Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 67

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

59 

Opinion of the Court 

substantial  obstacle  “in  a  large  fraction  of  cases  in  which 
[it] is relevant,” 505 U. S., at 895, but there is obviously no
clear line between a fraction that is “large” and one that is 
not.  Nor  is  it  clear  what  the  Court  meant  by  “cases  in 
which” a regulation is “relevant.”  These ambiguities have
caused  confusion  and  disagreement.  Compare  Whole 
Woman’s  Health  v.  Hellerstedt,  579  U. S.  582,  627–628 
(2016), with id., at 666–667, and n. 11 (ALITO, J., dissent-
ing). 

2 

The difficulty of applying Casey’s  new rules surfaced in 
that very case.  The controlling opinion found that Pennsyl-
vania’s  24-hour  waiting  period  requirement  and  its 
informed-consent  provision  did  not  impose  “undue  bur-
den[s],” Casey, 505 U. S., at 881–887, but Justice Stevens, 
applying the same test, reached the opposite result,  id., at 
920–922 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part).
That did not bode well, and then-Chief Justice Rehnquist 
aptly observed that “the undue burden standard presents
nothing more workable than the trimester framework.”  Id., 
at 964–966 (dissenting opinion).

The ambiguity of the “undue burden” test also produced
disagreement in later cases.  In Whole Woman’s Health, the 
Court  adopted  the  cost-benefit  interpretation  of  the  test, 
stating  that  “[t]he  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 607 (emphasis added).  But five years later, a ma-
jority of the Justices rejected that interpretation.  See June 
Medical,  591  U. S.  ___.   Four  Justices  reaffirmed  Whole 
Woman’s Health’s instruction to “weigh” a law’s “benefits” 
against  “the  burdens  it  imposes  on  abortion  access.”    591 
U. S., at ___ (plurality opinion) (slip op., at 2) (internal quo-
tation marks omitted).  But THE CHIEF JUSTICE—who cast