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34  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

work with daily in other legal spheres—like the “rule of rea-
son”  in  antitrust  law  or  the  “arbitrary  and  capricious” 
standard for agency decisionmaking.  See Standard Oil Co. 
of N. J. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1, 62 (1911); Motor Vehi-
cle Mfrs. Assn. of United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Au-
tomobile Ins. Co., 463 U. S. 29, 42–43 (1983).  Applying gen-
eral standards to particular cases is, in many contexts, just
what it means to do law. 

And the undue burden standard has given rise to no un-
usual difficulties.  Of course, it has provoked some disagree-
ment among judges.  Casey knew it would: That much “is to 
be expected in the application of any legal standard which
must  accommodate  life’s  complexity.”  505  U. S.,  at  878 
(plurality opinion).  Which is to say: That much is to be ex-
pected in the application of any legal standard.  But the ma-
jority vastly overstates the divisions among judges applying 
  THE  CHIEF 
the  standard.  We  count  essentially  two.
JUSTICE disagreed with other Justices in the June Medical 
majority about whether Casey called for weighing the ben-
efits of an abortion regulation against its burdens.  See 591 
U. S.,  at  ___–___  (slip  op.,  at  6–7);  ante,  at  59,  60,  and 
n. 53.10  We agree that the June Medical difference is a dif-
ference—but not one that would actually make a difference
in the result of most cases (it did not in June Medical), and 
not one incapable of resolution were it ever to matter.  As 
for lower courts, there is now a one-year-old, one-to-one Cir-
cuit split about how the undue burden standard applies to 
state laws that ban abortions for certain reasons, like fetal 
abnormality.  See ante, at 61, and n. 57.  That is about it, 
as far as we can see.11  And that is not much.  This Court 

—————— 

10 Some lower courts then differed over which opinion in June Medical 
was controlling—but that is a dispute not about the undue burden stand-
ard, but about the “Marks rule,” which tells courts how to determine the 
precedential effects of a divided decision. 

11 The  rest  of  the  majority’s  supposed  splits  are,  shall  we  say,  unim-