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Page Number: 75

14 

JUNE MEDICAL SERVICES L. L. C. v. RUSSO 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

standing and, consequently, this Court lacks jurisdiction. 

II 

Even if the plaintiffs had standing, the Court would still 
lack the authority to enjoin Louisiana’s law, which repre-
sents a constitutionally valid exercise of the State’s tradi-
tional police powers.  The plurality and THE CHIEF JUSTICE 
claim that the Court’s judgment is dictated by “our prece-
dents,”  particularly  Whole  Woman’s  Health.  Ante,  at  38 
(plurality  opinion);  see  also  ante,  at  2,  11–16  (ROBERTS, 
C. J., concurring in judgment).  For the detailed reasons ex-
plained  by  JUSTICE ALITO,  this  is  not  true.  Post,  at  3–23 
(dissenting opinion).

But today’s decision is wrong for a far simpler reason: The 
Constitution does not constrain the States’ ability to regu-
late or even prohibit abortion.  This Court created the right 
to abortion based on an amorphous, unwritten right to pri-
vacy, which it grounded in the “legal fiction” of substantive 
due  process,  McDonald  v.  Chicago,  561  U. S.  742,  811 
(2010)  (THOMAS,  J.,  concurring  in  part  and  concurring  in 
judgment).    As  the  origins  of  this  jurisprudence  readily 
demonstrate,  the  putative  right  to  abortion  is  a  creation 
that should be undone. 

A 
The  Court  first  conceived  a  free-floating  constitutional
right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 
(1965).  In that case, the Court declared unconstitutional a 
state law prohibiting the use of contraceptives, finding that
it violated a married couple’s “right of privacy.”  Id., at 486. 
The Court explained that this right could be found in the
“penumbras” of five different Amendments to the Constitu-
tion—the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth.  Id., at 484. 
Rather than explain what free speech or the quartering of 
troops had to do with contraception, the Court simply de-
clared that these rights had created “zones of privacy” with