Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 140

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

5 

ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment 

demeaning  to  the  medical  profession.”  Miss.  Code  Ann. 
§41–41–191(2)(b)(i)(8).    That  procedure  accounts  for  most
abortions  performed  after  the  first  trimester—two  weeks
before the period at issue in this case—and “involve[s] the
use  of  surgical  instruments  to  crush  and  tear  the  unborn
child  apart.”    Ibid.;  see  also  Gonzales,  550  U. S.,  at  135. 
Again, it would make little sense to focus on viability when 
evaluating a law based on these permissible goals.

In short, the viability rule was created outside the ordi-
nary course of litigation, is and always has been completely 
unreasoned,  and  fails  to  take  account  of  state  interests 
since  recognized  as  legitimate.  It  is  indeed  “telling  that 
other  countries  almost  uniformly  eschew”  a  viability  line. 
Ante, at 53 (opinion of the Court).  Only a handful of coun-
tries, among them China and North Korea, permit elective
abortions  after  twenty  weeks;  the  rest  have  coalesced 
around  a  12–week  line.    See  The  World’s  Abortion  Laws, 
Center  for  Reproductive  Rights  (Feb.  23,  2021)  (online 
source  archived  at  www.supremecourt.gov) 
(Canada,
China, Iceland, Guinea-Bissau, the Netherlands, North Ko-
rea, Singapore, and Vietnam permit elective abortions after 
twenty weeks).  The Court rightly rejects the arbitrary via-
bility rule today. 

II 
None of this, however, requires that we also take the dra-
matic step of altogether eliminating the abortion right first 
recognized in Roe.  Mississippi itself previously argued as
much to this Court in this litigation.

When  the  State  petitioned  for  our  review,  its  basic  re-
quest was straightforward: “clarify whether abortion prohi-
bitions before viability are always unconstitutional.”  Pet. 
for Cert. 14.  The State made a number of strong arguments 
that  the  answer  is  no,  id.,  at  15–26—arguments  that,  as 
discussed, I find persuasive.  And it went out of its way to
make  clear  that  it  was  not  asking  the  Court  to  repudiate