Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 39

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

31 

Opinion of the Court 

wish about “existence,” “meaning,” the “universe,” and “the 
mystery of human life,” they are not always free to act in 
accordance with those thoughts.  License to act on the basis 
of such beliefs may correspond to one of the many under-
standings  of  “liberty,”  but  it  is  certainly  not  “ordered  lib-
erty.”

Ordered liberty sets limits and defines the boundary be-
tween  competing  interests.  Roe  and  Casey  each  struck  a 
particular balance between the interests of a woman who
wants  an  abortion  and  the  interests  of  what  they  termed
“potential life.”  Roe, 410 U. S., at 150 (emphasis deleted); 
Casey,  505  U. S.,  at  852.    But  the  people  of  the  various 
States  may  evaluate  those  interests  differently.    In  some 
States, voters may believe that the abortion right should be 
even more extensive than the right that Roe and Casey rec-
ognized.  Voters in other States may wish to impose tight 
restrictions based on their belief that abortion destroys an 
“unborn human being.”  Miss. Code Ann. §41–41–191(4)(b).
Our  Nation’s  historical  understanding  of  ordered  liberty
does not prevent the people’s elected representatives from
deciding how abortion should be regulated. 

Nor does the right to obtain an abortion have a sound ba-
sis in precedent.  Casey relied on cases involving the right 
to marry a person of a different race, Loving v. Virginia, 388 
U. S. 1 (1967); the right to marry while in prison, Turner v. 
Safley,  482  U. S.  78  (1987);  the  right  to  obtain  contracep-
tives, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965), Eisen-
stadt  v.  Baird,  405  U. S.  438  (1972),  Carey  v.  Population 
Services Int’l, 431 U. S. 678 (1977); the right to reside with 
relatives, Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494 (1977); the 
right  to  make  decisions  about  the  education  of  one’s  chil-
dren, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510 (1925), Meyer 
v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 (1923); the right not to be steri-
lized without consent, Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. William-
son, 316 U. S. 535 (1942); and the right in certain circum-
involuntary  surgery,  forced 
stances  not  to  undergo