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Page Number: 62.0

54  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

Opinion of the Court 

decision as a matter of policy, were unsparing in their crit-
icism.  John Hart Ely famously wrote that Roe was “not con-
stitutional law and g[ave] almost no sense of an obligation 
to try to be.”  Ely 947 (emphasis deleted).  Archibald Cox, 
who served as Solicitor General under President Kennedy, 
commented that Roe “read[s] like a set of hospital rules and
regulations”  that  “[n]either  historian,  layman,  nor  lawyer 
will be persuaded . . . are part of . . . the Constitution.”  The 
Role of the Supreme Court in American Government 113–
114 (1976).  Laurence Tribe wrote that “even if there is a 
need to divide pregnancy into several segments with lines 
that  clearly  identify  the  limits  of  governmental  power,
‘interest-balancing’  of  the  form  the  Court  pursues  fails  to 
justify any of the lines actually drawn.”  Tribe 4–5.  Mark 
Tushnet termed Roe a “totally unreasoned judicial opinion.” 
Red, White, and Blue: A Critical Analysis of Constitutional 
Law 54 (1988).  See also P. Bobbitt, Constitutional Fate 157 
(1982);  A.  Amar,  Foreword:  The  Document  and  the  Doc-
trine, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 26, 110 (2000). 

Despite  Roe’s  weaknesses,  its  reach  was  steadily  ex-
tended in the years that followed.  The Court struck down 
laws  requiring  that  second-trimester  abortions  be  per-
formed only in hospitals, Akron v. Akron Center for Repro-
ductive Health, Inc., 462 U. S. 416, 433–439 (1983); that mi-
nors  obtain  parental  consent,  Planned  Parenthood  of 
Central  Mo.  v.  Danforth,  428  U. S.  52,  74  (1976);  that 
women give written consent after being informed of the sta-
tus of the developing prenatal life and the risks of abortion, 
Akron, 462 U. S., at 442–445; that women wait 24 hours for 
an abortion, id., at 449–451; that a physician determine vi-
ability in a particular manner, Colautti, 439 U. S., at 390– 
397;  that  a  physician  performing  a  post-viability  abortion 
use the technique most likely to preserve the life of the fe-
tus, id., at 397–401; and that fetal remains be treated in a 
humane  and  sanitary  manner,  Akron,  462  U. S.,  at  451– 
452.