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Page Number: 51

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JUNE MEDICAL SERVICES L. L. C. v. RUSSO 

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

U. Chi. L. Rev. 1175, 1182 (1989).

In this context, courts applying a balancing test would be
asked in essence to weigh the State’s interests in “protect-
ing  the  potentiality  of  human  life”  and  the  health  of  the 
woman, on the one hand, against the woman’s liberty inter-
est in defining her “own concept of existence, of meaning, of 
the universe, and of the mystery of human life” on the other. 
Casey, 505 U. S., at 851 (opinion of the Court); id., at 871 
(plurality  opinion)  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).
There is no plausible sense in which anyone, let alone this 
Court, could objectively assign weight to such imponderable
values  and  no  meaningful  way  to  compare  them  if  there 
were.  Attempting to do so would be like “judging whether
a particular line is longer than a particular rock is heavy,” 
Bendix  Autolite  Corp.  v.  Midwesco  Enterprises,  Inc.,  486 
U. S. 888, 897 (1988) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment).
Pretending that we could pull that off would require us to 
act as legislators, not judges, and would result in nothing 
other than an “unanalyzed exercise of judicial will” in the
guise  of  a  “neutral  utilitarian  calculus.”  New  Jersey  v. 
T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 369 (1985) (Brennan, J., concurring
in part and dissenting in part). 
  Nothing about Casey suggested that a weighing of costs
and  benefits  of  an  abortion  regulation  was  a  job  for  the 
courts.  On the contrary, we have explained that the “tradi-
tional rule” that “state and federal legislatures [have] wide 
discretion to pass legislation in areas where there is medi-
cal  and  scientific  uncertainty”  is  “consistent  with  Casey.” 
Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U. S. 124, 163 (2007).  Casey in-
stead focuses on the existence of a substantial obstacle, the 
sort  of  inquiry  familiar  to  judges  across  a  variety  of  con-
texts.  See,  e.g.,  Burwell  v.  Hobby  Lobby  Stores,  Inc.,  573 
U. S. 682, 694–695 (2014) (asking whether the government
“substantially burdens a person’s exercise of religion” under
the Religious Freedom Restoration Act); Arizona Free En-
terprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, 564 U. S. 721,