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6  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

Opinion of the Court 

opinion was based, does not compel unending adherence to 
Roe’s  abuse  of  judicial  authority.  Roe  was  egregiously 
wrong  from  the  start. 
Its  reasoning  was  exceptionally
weak,  and  the  decision  has  had  damaging  consequences.
And  far  from  bringing  about  a  national  settlement  of  the 
abortion  issue,  Roe  and  Casey  have  enflamed  debate  and 
deepened division.

It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of 
abortion to the people’s elected representatives.  “The per-
missibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to
be  resolved  like  most  important  questions  in  our  democ-
racy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then
voting.”  Casey, 505 U. S., at 979 (Scalia, J., concurring in
judgment in part and dissenting in part).  That is what the 
Constitution and the rule of law demand. 

I 

The  law  at  issue  in  this  case,  Mississippi’s  Gestational 
Age Act, see Miss. Code Ann. §41–41–191 (2018), contains 
this central provision: “Except in a medical emergency or in 
the  case  of  a  severe  fetal  abnormality,  a  person  shall  not
intentionally or knowingly perform . . . or induce an abor-
tion of an unborn human being if the probable gestational
age of the unborn human being has been determined to be
greater than fifteen (15) weeks.”  §4(b).14 

To support this Act, the legislature made a series of fac-
tual findings.  It began by noting that, at the time of enact-
ment,  only  six  countries  besides  the  United  States  “per-
mit[ted]  nontherapeutic  or  elective  abortion-on-demand 
after the twentieth week of gestation.”15  §2(a).  The legisla-

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14 The Act defines “gestational age” to be “the age of an unborn human 
being as calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of the 
pregnant woman.”  §3(f ). 

15 Those  other  six  countries  were  Canada,  China,  the  Netherlands,