 7, and would hold only that if the Constitu-
tion  protects  any  such  right,  the  right  ends  once  women 
have had “a reasonable opportunity” to obtain an abortion, 
post, at 1.  The concurrence does not specify what period of
time  is  sufficient  to  provide  such  an  opportunity,  but  it 
would hold that 15 weeks, the period allowed under Missis-
sippi’s  law,  is  enough—at  least  “absent  rare  circum-
stances.”  Post, at 2, 10. 

There are serious problems with this approach, and it is 
revealing that nothing like it was recommended by either 
party.  As we have recounted, both parties and the Solicitor
General  have  urged  us  either  to  reaffirm  or  overrule  Roe 
and Casey.  See supra, at 4–5.  And when the specific ap-
proach advanced by the concurrence was broached at oral 
argument, both respondents and the Solicitor General em-
phatically rejected it.  Respondents’ counsel termed it “com-
pletely unworkable” and “less principled and less workable
than viability.”  Tr. of Oral Arg. 54.  The Solicitor General 
argued  that  abandoning  the  viability  line  would  leave 
courts and others with “no continued guidance.”  Id., at 101. 
What is more, the concurrence has not identified any of the