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44  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

Opinion of the Court 

such decision.  It betrayed our commitment to “equality be-
fore the law.”  163 U. S., at 562 (Harlan, J., dissenting).  It 
was “egregiously wrong” on the day it was decided, see Ra-
mos, 590 U. S., at ___ (opinion of KAVANAUGH, J.) (slip op.,
at 7), and as the Solicitor General agreed at oral argument, 
it should have been overruled at the earliest opportunity, 
see Tr. of Oral Arg. 92–93. 

Roe  was  also  egregiously  wrong  and  deeply  damaging. 
For reasons already explained, Roe’s constitutional analysis
was far outside the bounds of any reasonable interpretation 
of the various constitutional provisions to which it vaguely
pointed. 

Roe was on a collision course with the Constitution from 
the  day  it  was  decided,  Casey  perpetuated  its  errors,  and
those errors do not concern some arcane corner of the law 
of little importance to the American people.  Rather, wield-
ing nothing but “raw judicial power,” Roe, 410 U. S., at 222 
(White, J., dissenting), the Court usurped the power to ad-
dress  a  question  of  profound  moral  and  social  importance 
that  the  Constitution  unequivocally  leaves  for  the  people. 
Casey described itself as calling both sides of the national 
controversy to resolve their debate, but in doing so, Casey 
necessarily  declared  a  winning  side.    Those  on  the  losing
side—those  who  sought  to  advance  the  State’s  interest  in
fetal  life—could  no  longer  seek  to  persuade  their  elected 
representatives  to  adopt  policies  consistent  with  their
views.  The Court short-circuited the democratic process by
closing it to the large number of Americans who dissented
in any respect from Roe.  “Roe fanned into life an issue that 
has inflamed our national politics in general, and has ob-
scured with its smoke the selection of Justices to this Court 
in  particular,  ever  since.”    Casey,  505  U. S.,  at  995–996 
(opinion of Scalia, J.).  Together, Roe and Casey represent
an error that cannot be allowed to stand. 

As the Court’s landmark decision in West Coast Hotel il-
lustrates, the Court has previously overruled decisions that