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18  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

that it is happy to pick and choose, in accord with individual 
preferences.  See  ante,  at  32,  66,  71–72;  ante,  at  10 
(KAVANAUGH, J., concurring); but  see ante, at 3 (THOMAS, 
J., concurring).  But that is a matter we discuss later.  See 
infra, at 24–29.  For now, our point is different: It is that 
applications  of  liberty  and  equality  can  evolve  while  re-
maining  grounded  in  constitutional  principles,  constitu-
tional  history,  and  constitutional  precedents.    The  second 
Justice  Harlan  discussed  how  to  strike  the  right  balance 
when he explained why he would have invalidated a State’s
ban on contraceptive use.  Judges, he said, are not “free to
roam where unguided speculation might take them.”  Poe v. 
Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 542 (1961) (dissenting opinion).  Yet 
they also must recognize that the constitutional “tradition” 
of this country is not captured whole at a single moment. 
Ibid.  Rather,  its  meaning  gains  content  from  the  long
sweep  of  our  history  and  from  successive  judicial  prece-
dents—each looking to the last and each seeking to apply
the Constitution’s most fundamental commitments to new 
conditions.  That is why Americans, to go back to Oberge-
fell’s  example,  have  a  right  to  marry  across  racial  lines. 
And it is why, to go back to Justice Harlan’s case, Ameri-
cans have a right to use contraceptives so they can choose 
for themselves whether to have children. 

All  that  is  what  Casey  understood.  Casey  explicitly  re-
jected the present majority’s method.  “[T]he specific prac-
tices of States at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth
Amendment,” Casey stated, do not “mark[ ] the outer limits 
of  the  substantive  sphere  of  liberty  which  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment protects.”   505 U. S., at 848.5  To hold other-
wise—as  the  majority  does  today—“would  be  inconsistent 

—————— 

5 In a perplexing paragraph in its opinion, the majority declares that it
need not say whether that statement from Casey is true.  See ante, at 32– 
33.  But how could that be?  Has not the majority insisted for the prior 
30  or  so  pages  that  the  “specific  practice[ ]”  respecting  abortion  at  the