Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 6.0

6  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

Syllabus 

argument  is  that  viability  has  changed  over  time  and  is  heavily  de-
pendent on factors—such as medical advances and the availability of
quality medical care—that have nothing to do with the characteristics
of a fetus. 

When Casey revisited Roe almost 20 years later, it reaffirmed Roe’s 
central holding, but pointedly refrained from endorsing most of its rea-
soning.  The Court abandoned any reliance on a privacy right and in-
stead grounded the abortion right entirely on the Fourteenth Amend-
ment’s Due Process Clause.  505 U. S., at 846.  The controlling opinion 
criticized and rejected Roe’s trimester scheme, 505 U. S., at 872, and 
substituted a new and obscure “undue burden” test.  Casey, in short, 
either refused to reaffirm or rejected important aspects of Roe’s analy-
sis, failed to remedy glaring deficiencies in Roe’s reasoning, endorsed
what it termed Roe’s central holding while suggesting that a majority
might not have thought it was correct, provided no new support for the 
abortion right other than Roe’s status as precedent, and imposed a new 
test  with  no  firm  grounding  in  constitutional  text,  history,  or  prece-
dent.  Pp. 45–56.

(3) Workability.    Deciding  whether  a  precedent  should  be  over-
ruled depends in part on whether the rule it imposes is workable—that
is, whether it can be understood and applied in a consistent and pre-
dictable manner.  Casey’s “undue burden” test has scored poorly on the 
workability scale.  The Casey plurality tried to put meaning into the 
“undue  burden”  test  by  setting  out  three subsidiary  rules,  but  these 
rules created their own problems.  And the difficulty of applying Ca-
sey’s new rules surfaced in that very case.  Compare 505 U. S., at 881– 
887, with id., at 920–922 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissent-
ing in part).  The experience of the Courts of Appeals provides further 
evidence that Casey’s “line between” permissible and unconstitutional 
restrictions “has proved to be impossible to draw with precision.”  Ja-
nus, 585 U. S., at ___.  Casey has generated a long list of Circuit con-
flicts.    Continued  adherence  to  Casey’s  unworkable  “undue  burden” 
test would undermine, not advance, the “evenhanded, predictable, and 
consistent development of legal principles.”  Payne, 501 U. S., at 827. 
Pp. 56–62. 

(4) Effect  on  other  areas  of  law.  Roe  and  Casey  have  led  to  the 
distortion of many important but unrelated legal doctrines, and that 
effect provides further support for overruling those decisions.  See Ra-
mos  v.  Louisiana,  590  U. S.  ___,  ___  (KAVANAUGH,  J.,  concurring  in 
part).  Pp. 62–63.

(5) Reliance interests.  Overruling Roe and Casey will not upend 
concrete reliance interests like those that develop in “cases involving 
property and contract rights.”  Payne, 501 U. S., at 828.  In Casey, the 
controlling  opinion  conceded  that  traditional  reliance  interests  were