Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 152.0

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

5 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

to rights of same-sex intimacy and marriage.  See Lawrence 
v.  Texas,  539  U. S.  558  (2003);  Obergefell  v.  Hodges,  576 
U. S.  644  (2015).  They  are  all  part  of  the  same  constitu-
tional  fabric,  protecting  autonomous  decisionmaking  over
the most personal of life decisions.  The majority (or to be
more accurate, most of it) is eager to tell us today that noth-
ing it does “cast[s] doubt on precedents that do not concern 
abortion.”  Ante, at 66; cf. ante, at 3 (THOMAS, J., concurring) 
(advocating  the  overruling  of  Griswold,  Lawrence,  and 
Obergefell).  But how could that be?  The lone rationale for 
what the majority does today is that the right to elect an
abortion is not “deeply rooted in history”: Not until Roe, the 
majority  argues,  did  people  think  abortion  fell  within  the
Constitution’s guarantee of liberty.  Ante, at 32.  The same 
could  be  said,  though,  of  most  of  the  rights  the  majority
claims it is not tampering with.  The majority could write 
just as long an opinion showing, for example, that until the 
mid-20th century, “there was no support in American law
for a constitutional right to obtain [contraceptives].”  Ante, 
at 15.  So one of two things must be true.  Either the major-
ity does not really believe in its own reasoning.  Or if it does, 
all rights that have no history stretching back to the mid-
19th century are insecure.  Either the mass of the majority’s
opinion is hypocrisy, or additional constitutional rights are 
under threat.  It is one or the other. 

One piece of evidence on that score seems especially sa-
lient: The majority’s cavalier approach to overturning this 
Court’s precedents.  Stare decisis is the Latin phrase for a 
foundation  stone  of  the  rule  of  law:  that  things  decided 
should stay decided unless there is a very good reason for 
change.  It is a doctrine of judicial modesty and humility. 
Those qualities are not evident in today’s opinion.  The ma-
jority has no good reason for the upheaval in law and society 
it sets off.  Roe and Casey have been the law of the land for 
decades,  shaping  women’s  expectations  of  their  choices
when an unplanned pregnancy occurs.  Women have relied