Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 142

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

7 

ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment 

Following  that  “fundamental  principle  of  judicial  re-
straint,”  Washington  State  Grange,  552  U. S.,  at  450,  we 
should begin with the narrowest basis for disposition, pro-
ceeding  to  consider  a  broader  one  only  if  necessary  to  re-
solve the case at hand.  See, e.g., Office of Personnel Man-
agement v. Richmond, 496 U. S. 414, 423 (1990).  It is only 
where there is no valid narrower ground of decision that we 
should go on to address a broader issue, such as whether a 
constitutional decision should be overturned.  See Federal 
Election Comm’n v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U. S. 
449, 482 (2007) (declining to address the claim that a con-
stitutional decision should be overruled when the appellant
prevailed on its narrower constitutional argument).

Here, there is a clear path to deciding this case correctly
without overruling Roe all the way down to the studs: rec-
ognize that the viability line must be discarded, as the ma-
jority rightly does, and leave for another day whether to re-
ject  any  right  to  an  abortion  at  all.  See  Webster  v. 
Reproductive  Health  Services,  492  U. S.  490,  518,  521 
(1989)  (plurality  opinion)  (rejecting  Roe’s  viability  line  as
“rigid” and “indeterminate,” while also finding “no occasion 
to revisit the holding of Roe” that, under the Constitution, 
a State must provide an opportunity to choose to terminate 
a pregnancy).

Of course, such an approach would not be available if the 
rationale of Roe and Casey was inextricably entangled with
and dependent upon the viability standard.  It is not.  Our 
precedents  in  this  area  ground  the  abortion  right  in  a
woman’s “right to choose.”  See Carey v. Population Services 
Int’l, 431 U. S. 678, 688–689 (1977) (“underlying foundation 
of  the  holdings”  in  Roe  and  Griswold  v.  Connecticut,  381 
U. S.  479  (1965),  was  the  “right  of  decision  in  matters  of
childbearing”); Maher v. Roe, 432 U. S. 464, 473 (1977) (Roe 
and other cases “recognize a constitutionally protected in-
terest in making certain kinds of important decisions free 
from governmental compulsion” (internal quotation marks