Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 23

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

15 

Opinion of the Court 

the right to an abortion.22 

B 
1 

Until  the  latter  part  of  the  20th  century,  there  was  no 
support in American law for a constitutional right to obtain
an  abortion.    No  state  constitutional  provision  had  recog-
nized such a right.  Until a few years before Roe was handed 
down, no federal or state court had recognized such a right.
Nor had any scholarly treatise of which we are aware.  And 
although law review articles are not reticent about advocat-
ing  new  rights,  the  earliest  article  proposing  a  constitu-
tional right to abortion that has come to our attention was 
published only a few years before Roe.23 

—————— 

22 That is true regardless of whether we look to the Amendment’s Due 
Process  Clause  or  its  Privileges  or  Immunities  Clause.  Some  scholars 
and Justices have maintained that the Privileges or Immunities Clause 
is the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment that guarantees substan-
tive  rights.  See,  e.g.,  McDonald  v.  Chicago,  561  U. S.  742,  813–850 
(2010) (THOMAS, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Dun-
can, 391 U. S., at 165–166 (Black, J., concurring); A. Amar, Bill of Rights: 
Creation and Reconstruction 163–180 (1998) (Amar); J. Ely, Democracy 
and Distrust 22–30 (1980); 2 W. Crosskey, Politics and the Constitution 
in the History of the United States 1089–1095 (1953).  But even on that 
view, such a right would need to be rooted in the Nation’s history and 
tradition.  See Corfield v. Coryell, 6 F. Cas. 546, 551–552 (No. 3,230) (CC 
ED Pa. 1823) (describing unenumerated rights under the Privileges and 
Immunities  Clause,  Art.  IV,  §2,  as  those  “fundamental”  rights  “which 
have,  at  all  times,  been  enjoyed  by  the  citizens  of  the  several  states”); 
Amar 176 (relying on Corfield to interpret the Privileges or Immunities 
Clause);  cf.  McDonald,  561  U. S.,  at  819–820,  832,  854  (opinion  of 
THOMAS, J.) (reserving the question whether the Privileges or Immuni-
ties Clause protects “any rights besides those enumerated in the Consti-
tution”). 

23 See  R.  Lucas,  Federal  Constitutional  Limitations  on  the  Enforce-
ment and Administration of State Abortion Statutes, 46 N. C. L. Rev. 730 
(1968) (Lucas); see also D. Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality 334–335 (1994) 
(Garrow)  (stating  that  Lucas  was  “undeniably  the  first  person  to  fully