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

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

11 

Opinion of the Court 

only one sex can undergo does not trigger heightened con-
stitutional  scrutiny  unless  the  regulation  is  a  “mere  pre-
tex[t] designed to effect an invidious discrimination against
members of one sex or the other.”  Geduldig v. Aiello, 417 
U. S. 484, 496, n. 20 (1974).  And as the Court has stated, 
the “goal of preventing abortion” does not constitute “invid-
iously discriminatory animus” against women.  Bray v. Al-
exandria  Women’s  Health  Clinic,  506  U. S.  263,  273–274 
(1993)  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).  Accordingly,
laws  regulating  or  prohibiting  abortion  are  not  subject  to 
heightened  scrutiny.  Rather,  they  are  governed  by  the
same  standard  of  review  as  other  health  and  safety 
measures.18 

With this new theory addressed, we turn to Casey’s bold 
assertion that the abortion right is an aspect of the “liberty”
protected  by  the  Due  Process  Clause  of  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment.  505 U. S., at 846; Brief for Respondents 17; 
Brief for United States 21–22. 

2 
The  underlying  theory  on  which  this  argument  rests—
that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause pro-
vides substantive, as well as procedural, protection for “lib-
erty”—has long been controversial.  But our decisions have 
held that the Due Process Clause protects two categories of 
substantive rights.

The first consists of rights guaranteed by the first eight
Amendments.  Those Amendments originally applied only
to the Federal Government, Barron ex rel. Tiernan v. Mayor 
of  Baltimore,  7  Pet.  243,  247–251  (1833)  (opinion  for  the
Court by Marshall, C. J.), but this Court has held that the 
Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment “incor-
porates” the great majority of those rights and thus makes 
them equally applicable to the States.  See McDonald, 561 

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18 We discuss this standard in Part VI of this opinion.