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14  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

Opinion of the Court 

200 different senses in which the term had been used.21 

In interpreting what is meant by the Fourteenth Amend-
ment’s  reference  to  “liberty,”  we  must  guard  against  the 
natural human tendency to confuse what that Amendment 
protects with our own ardent views about the liberty that
Americans  should  enjoy.  That  is why  the  Court  has  long
been “reluctant” to recognize rights that are not mentioned 
in  the  Constitution.  Collins  v.  Harker  Heights,  503  U. S. 
115, 125 (1992).  “Substantive due process has at times been
a treacherous field for this Court,” Moore v. East Cleveland, 
431  U. S.  494,  503  (1977)  (plurality  opinion),  and  it  has 
sometimes led the Court to usurp authority that the Con-
stitution  entrusts  to  the  people’s  elected  representatives.
See Regents of Univ. of Mich. v. Ewing, 474 U. S. 214, 225– 
226  (1985).   As  the  Court  cautioned  in  Glucksberg,  “[w]e 
must . . . exercise the utmost care whenever we are asked 
to break new ground in this field, lest the liberty protected
by the Due Process Clause be subtly transformed into the
policy preferences of the Members of this Court.”  521 U. S., 
at 720 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 

On occasion, when the Court has ignored the “[a]ppropri-
ate  limits”  imposed  by  “ ‘respect  for  the  teachings  of  his-
tory,’ ”  Moore,  431  U. S.,  at  503  (plurality  opinion),  it  has 
fallen  into  the  freewheeling  judicial  policymaking  that
characterized discredited decisions such as Lochner v. New 
York, 198 U. S. 45 (1905).  The Court must not fall prey to
such an unprincipled approach.  Instead, guided by the his-
tory and tradition that map the essential components of our
Nation’s concept of ordered liberty, we must ask what the 
Fourteenth Amendment means by the term “liberty.”  When 
we engage in that inquiry in the present case, the clear an-
swer  is  that  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  does  not  protect 

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21 Four Essays on Liberty 121 (1969).