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8  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

should be overruled.3
  But  the  stare  decisis  analysis  here  is  somewhat  more 
complicated because of Casey.  In 1992, 19 years after Roe, 
Casey acknowledged the continuing dispute over Roe.  The 
Court sought to find common ground that would resolve the 
abortion  debate  and  end  the  national  controversy.  After 
careful  and  thoughtful  consideration,  the  Casey  plurality
reaffirmed  a  right  to  abortion  through  viability  (about  24
weeks),  while  also  allowing  somewhat  more  regulation  of
abortion than Roe had allowed.4 

I have deep and unyielding respect for the Justices who
wrote the Casey plurality opinion.  And I respect the Casey
plurality’s good-faith effort to locate some middle ground or
compromise that could resolve this controversy for America.
But as has become increasingly evident over time, Casey’s 

—————— 

3 I also agree with the Court’s conclusion today with respect to reliance. 
Broad notions of societal reliance have been invoked in support of Roe, 
but  the  Court  has  not  analyzed  reliance  in  that  way  in  the  past.  For 
example,  American  businesses  and  workers  relied  on  Lochner  v.  New 
York, 198 U. S. 45 (1905), and Adkins v. Children’s Hospital of D. C., 261 
U. S.  525  (1923),  to  construct  a  laissez-faire  economy  that  was  free  of
substantial regulation.  In West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379 
(1937),  the  Court  nonetheless  overruled  Adkins  and  in  effect  Lochner. 
An  entire region  of  the  country  relied  on Plessy  v.  Ferguson,  163  U. S. 
537 (1896), to enforce a system of racial segregation.  In Brown v. Board 
of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954), the Court overruled Plessy.  Much of 
American society was built around the traditional view of marriage that 
was upheld in Baker v. Nelson, 409 U. S. 810 (1972), and that was re-
flected in laws ranging from tax laws to estate laws to family laws.  In 
Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U. S. 644 (2015), the Court nonetheless over-
ruled Baker. 

4 As the Court today notes, Casey’s approach to stare decisis pointed in
two  directions.    Casey  reaffirmed  Roe’s  viability  line,  but  it  expressly 
overruled the Roe trimester framework and also expressly overruled two 
landmark post-Roe abortion cases—Akron v. Akron Center for Reproduc-
tive Health, Inc., 462 U. S. 416 (1983), and Thornburgh v. American Col-
lege of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747 (1986).  See Casey, 
505 U. S., at 870, 872−873, 878−879, 882.  Casey itself thus directly con-
tradicts any notion of absolute stare decisis in abortion cases.