Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 33

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

25 

Opinion of the Court 

“Court’s opinion in Roe itself convincingly refutes the notion
that the abortion liberty is deeply rooted in the history or 
tradition of our people.”  Thornburgh v. American College of 
Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747, 793 (1986) 
(White, J., dissenting). 

d 
The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is
not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.  On 
the contrary, an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion
on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest 
days of the common law until 1973.  The Court in Roe could 
have  said  of  abortion  exactly  what  Glucksberg  said  of  as-
sisted  suicide:  “Attitudes  toward  [abortion]  have  changed
since Bracton, but our laws have consistently condemned, 
and continue to prohibit, [that practice].”  521 U. S., at 719. 

3 
Respondents and their amici have no persuasive answer

to this historical evidence. 

Neither  respondents  nor  the  Solicitor  General  disputes
the fact that by 1868 the vast majority of States criminal-
ized abortion at all stages of pregnancy.  See Brief for Peti-
tioners 12–13; see also Brief for American Historical Asso-
ciation  et al.  as  Amici  Curiae  27–28,  and  nn.  14–15 
(conceding that 26 out of 37 States prohibited abortion be-
fore quickening); Tr. of Oral Arg. 74–75 (respondents’ coun-
sel conceding the same).  Instead, respondents are forced to
argue that it “does [not] matter that some States prohibited 
abortion  at  the  time  Roe  was  decided  or  when  the  Four-
teenth  Amendment  was  adopted.”  Brief  for  Respondents 
21.  But that argument flies in the face of the standard we 
have applied in determining whether an asserted right that
is  nowhere  mentioned  in  the  Constitution  is  nevertheless 
protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Not only are respondents and their amici unable to show