Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1323_c07d.pdf
Page Number: 133.0

18 

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

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

guidance.  Nor can it.  The benefits and burdens are incom-
mensurable,  and  they  do  not  teach  such  things  in  law 
school. 

When judges take it upon themselves to assess the raw 
costs and benefits of a new law or regulation, it can come as 
no surprise that “[s]ome courts wind up attaching the same
significance to opposite facts,” and even attaching the oppo-
site significance to the same facts.  Ibid.  It can come as no 
surprise, either, that judges retreat to their underlying as-
sumptions  or  moral  intuitions  when  deciding  whether  a
burden is undue.  For what else is left? 

Some judges have thrown up their hands at the task put 
to them by the Court in this area.  If everything comes down 
to balancing costs against benefits, they have observed, “the 
only  institution  that  can  give  an  authoritative  answer”  is
this Court, because the question isn’t one of law at all and 
the only “balance” that matters is the one this Court strikes. 
Planned Parenthood of Ind. & Ky. v. Box, 949 F. 3d 997, 999 
(CA7 2019) (Easterbrook, J., concurring in denial of rehear-
ing en banc).  The lament is understandable.  Missing here
is  exactly  what  judges  usually  depend  on  when  asked  to
make tough calls:  an administrable legal rule to follow, a 
neutral  principle,  something  outside  themselves  to  guide
their decision. 

* 
Setting aside the other departures from the judicial pro-
cess on display today, the concurrence suggests it can rem-
edy at least this one.  We don’t need to resort to a raw bal-
ancing test to resolve today’s dispute.  A deeper respect for 
stare  decisis  and  existing  precedents,  the  concurrence  as-
sures us, supplies the key to a safe way out.  Unfortunately,
however, the reality proves more complicated. 

Start  with  the  concurrence’s  discussion  of  Whole 
Woman’s Health.  Immediately after paying homage to stare