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62  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

Opinion of the Court 

Casey’s “undue burden” test has proved to be unworkable.
“[P]lucked  from  nowhere,”  505  U. S.,  at  965  (opinion  of 
Rehnquist, C. J.), it “seems calculated to perpetuate give-it-
a-try litigation” before judges assigned an unwieldy and in-
appropriate task.  Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Assn., 500 U. S. 
507, 551 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment in part
and  dissenting  in  part).  Continued  adherence  to  that 
standard would undermine, not advance, the “evenhanded, 
predictable,  and  consistent  development  of  legal  princi-
ples.”  Payne, 501 U. S., at 827. 

D 

Effect on other areas of law.  Roe and Casey have led to 
the distortion of many important but unrelated legal doc-
trines, and that effect provides further support for overrul-
ing those decisions.  See Ramos, 590 U. S., at ___ (opinion 
of KAVANAUGH, J.) (slip op., at 8); Janus, 585 U. S., at ___ 
(slip op., at 34).

Members of this Court have repeatedly lamented that “no
legal rule or doctrine is safe from ad hoc nullification by this 
Court when an occasion for its application arises in a case 
involving  state  regulation  of  abortion.”  Thornburgh,  476 
U. S.,  at  814  (O’Connor,  J.,  dissenting);  see  Madsen  v. 
Women’s  Health  Center,  Inc.,  512  U. S.  753,  785  (1994) 
(Scalia, J., concurring  in judgment in part and dissenting 

—————— 
Health, 888 F. 3d 300, 313 (CA7 2018) (Manion, J., concurring in judg-
ment in part and dissenting in part); Planned Parenthood of Ind. & Ky., 
Inc. v. Box, 949 F. 3d 997, 999 (CA7 2019) (Easterbrook, J., concurring in
denial of reh’g en banc) (“How much burden is ‘undue’ is a matter of judg-
ment, which depends on what the burden would be . . . and whether that 
burden is excessive (a matter of weighing costs against benefits, which 
one  judge  is  apt  to  do  differently  from  another,  and  which  judges  as  a 
group are apt to do differently from state legislators)”); National Abor-
tion Federation v. Gonzales, 437 F. 3d 278, 290–296 (CA2 2006) (Walker, 
C. J., concurring); Planned Parenthood of Rocky Mountains Servs. Corp. 
v. Owens, 287 F. 3d 910, 931 (CA10 2002) (Baldock, J., dissenting).