Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 45

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

37 

Opinion of the Court 

anything goes,” post, at 17, any real restraints are hard to 
discern. 

The largely limitless reach of the dissenters’ standard is
illustrated by the way they apply it here.  First, if the “long
sweep of history” imposes any restraint on the recognition
of unenumerated rights, then Roe was surely wrong, since 
abortion  was  never  allowed  (except  to  save  the  life  of  the 
mother)  in  a  majority  of  States  for  over  100  years  before 
that decision was handed down.  Second, it is impossible to 
defend Roe based on prior precedent because all of the prec-
edents Roe cited, including Griswold and Eisenstadt, were 
critically  different  for  a  reason  that  we  have  explained:
None  of  those  cases  involved  the  destruction  of  what  Roe 
called “potential life.”  See supra, at 32. 

So without support in history or relevant precedent, Roe’s 
reasoning cannot be defended even under the dissent’s pro-
posed test, and the dissent is forced to rely solely on the fact
that a constitutional right to abortion was recognized in Roe 
and later decisions that accepted Roe’s interpretation.  Un-
der the doctrine of stare decisis, those precedents are enti-
tled to careful and respectful consideration, and we engage
in that analysis below.  But as the Court has reiterated time 
and time again, adherence to precedent is not “ ‘an inexora-
ble command.’ ”  Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 576 
U. S. 446, 455 (2015).  There are occasions when past deci-
sions should be overruled, and as we will explain, this is one 
of them. 

3 
The most striking feature of the dissent is the absence of
any serious discussion of the legitimacy of the States’ inter-
est in protecting fetal life.  This is evident in the analogy
that the dissent draws between the abortion right and the
rights  recognized  in  Griswold  (contraception),  Eisenstadt 
(same), Lawrence (sexual conduct with member of the same 
sex), and Obergefell (same-sex marriage).  Perhaps this is