Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 55.0

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

47 

Opinion of the Court 

This  elaborate  scheme  was  the  Court’s  own  brainchild. 
Neither party advocated the trimester framework; nor did
either  party  or  any  amicus  argue  that  “viability”  should
mark the point at which the scope of the abortion right and
a  State’s  regulatory  authority  should  be  substantially 
transformed.  See Brief for Appellant and Brief for Appellee 
in Roe v. Wade, O. T. 1972, No. 70–18; see also C. Forsythe, 
Abuse of Discretion: The Inside Story of Roe v. Wade 127, 
141 (2012). 

b 
Not only did this scheme resemble the work of a legisla-
ture, but the Court made little effort to explain how these 
rules  could  be  deduced  from  any  of  the  sources  on  which
constitutional  decisions  are  usually  based.  We  have  al-
ready discussed Roe’s treatment of constitutional text, and 
the  opinion  failed  to  show  that  history,  precedent,  or  any 
other cited source supported its scheme.
  Roe featured a lengthy survey of history, but much of its
discussion was irrelevant, and the Court made no effort to 
explain why it was included.  For example, multiple para-
graphs were devoted to an account of the views and prac-
tices  of  ancient  civilizations  where  infanticide  was  widely 
accepted.  See  410  U. S.,  at  130–132  (discussing  ancient 
Greek and Roman practices).49  When it came to the most 
important  historical  fact—how  the  States  regulated  abor-
tion  when  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  was  adopted—the 
Court said almost nothing.  It allowed that States had tight-
ened their abortion laws “in the middle and late 19th cen-
tury,” id., at 139, but it implied that these laws might have 

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49 See, e.g., C. Patterson, “Not Worth the Rearing”: The Causes of In-
fant  Exposure  in  Ancient  Greece,  115  Transactions  Am.  Philosophical 
Assn. 103, 111–123 (1985); A. Cameron, The Exposure of Children and 
Greek Ethics, 46 Classical Rev. 105–108 (1932); H. Bennett, The Expo-
sure of Infants in Ancient Rome, 18 Classical J. 341–351 (1923); W. Har-
ris, Child-Exposure in the Roman Empire, 84 J. Roman Studies 1 (1994).