Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 160

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

13 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

exist in “1868, the year when the Fourteenth Amendment 
was ratified”?  Ante, at 23.  The majority says (and with this 
much we agree) that the answer to this question is no: In
1868,  there  was  no  nationwide  right  to  end  a  pregnancy,
and no thought that the Fourteenth Amendment provided 
one. 

Of  course,  the  majority  opinion  refers  as  well  to  some 
later and earlier history.  On the one side of 1868, it goes 
back as far as the 13th (the 13th!) century.  See ante, at 17. 
But  that  turns  out  to  be  wheel-spinning.  First,  it  is  not 
clear what relevance such early history should have, even 
to the majority.  See New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., 
Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 26) (“His-
torical evidence that long predates [ratification] may not il-
luminate the scope of the right”).  If the early history obvi-
ously  supported  abortion  rights,  the  majority  would  no 
doubt  say  that  only  the  views  of  the  Fourteenth  Amend-
ment’s ratifiers are germane.  See ibid. (It is “better not to
go too far back into antiquity,” except if olden “law survived 
to  become  our  Founders’  law”).    Second—and  embarrass-
ingly for the majority—early law in fact does provide some 
support  for  abortion  rights.    Common-law  authorities  did 
not treat abortion as a crime before “quickening”—the point 
when the fetus moved in the womb.2  And early American 
law followed the common-law rule.3  So the criminal law of 
that early time might be taken as roughly consonant with 

—————— 

2 See,  e.g.,  1  W.  Blackstone,  Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  England 
129–130 (7th ed. 1775) (Blackstone); E. Coke, Institutes of the Laws of 
England 50 (1644). 

3 See J. Mohr, Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of Na-
tional Policy, 1800–1900, pp. 3–4 (1978).  The majority offers no evidence 
to  the  contrary—no  example  of  a  founding-era  law  making  pre- 
quickening abortion a crime (except when a woman died).  See ante, at 
20–21.  And even in the mid-19th century, more than 10 States continued 
to allow pre-quickening abortions.  See Brief for American Historical As-
sociation et al. as Amici Curiae 27, and n. 14.