Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 72.0

64  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

Opinion of the Court 

See  Ramos,  590  U. S.,  at  ___  (opinion  of  KAVANAUGH,  J.)
(slip op., at 15); Janus, 585 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 34– 
35). 

1 
Traditional reliance interests arise “where advance plan-
ning of great precision is most obviously a necessity.”  Ca-
sey,  505  U. S.,  at  856  (joint  opinion);  see  also  Payne,  501 
U. S.,  at  828.  In  Casey,  the  controlling  opinion  conceded 
that those traditional reliance interests were not implicated
because getting an abortion is generally “unplanned activ-
ity,” and “reproductive planning could take virtually imme-
diate account of any sudden restoration of state authority 
to ban abortions.”  505 U. S., at 856.  For these reasons, we 
agree with the Casey plurality that conventional, concrete
reliance interests are not present here. 

2 
Unable to find reliance in the conventional sense, the con-
trolling opinion in Casey perceived a more intangible form
of reliance.  It wrote that “people [had] organized intimate 
relationships  and  made  choices  that  define  their  views  of
themselves and their places in society . . . in reliance on the 
availability  of  abortion  in  the  event  that  contraception
should fail” and that “[t]he ability of women to participate 
equally  in  the  economic  and  social  life  of  the  Nation  has 
been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive 
lives.”  Ibid.  But this Court is ill-equipped to assess “gen-
eralized assertions about the national psyche.”  Id., at 957 
(opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.).  Casey’s notion of reliance thus 
finds little support in our cases, which instead emphasize
very concrete reliance interests, like those that develop in
“cases involving property and contract rights.”  Payne, 501 
U. S., at 828. 

When a concrete reliance interest is asserted, courts are 
equipped to evaluate the claim, but assessing the novel and