Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1323_c07d.pdf
Page Number: 50.0

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

5 

ROBERTS, C. J., concurring
ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment 

any  medical  procedure,”  enact  “regulations  to  further  the 
health or safety of a woman seeking an abortion.”  Id., at 
878.  To  serve  the  latter  interest,  the  State  may,  among 
other things, “enact rules and regulations designed to en-
courage her to know that there are philosophic and social
arguments of great weight that can be brought to bear in 
favor of continuing the pregnancy to full term.”  Id., at 872. 
The State’s freedom to enact such rules is “consistent with 
Roe’s  central  premises,  and  indeed  the  inevitable  conse-
quence of our holding that the State has an interest in pro-
tecting the life of the unborn.”  Id., at 873. 

Under Casey, the State may not impose an undue burden
on the woman’s ability to obtain an abortion.  “A finding of
an undue burden is a shorthand for the conclusion that a 
state regulation has the purpose or effect of placing a sub-
stantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abor-
tion  of  a  nonviable  fetus.”  Id.,  at  877.  Laws  that  do  not 
pose a substantial obstacle to abortion access are permissi-
ble, so long as they are “reasonably related” to a legitimate
state interest.  Id., at 878. 

After faithfully reciting this standard, the Court in Whole 
Woman’s Health added the following observation: “The rule 
announced  in  Casey  . . .  requires  that  courts  consider  the 
burdens a law imposes on abortion access together with the
benefits those laws confer.”  579 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., 
at 19–20).  The plurality repeats today that the undue bur-
den standard requires courts “to weigh the law’s asserted
benefits against the burdens it imposes on abortion access.” 
Ante, at 2 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Read in isolation from Casey, such an inquiry could invite 
a grand “balancing test in which unweighted factors myste-
riously  are  weighed.”  Marrs  v.  Motorola,  Inc.,  577  F. 3d 
783, 788 (CA7 2009).  Under such tests, “equality of treat-
ment  is  . . .  impossible  to  achieve;  predictability  is  de-
stroyed; judicial arbitrariness is facilitated; judicial courage 
is impaired.”  Scalia, The Rule of Law as a Law of Rules, 56