Slip opinion     

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. 
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 
See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
           Syllabus  

PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA et al. v. CASEY, GOVERNOR OF
PENNSYLVANIA, et al. certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the third circuitNo. 91-744.   

Argued April 22, 1992 "Decided June 29, 1992 At issue are five provisions of
the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982: 3205, which requires that a
woman seeking an abortion give her informed consent prior to the procedure, and
specifies that she be provided with certain information at least 24 hours
before the abortion is performed; 3206, which mandates the informed consent
of one parent for a minor to obtain an abortion, but provides a judicial bypass
procedure; 3209, which commands that, unless certain exceptions apply, a
married wom-an seeking an abortion must sign a statementindicating that she
has notified her husband; 3203, which defines a ``medical emergency'' thatwill
excuse compliance with the foregoing requirements; and 3207(b), 3214(a), and
3214(f), which impose certain reporting requirements onfacilities providing
abortion services.  Before any of the provisions took effect, the
petitioners, five abortion clinics and a physician representing himself and
a class of doctors who provide abortion services, brought this suit seeking a
declaratory judgment that each of the provisions was unconstitutional on its
face, as well as injunctive relief.  The District Court held all the provisions
unconstitutional and permanently enjoined their enforcement.  The Court of
Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part, striking down the husband
notification provision but upholding the others. Held: The judgment in No.
91-902 is affirmed; the judgment in No. 91-744 is affirmed in part and reversed
in part, and the case is remanded. 947 F.2d 682:  No. 91-902, affirmed; No.
91-744,affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. Justice O'Connor,
Justice Kennedy, and Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Courtwith
respect to Parts I, II, and III, concluding that:1.Consideration of the
fundamental constitutional question resolved by Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S.113,
principles of institutional integrity, and the rule of stare decisis require
that Roe's essential holding be retained and reaffirmed asto each of its three
parts:  (1) a recognition ofa woman's right to choose to have an
abortion before fetal viability and to obtain it without undue interference
from the State, whose previability interests are not strong enough tosupport
an abortion prohibition or the imposition of substantial obstacles to the
woman's effective right to elect the procedure; (2) a confirmation of the
State's power to restrict abortions after viability, if the law
contains exceptions for pregnancies endangering a woman's life or health; and
(3) the principle that the State has legitimate interests from the outset of
the pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus
that may become a child.  Pp.1-27.(a)A reexamination of the principles
that define the woman's rights and the State's authority regarding abortions
is required by the doubt this Court's subsequent decisions have cast upon the
meaning and reach of Roe's central holding, by the fact that The Chief
Justice would overrule Roe, and by the necessity that state and federal courts
and legislatures have adequate guidance on the subject.  Pp.1-3.(b)Roe
determined that a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy is a ``liberty''
protected against state interference by the substantive component of the
Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Neither the Bill of Rights nor
the specific practices of States at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment's
adoption marks the outer limits of the substantive sphere of such
``liberty.''  Rather, the adjudication of substantive due process claims
may require this Court to exercise its reasoned judgment in determining the
boundaries between the individual's liberty and the demands of organized
society.  The Court's decisions have afforded constitutional protection to
personal decisions relating to marriage, see, e. g., Lovingv. Virginia, 388
U.S. 1, procreation, Skinner v.Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, family
relationships, Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, child rearing and
education, Pierce v. Society of Sisters,268 U.S. 510, and contraception, see,
e. g.,Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, and have recognized the right of
the individual to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters
so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget
achild, Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 453. Roe's central holding
properly invoked the reasoning and tradition of these precedents. 
Pp.-4-11.(c) Application of the doctrine of stare decisis confirms that Roe's
essential holding should be reaffirmed.  In reexamining that holding,
theCourt's judgment is informed by a series ofprudential and pragmatic
considerations designed to test the consistency of overruling theholding
with the ideal of the rule of law, and to gauge the respective costs of
reaffirming andoverruling.  Pp.11-13.(d)Although Roe has engendered
opposition, it has in no sense proven unworkable, representing as it does a
simple limitation beyond which a state law is unenforceable.  P.13.(e) The Roe
rule's limitation on state power could not be repudiated without serious
inequity to people who, for two decades of economic and social developments,
have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their
views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the
availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail.  The
ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of
the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive
lives.  The Constitution serves human values, and while the effect of reliance
on Roe cannot be exactly measured, neither can the certain costs of overruling
Roe for people who have ordered their thinking andliving around that case be
dismissed.  Pp.13-14.(f)No evolution of legal principle has left Roe's central
rule a doctrinal anachronism dis-counted by society.  If Roe is placed among
thecases exemplified by Griswold, supra, it is clearly in no jeopardy, since
subsequent constitutional developments have neither disturbed, nor do they
threaten to diminish, the liberty recognized in such cases.  Similarly, if
Roe is seen as stating a rule of personal autonomy and bodily integrity, akin
to cases recognizing limits on governmental power to mandate medical
treatment or to bar its rejection, this Court's post-Roe decisions accord
with Roe's view that a State's interest in the protection of life falls short
of justifying any plenary override of individual liberty claims.  See, e. g.,
Cruzan v.Director, Missouri Dept. of Health, 497 U.S. ___,___.  Finally, if
Roe is classified as sui generis, there clearly has been no erosion of its
cen-tral determination.  It was expressly reaffirmed in Akron v. Akron Center
for Reproductive Health,462 U.S. 416 (Akron I), and Thornburgh v. American
College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,476 U.S. 747; and, in Webster v.
Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490, a majority either voted to reaffirm
or declined to address the constitutional validity of Roe's central holding.
Pp.14-17.(g)No change in Roe's factual underpinning has left its central
holding obsolete, and none supports an argument for its overruling.  Although
subsequent maternal health care advances allow for later abortions safe to
the pregnant woman, and post-Roe neonatal care developments have advanced
viability to a point somewhat earlier, these facts go only to the scheme of
time limits on the realization of competing interests.  Thus, any later
divergences from the factual premises of Roe have no bearing on the validity
of its central holding, that viability marks the earliest point at which
the State's interest in fetal life is constitutionally adequate to justify a
legislative ban on nontherapeutic abortions.  The soundness or unsoundness of
that constitutional judgment in no sense turns on when viability occurs. 
Whenever it may occur, its attainment will continue to serve as the critical
fact.  Pp.17-18.(h)A comparison between Roe and two decisional lines of
comparable significance "the line identified with Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S.
45,and the line that began with Plessy v. Ferguson,163 U.S. 537 "confirms the
result reached here. Those lines were overruled" by, respectively, West Coast
Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 330 U.S. 379, and Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S.
483-" on the basis of facts, or an understanding offacts, changed from those
which furnished the claimed justifications for the earlier constitutional
resolutions.  The overruling decisions were comprehensible to the Nation, and
defensible, as the Court's responses to changed circumstances.  In
contrast, because neither the factual underpinnings of Roe's central
holdingnor this Court's understanding of it haschanged (and because no other
indication of weakened precedent has been shown), the Courtcould not pretend
to be reexamining Roe with any justification beyond a present
doctrinal disposition to come out differently from the Roe Court.  That is an
inadequate basis foroverruling a prior case.  Pp.19-22.(i)Overruling Roe's
central holding would not only reach an unjustifiable result under
stare decisis principles, but would seriously weaken the Court's capacity to
exercise the judicial power and to function as the Supreme Court of a Nation
dedicated to the rule of law.  Where the Court acts to resolve the sort of
unique, intensely divisive controversy reflected in Roe, its decision has a
dimension not present innormal cases and is entitled to rare precedent-ial
force to counter the inevitable efforts to overturn it and to thwart its
implementation. Only the most convincing justification underaccepted
standards of precedent could suffice to demonstrate that a later decision
overrulingthe first was anything but a surrender to political pressure and
an unjustified repudiation of the principle on which the Court staked
its authority in the first instance.  Moreover, the country's loss of
confidence in the Judiciary would be underscored by condemnation for
the Court's failure to keep faith with those who support the decision at a cost
to themselves. A decision to overrule Roe's essential holdingunder the
existing circumstances would address error, if error there was, at the cost of
both profound and unnecessary damage to the Court's legitimacy and to the
Nation's commitment to the rule of law.  Pp.22-27. Justice O'Connor, Justice
Kennedy, and Justice Souter concluded in Part IV that an examination of Roe
v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, and subsequent cases, reveals a number of guiding
principles that should control the assessment of the Pennsylvania
statute: (a)To protect the central right recognized by Roe while at the same
time accommodating the State's profound interest in potential life, see,id.,
at 162, the undue burden standard should be employed.  An undue burden exists,
and therefore a provision of law is invalid, if its purpose or effect is to
place substantial obstacles in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before
the fetus attains viability.(b)Roe's rigid trimester framework is rejected.
To promote the State's interest in potentiallife throughout pregnancy, the
State may take measures to ensure that the woman's choice is informed. 
Measures designed to advance this interest should not be invalidated if
their purpose is to persuade the woman to choose childbirth over abortion. 
These measures must not be an undue burden on the right.(c)As with any medical
procedure, the State may enact regulations to further the health or safety of
a woman seeking an abortion, but may not impose unnecessary health regulations
that present a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an
abortion.(d)Adoption of the undue burden standard does not disturb Roe's
holding that regardless of whether exceptions are made for
particular circumstances, a State may not prohibit any woman from making the
ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.(e)Roe's
holding that ``subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in
the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses,regulate, and even
proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate
medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother'' is
also reaffirmed.  Id.,at 164-165.  Pp.27-37. Justice O'Connor, Justice
Kennedy, and Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court with respect
to Parts V-A and V-C, concluding that: 1.As construed by the Court of Appeals,
320-3's medical emergency definition is intended to assure that compliance
with the State's abortion regulations would not in any way pose a significant
threat to a woman's life or health, and thus does not violate the essential
holding of Roe, supra, at 164.  Although the definition could be interpreted in
an unconstitutional manner, this Court defers to lower federal court
interpretations of state law unless they amount to ``plain'' error. 
Pp.38-39.2.Section 3209's husband notification provision constitutes an
undue burden and is therefore invalid.  A significant number of women
will likely be prevented from obtaining an abortion just as surely as if
Pennsylvania had out lawed the procedure entirely.  The fact that 3209 may
affect fewer than one percent of women seeking abortions does not save it from
facia linvalidity, since the proper focus of constitutional inquiry is the
group for whom the law is a restriction, not the group for whom it
is irrelevant.  Furthermore, it cannot be claimedthat the father's interest in
the fetus' welfare is equal to the mother's protected liberty, since it is an
inescapable biological fact that state regulation with respect to the fetus
will have a far greater impact on the pregnant woman's bodily integrity than
it will on the husband. Section 3209 embodies a view of marriage consonant
with the common-law status of married women but repugnant to this Court's
present understanding of marriage and of the nature of the rights secured by
the Constitution.  See Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth,428 U.S.
52, 69.  Pp.46-58. Justice O'Connor, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Souter,
joined by Justice Stevens, concluded in Part V-E that all of the
statute's record keeping and reporting requirements, except that relating to
spousal notice, are constitutional.  The reporting provision relating to the
reasons a married woman has not notified her husband that she intends to have
an abortion must be invalidated because it places an undue burden on a
woman's choice.  Pp.59-60.Justice O'Connor, Justice Kennedy, and Justice
Souter concluded in Parts V-B and V-Dthat:1.Section 3205's informed consent
provision is not an undue burden on a woman's constitutional right to decide to
terminate a pregnancy.  To the extent Akron I, 462 U.S., at 444, and
Thornburgh, 476 U.S., at 762, find a constitutional violation when the
government requires, as it does here, the giving of truthful,
nonmisleading information about the nature of the abortion procedure, the
attendant health risks and those of childbirth, and the ``probable
gestational age'' of the fetus, those cases are inconsistent with Roe's
acknowledgement of an important interest in potential life, and are overruled.
Requiring that the woman be informed of the availability of information
relating to the con-sequences to the fetus does not interfere witha
constitutional right of privacy between apregnant woman and her physician,
since the doctor-patient relation is derivative of the woman's position, and
does not underlie or ove-rride the abortion right.  Moreover, the
physician's First Amendment rights not to speak are implicated only as part
of the practice of medicine, which is licensed and regulated by theState. 
There is no evidence here that requiring a doctor to give the required
information would amount to a substantial obstacle to a womanseeking
abortion. The premise behind Akron I's invalidation of awaiting period between
the provision of the information deemed necessary to informed consent and the
performance of an abortion, id., at450, is also wrong.  Although 3205's
24-hour waiting period may make some abortions more expensive and less
convenient, it cannot be said that it is invalid on the present record and
in the context of this facial challenge.  Pp.39-46.2.Section 3206's one-parent
consent requirement and judicial bypass procedure are constitutional.  See,
e. g., Ohio v. Akron Center forReproductive Health, 497 U.S. ___, ___. 
Pp.58--59.Justice Blackmun concluded that application of the strict scrutiny
standard of review required by this Court's abortion precedents results in
the invalidation of all the challenged provisions in the Pennsylvania statute,
includ-ing the reporting requirements, and therefore concurred in the judgment
that the requirement that a pregnant woman report her reasons for failing to
provide spousal notice is unconstitutional.  Pp.10, 14-15.The Chief Justice,
joined by Justice White, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas,
concludedthat:1.Although Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, is not directly implicated
by the Pennsylvania statute, which simply regulates and does not prohibit
abortion, a reexamination of the ``fundamental right'' Roe accorded to a
woman's decisionto abort a fetus, with the concomitant requirement that any
state regulation of abortion survive ``strict scrutiny,'' id., at 154-156,
is warranted by the confusing and uncertain state of this Court's post-Roe
decisional law.  A review of post-Roe cases demonstrates both that they have
expanded upon Roe in imposing increasingly greater restrictions on the
States, seeThornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,
476 U.S. 747, 783 (Burger, C.J., dissenting), and that the Court has
becomeincreasingly more divided, none of the lastthree such decisions having
commanded a majority opinion, see Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive
Health, 497 U.S. 502; Hodgson v. Minne-sota, 497 U.S. 417; Webster v.
Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490.  This confusion and uncertainty
complicated the task of theCourt of Appeals, which concluded that the
"un-due burden" standard adopted by Justice O'Connor in Webster and
Hodgson governs the present cases.  Pp.1-8.2. The Roe Court reached too far
when it analogized the right to abort a fetus to the rights involved in
Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S.510; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390;
Loving v.Virginia, 388 U.S. 1; and Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, and
thereby deemed the right to abortion to be "fundamental."  None of
these decisions endorsed an all-encompassing ``right of privacy,'' as Roe,
supra, at 152-153, claimed. Because abortion involves the purposeful
termination of potential life, the abortion decision must be recognized as
sui generis, different inkind from the rights protected in the earlier cases
under the rubric of personal or family privacy and autonomy.  And the
historical traditions of the American people "as evidenced by the English
common law and by the Americanabortion statutes in existence both at the
timeof the Fourteenth Amendment's adoption and Roe's issuance" do not support
the view that theright to terminate one's pregnancy is ``funda-mental.'' 
Thus, enactments abridging that rightneed not be subjected to strict
scrutiny. Pp.8-11.3.The undue burden standard adopted by thejoint opinion of
Justices O'Connor, Kennedy,and Souter has no basis in constitutional lawand
will not result in the sort of simple limita-tion, easily applied, which the
opinion antici-pates.  To evaluate abortion regulations underthat standard,
judges will have to make thesubjective, unguided determination whether
theregulations place ``substantial obstacles'' inthe path of a woman seeking
an abortion, un-doubtedly engendering a variety of conflictingviews.  The
standard presents nothing moreworkable than the trimester framework the
jointopinion discards, and will allow the Court, underthe guise of the
Constitution, to continue toimpart its own preferences on the States in
theform of a complex abortion code.  Pp.22-23.4.The correct analysis is that
set forth bythe plurality opinion in Webster, supra: A woma-n's interest in
having an abortion is a form ofliberty protected by the Due Process
Clause,but States may regulate abortion procedures inways rationally related
to a legitimate stateinterest.  P.24.5.Section 3205's requirements are
rationallyrelated to the State's legitimate interest inassuring that a
woman's consent to an abortionbe fully informed.  The requirement that a
phy-sician disclose certain information about theabortion procedure and its
risks and alterna-tives is not a large burden and is clearly re-lated to
maternal health and the State's inter-est in informed consent.  In addition,
a Statemay rationally decide that physicians are bet-ter qualified than
counselors to impart thisinformation and answer questions about theabortion
alternatives' medical aspects.  Therequirement that information be provided
aboutthe availability of paternal child support andstate-funded alternatives
is also related tothe State's informed consent interest and fur-thers the
State's interest in preserving unbornlife.  That such information might
create someuncertainty and persuade some women to forgoabortions only
demonstrates that it might makea difference and is therefore relevant to
awoman's informed choice.  In light of this plural-ity's rejection of Roe's
``fundamental right''approach to this subject, the Court's contraryholding in
Thornburgh is not controlling here. For the same reason, this Court's
previousholding invalidating a State's 24-hour mandato-ry waiting period
should not be followed.  Thewaiting period helps ensure that a woman's
deci-sion to abort is a well-considered one, andrationally furthers the
State's legitimate in-terest in maternal health and in unborn life.  Itmay
delay, but does not prohibit, abortions; andboth it and the informed consent
provisions donot apply in medical emergencies.  Pp.24-27.6.The statute's
parental consent provision isentirely consistent with this Court's
previousdecisions involving such requirements.  See,e. g., Planned Parenthood
Association of KansasCity, Missouri, Inc. v. Ashcroft, 462 U.S. 476. It is
reasonably designed to further the Stat-e's important and legitimate interest
``in thewelfare of its young citizens, whose immaturity,inexperience, and
lack of judgment may some-times impair their ability to exercise theirrights
wisely,'' Hodgson, supra, at 444.  Pp.27--29.7.Section 3214(a)'s requirement
that abortionfacilities file a report on each abortion isconstitutional
because it rationally furthersthe State's legitimate interests in
advancingthe state of medical knowledge concerning ma-ternal health and
prenatal life, in gatheringstatistical information with respect to patien-ts,
and in ensuring compliance with other provi-sions of the Act, while keeping
the reportscompletely confidential.  Public disclosure ofother reports made
by facilities receiving pub-lic funds"those identifying the facilities andany
parent, subsidiary, or affiliated organiza-tions, 3207(b), and those
revealing the totalnumber of abortions performed, broken down bytrimester,
3214(f)"are rationally related tothe State's legitimate interest in
informingtaxpayers as to who is benefiting from publicfunds and what services
the funds are support-ing; and records relating to the expenditure ofpublic
funds are generally available to thepublic under Pennsylvania law. 
Pp.34-35.Justice Scalia, joined by The Chief Justice,Justice White, and
Justice Thomas, concludedthat a woman's decision to abort her unbornchild is
not a constitutionally protected ``libe-rty'' because (1) the Constitution
says abso-lutely nothing about it, and (2) the longstandingtraditions of
American society have permittedit to be legally proscribed.  See, e. g., Ohio
v.Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U.S.___, ___ (Scalia, J.,
concurring).  The Pennsyl-vania statute should be upheld in its entiretyunder
the rational basis test.  Pp.1-3. O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ.,
announcedthe judgment of the Court and delivered the opin-ion of the Court
with respect to Parts I, II, III,V-A, V-C, and VI, in which Blackmun and
Stevens,JJ., joined, an opinion with respect to Part V-E,in which Stevens,
J., joined, and an opinion withrespect to Parts IV, V-B, and V-D.  Stevens,
J.,filed an opinion concurring in part and dissentingin part.  Blackmun, J.,
filed an opinion concurringin part, concurring in the judgment in part,
anddissenting in part.  Rehnquist, C. J., filed anopinion concurring in the
judgment in part anddissenting in part, in which White, Scalia, andThomas,
JJ., joined.  Scalia, J., filed an opinionconcurring in the judgment in part
and dissentingin part, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and White andThomas, JJ.,
joined.   OpinionNOTICE: This opinion is subject to formalrevision before
publication in the pre-liminary print of the United StatesReports.  Readers
are requested tonotify the Reporter of Decisions, Su-preme Court of the
United States, Wash-ington, D.C. 20543, of any typographicalor other formal
errors, in order thatcorrections may be made before thepreliminary print goes
to press.SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATESÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ       Nos. 91-744 and
91-902              ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN      
PENNSYLVANIA, et al., PETITIONERS91-744                v.          ROBERT P.
CASEY, et al., etc.         ROBERT P. CASEY, et al., etc.,                 
PETITIONERS91-902                v.       PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN 
            PENNSYLVANIA et al.  on writs of certiorari to the united
statescourt of         appeals for the third circuit                [June 29,
1992]   Justice O'Connor, Justice Kennedy, and JusticeSouter announced the
judgment of the Court anddelivered the opinion of the Court with respect
toParts I, II, III, V-A, V-C, and VI, an opinion withrespect to Part V-E, in
which Justice Stevensjoins, and an opinion with respect to Parts IV, V-B, and
V-D.                       I  Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence
ofdoubt.  Yet 19 years after our holding that theConstitution protects a
woman's right to termi-nate her pregnancy in its early stages, Roe v.Wade,
410 U. S. 113 (1973), that definition of liberty is still questioned. 
Joining the respon-dents as amicus curiae, the United States, as ithas done
in five other cases in the last decade,again asks us to overrule Roe.  See
Brief forRespondents 104-117; Brief for United States asAmicus Curiae 8.  At
issue in these cases are five provisions ofthe Pennsylvania Abortion Control
Act of 1982 asamended in 1988 and 1989.  18 Pa. Cons. Stat.3203-3220 (1990). 
Relevant portions of the Actare set forth in the appendix.  Infra, at 60. 
TheAct requires that a woman seeking an abortiongive her informed consent
prior to the abortionprocedure, and specifies that she be providedwith
certain information at least 24 hours beforethe abortion is performed.  3205. 
For a minor toobtain an abortion, the Act requires the informedconsent of one
of her parents, but provides for ajudicial bypass option if the minor does
not wishto or cannot obtain a parent's consent.  3206. Another provision of
the Act requires that,unless certain exceptions apply, a married womanseeking
an abortion must sign a statement indi-cating that she has notified her
husband of herintended abortion.  3209.  The Act exemptscompliance with these
three requirements in theevent of a  medical emergency, which is definedin
3203 of the Act.  See 3203, 3205(a), 3206(a),3209(c).  In addition to the
above provisionsregulating the performance of abortions, the Actimposes
certain reporting requirements on facili-ties that provide abortion services. 
3207(b),3214(a), 3214(f).  Before any of these provisions took effect,
thepetitioners, who are five abortion clinics and onephysician representing
himself as well as a classof physicians who provide abortion services,brought
this suit seeking declaratory and injunc-tive relief.  Each provision was
challenged asunconstitutional on its face.  The District Courtentered a
preliminary injunction against theenforcement of the regulations, and, after
a 3-day bench trial, held all the provisions at issuehere unconstitutional,
entering a permanentinjunction against Pennsylvania's enforcement ofthem. 
744 F. Supp. 1323 (ED Pa. 1990).  The Court ofAppeals for the Third Circuit
affirmed in part andreversed in part, upholding all of the regulationsexcept
for the husband notification requirement. 947 F. 2d 682 (1991). We granted
certiorari.  502U. S. ____ (1992).  The Court of Appeals found it necessary
tofollow an elaborate course of reasoning even toidentify the first premise
to use to determinewhether the statute enacted by Pennsylvaniameets
constitutional standards.  See 947 F. 2d, at687-698.  And at oral argument in
this Court, theattorney for the parties challenging the statutetook the
position that none of the enactments canbe upheld without overruling Roe v.
Wade.  Tr. ofOral Arg. 5-6.  We disagree with that analysis; butwe
acknowledge that our decisions after Roe castdoubt upon the meaning and reach
of its holding. Further, the Chief Justice admits that he wouldoverrule the
central holding of Roe and adopt therational relationship test as the sole
criterionof constitutionality.  See post, at ___.  State andfederal courts as
well as legislatures throughoutthe Union must have guidance as they seek
toaddress this subject in conformance with theConstitution.  Given these
premises, we find itimperative to review once more the principlesthat define
the rights of the woman and thelegitimate authority of the State respecting
thetermination of pregnancies by abortion proce-dures.  After considering the
fundamental constitution-al questions resolved by Roe, principles of
insti-tutional integrity, and the rule of stare decisis,we are led to
conclude this: the essential holdingof Roe v. Wade should be retained and
once againreaffirmed.  It must be stated at the outset and with claritythat
Roe's essential holding, the holding wereaffirm, has three parts.  First is
a recognitionof the right of the woman to choose to have anabortion before
viability and to obtain it withoutundue interference from the State.  Before
via-bility, the State's interests are not strongenough to support a
prohibition of abortion or theimposition of a substantial obstacle to
thewoman's effective right to elect the procedure. Second is a confirmation
of the State's power torestrict abortions after fetal viability, if thelaw
contains exceptions for pregnancies whichendanger a woman's life or health. 
And third is theprinciple that the State has legitimate interestsfrom the
outset of the pregnancy in protectingthe health of the woman and the life of
the fetusthat may become a child.  These principles do notcontradict one
another; and we adhere to each.                      II  Constitutional
protection of the woman's deci-sion to terminate her pregnancy derives from
theDue Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It declares that no State
shall  deprive anyperson of life, liberty, or property, without dueprocess of
law.  The controlling word in the casebefore us is  liberty.  Although a
literal readingof the Clause might suggest that it governs onlythe procedures
by which a State may deprivepersons of liberty, for at least 105 years,
atleast since Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 660-661(1887), the Clause has
been understood to containa substantive component as well, one 
barringcertain government actions regardless of thefairness of the procedures
used to implementthem.  Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 331 (1986). As
Justice Brandeis (joined by Justice Holmes)observed,  [d]espite arguments to
the contrarywhich had seemed to me persuasive, it is settledthat the due
process clause of the FourteenthAmendment applies to matters of substantive
lawas well as to matters of procedure.  Thus allfundamental rights comprised
within the termliberty are protected by the Federal Constitutionfrom invasion
by the States.  Whitney v. Califor-nia, 274 U. S. 357, 373 (1927) (Brandeis,
J., concur-ring).   [T]he guaranties of due process, thoughhaving their roots
in Magna Carta's `per legemterrae' and considered as procedural
safeguards`against executive usurpation and tyranny,' havein this country
`become bulwarks also againstarbitrary legislation.'  Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.
S.497, 541 (1961) (Harlan, J., dissenting from dismiss-al on jurisdictional
grounds) (quoting Hurtado v.California, 110 U. S. 516, 532 (1884)).  The most
familiar of the substantive libertiesprotected by the Fourteenth Amendment
are thoserecognized by the Bill of Rights.  We have heldthat the Due Process
Clause of the FourteenthAmendment incorporates most of the Bill of
Rightsagainst the States.  See, e.g., Duncan v. Louisiana,391 U. S. 145,
147-148 (1968).  It is tempting, as ameans of curbing the discretion of
federal judges,to suppose that liberty encompasses no more thanthose rights
already guaranteed to the individualagainst federal interference by the
expressprovisions of the first eight amendments to theConstitution.  See
Adamson v. California, 332 U. S.46, 68-92 (1947) (Black, J., dissenting). 
But ofcourse this Court has never accepted that view.  It is also tempting,
for the same reason, tosuppose that the Due Process Clause protectsonly those
practices, defined at the most specificlevel, that were protected against
governmentinterference by other rules of law when the Four-teenth Amendment
was ratified.  See Michael H. v.Gerald D., 491 U. S. 110, 127-128, n. 6
(1989) (opinionof Scalia, J.).  But such a view would be inconsis-tent with
our law.  It is a promise of the Consti-tution that there is a realm of
personal libertywhich the government may not enter.  We havevindicated this
principle before.  Marriage ismentioned nowhere in the Bill of Rights and
inter-racial marriage was illegal in most States in the19th century, but the
Court was no doubt correctin finding it to be an aspect of liberty
protectedagainst state interference by the substantivecomponent of the Due
Process Clause in Loving v.Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 12 (1967) (relying, in an
opinionfor eight Justices, on the Due Process Clause). Similar examples may
be found in Turner v. Safley,482 U. S. 78, 94-99 (1987); in Carey v.
PopulationServices International, 431 U. S. 678, 684-686(1977); in Griswold
v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479,481-482 (1965), as well as in the separate
opinionsof a majority of the Members of the Court in thatcase, id., at
486-488 (Goldberg J., joined byWarren, C. J., and Brennan, J., concurring)
(ex-pressly relying on due process), id., at 500-502(Harlan, J., concurring
in judgment) (same), id., at502-507 (White, J., concurring in judgment)
(same);in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510,534-535 (1925); and in
Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S.390, 399-403 (1923).  Neither the Bill of Rights
nor the specificpractices of States at the time of the adoption ofthe
Fourteenth Amendment marks the outer limitsof the substantive sphere of
liberty which theFourteenth Amendment protects.  See U. S. Const.,Amend. 9. 
As the second Justice Harlan recog-nized: [T]he full scope of the liberty
guaranteed bythe Due Process Clause cannot be found in orlimited by the
precise terms of the specificguarantees elsewhere provided in the
Consti-tution.  This `liberty' is not a series of iso-lated points pricked
out in terms of the takingof property; the freedom of speech, press,
andreligion; the right to keep and bear arms; thefreedom from unreasonable
searches andseizures; and so on.  It is a rational continuumwhich, broadly
speaking, includes a freedomfrom all substantial arbitrary impositions
andpurposeless restraints, . . . and which alsorecognizes, what a reasonable
and sensitivejudgment must, that certain interests requireparticularly
careful scrutiny of the stateneeds asserted to justify their abridgment. Poe
v. Ullman, supra, at 543 (Harlan, J., dis-senting from dismissal on
jurisdictionalgrounds).Justice Harlan wrote these words in addressing anissue
the full Court did not reach in Poe v. Ullman,but the Court adopted his
position four Termslater in Griswold v. Connecticut, supra.  In Griswo-ld, we
held that the Constitution does not permita State to forbid a married couple
to use contra-ceptives.  That same freedom was later guaran-teed, under the
Equal Protection Clause, forunmarried couples.  See Eisenstadt v. Baird,
405U. S. 438 (1972).  Constitutional protection wasextended to the sale and
distribution of contra-ceptives in Carey v. Population Services
Interna-tional, supra.  It is settled now, as it was when theCourt heard
arguments in Roe v. Wade, that theConstitution places limits on a State's
right tointerfere with a person's most basic decisionsabout family and
parenthood, see Carey v. Popula-tion Services International, supra; Moore v.
EastCleveland, 431 U. S. 494 (1977); Eisenstadt v. Baird,supra; Loving v.
Virginia, supra; Griswold v. Con-necticut, supra; Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel.
William-son, 316 U. S. 535 (1942); Pierce v. Society ofSisters, supra; Meyer
v. Nebraska, supra, as well asbodily integrity.  See, e.g., Washington v.
Harper,494 U. S. 210, 221-222 (1990); Winston v. Lee, 470U. S. 753 (1985);
Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165(1952).  The inescapable fact is that
adjudication ofsubstantive due process claims may call upon theCourt in
interpreting the Constitution to exer-cise that same capacity which by
tradition courtsalways have exercised: reasoned judgment.  Itsboundaries are
not susceptible of expression asa simple rule.  That does not mean we are
free toinvalidate state policy choices with which wedisagree; yet neither
does it permit us to shrinkfrom the duties of our office.  As Justice
Harlanobserved:      Due process has not been reduced to anyformula; its
content cannot be determined byreference to any code.  The best that can
besaid is that through the course of this Cour-t's decisions it has
represented the balancewhich our Nation, built upon postulates ofrespect for
the liberty of the individual, hasstruck between that liberty and the
demandsof organized society.  If the supplying ofcontent to this
Constitutional concept has ofnecessity been a rational process, it certain-ly
has not been one where judges have feltfree to roam where unguided
speculation mighttake them.  The balance of which I speak is thebalance
struck by this country, having regardto what history teaches are the
traditionsfrom which it developed as well as the tradi-tions from which it
broke.  That tradition is aliving thing.  A decision of this Court
whichradically departs from it could not long sur-vive, while a decision
which builds on what hassurvived is likely to be sound.  No formulacould
serve as a substitute, in this area, forjudgment and restraint.  Poe v.
Ullman, 367U. S., at 542 (Harlan, J., dissenting from dis-missal on
jurisdictional grounds).See also Rochin v. California, supra, at
171-172(Frankfurter, J., writing for the Court) ( Tobelieve that this
judicial exercise of judgmentcould be avoided by freezing `due process of
law'at some fixed stage of time or thought is tosuggest that the most
important aspect of con-stitutional adjudication is a function for inani-mate
machines and not for judges).  Men and women of good conscience can
disagree,and we suppose some always shall disagree, aboutthe profound moral
and spiritual implications ofterminating a pregnancy, even in its
earlieststage.  Some of us as individuals find abortionoffensive to our most
basic principles of morali-ty, but that cannot control our decision. 
Ourobligation is to define the liberty of all, not tomandate our own moral
code.  The underlyingconstitutional issue is whether the State canresolve
these philosophic questions in such adefinitive way that a woman lacks all
choice in thematter, except perhaps in those rare circum-stances in which the
pregnancy is itself a dangerto her own life or health, or is the result of
rapeor incest.  It is conventional constitutional doctrine thatwhere
reasonable people disagree the governmentcan adopt one position or the other. 
See, e.g.,Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726 (1963); Williamsonv. Lee Optical
of Oklahoma, Inc., 348 U. S. 483(1955).  That theorem, however, assumes a
state ofaffairs in which the choice does not intrude upona protected liberty. 
Thus, while some people mightdisagree about whether or not the flag should
besaluted, or disagree about the proposition that itmay not be defiled, we
have ruled that a State maynot compel or enforce one view or the other. 
SeeWest Virginia State Bd. of Education v. Barnette,319 U. S. 624 (1943);
Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S. 397(1989).  Our law affords constitutional
protection topersonal decisions relating to marriage, procre-ation,
contraception, family relationships, childrearing, and education.  Carey v.
Population Ser-vices International, 431 U. S., at 685.  Our casesrecognize 
the right of the individual, married orsingle, to be free from unwarranted
governmentalintrusion into matters so fundamentally affectinga person as the
decision whether to bear or begeta child.  Eisenstadt v. Baird, supra, at 453
(em-phasis in original).  Our precedents  have re-spected the private realm
of family life which thestate cannot enter.  Prince v. Massachusetts, 321U.
S. 158, 166 (1944).  These matters, involving themost intimate and personal
choices a person maymake in a lifetime, choices central to personaldignity
and autonomy, are central to the libertyprotected by the Fourteenth
Amendment.  At theheart of liberty is the right to define one's ownconcept of
existence, of meaning, of the universe,and of the mystery of human life. 
Beliefs aboutthese matters could not define the attributes ofpersonhood were
they formed under compulsion ofthe State.  These considerations begin our
analysis of thewoman's interest in terminating her pregnancy butcannot end
it, for this reason: though the abor-tion decision may originate within the
zone ofconscience and belief, it is more than a philosoph-ic exercise. 
Abortion is a unique act.  It is an actfraught with consequences for others:
for thewoman who must live with the implications of herdecision; for the
persons who perform and assistin the procedure; for the spouse, family,
andsociety which must confront the knowledge thatthese procedures exist,
procedures some deemnothing short of an act of violence againstinnocent human
life; and, depending on one'sbeliefs, for the life or potential life that
isaborted.  Though abortion is conduct, it does notfollow that the State is
entitled to proscribe itin all instances.  That is because the liberty ofthe
woman is at stake in a sense unique to thehuman condition and so unique to
the law.  Themother who carries a child to full term is subjectto anxieties,
to physical constraints, to painthat only she must bear.  That these
sacrificeshave from the beginning of the human race beenendured by woman with
a pride that ennobles her inthe eyes of others and gives to the infant a
bondof love cannot alone be grounds for the State toinsist she make the
sacrifice.  Her suffering istoo intimate and personal for the State to
insist,without more, upon its own vision of the woman'srole, however dominant
that vision has been in thecourse of our history and our culture.  Thedestiny
of the woman must be shaped to a largeextent on her own conception of her
spiritualimperatives and her place in society.  It should be recognized,
moreover, that in somecritical respects the abortion decision is of thesame
character as the decision to use contracep-tion, to which Griswold v.
Connecticut, Eisenstadtv. Baird, and Carey v. Population Services
Interna-tional, afford constitutional protection.  We haveno doubt as to the
correctness of those deci-sions.  They support the reasoning in Roe
relatingto the woman's liberty because they involvepersonal decisions
concerning not only the mean-ing of procreation but also human
responsibilityand respect for it.  As with abortion, reasonablepeople will
have differences of opinion aboutthese matters.  One view is based on such
rever-ence for the wonder of creation that any pregnan-cy ought to be
welcomed and carried to full termno matter how difficult it will be to
provide forthe child and ensure its well-being.  Another isthat the inability
to provide for the nurture andcare of the infant is a cruelty to the child
and ananguish to the parent.  These are intimate viewswith infinite
variations, and their deep, personalcharacter underlay our decisions in
Griswold,Eisenstadt, and Carey.  The same concerns arepresent when the woman
confronts the realitythat, perhaps despite her attempts to avoid it,she has
become pregnant.  It was this dimension of personal liberty thatRoe sought to
protect, and its holding invoked thereasoning and the tradition of the
precedents wehave discussed, granting protection to substan-tive liberties of
the person.  Roe was, of course,an extension of those cases and, as the
decisionitself indicated, the separate States could act insome degree to
further their own legitimateinterests in protecting pre-natal life. 
Theextent to which the legislatures of the Statesmight act to outweigh the
interests of the womanin choosing to terminate her pregnancy was asubject of
debate both in Roe itself and in deci-sions following it.    While we
appreciate the weight of the argumentsmade on behalf of the State in the case
before us,arguments which in their ultimate formulationconclude that Roe
should be overruled, the reser-vations any of us may have in reaffirming
thecentral holding of Roe are outweighed by theexplication of individual
liberty we have givencombined with the force of stare decisis.  We turnnow to
that doctrine.                      III                       A  The
obligation to follow precedent begins withnecessity, and a contrary necessity
marks itsouter limit.  With Cardozo, we recognize that nojudicial system
could do society's work if it eyedeach issue afresh in every case that raised
it. See B. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process149 (1921).  Indeed,
the very concept of the rule oflaw underlying our own Constitution requires
suchcontinuity over time that a respect for precedentis, by definition,
indispensable.  See Powell, StareDecisis and Judicial Restraint, 1991 Journal
ofSupreme Court History 13, 16.  At the other ex-treme, a different necessity
would make itselffelt if a prior judicial ruling should come to beseen so
clearly as error that its enforcement wasfor that very reason doomed.  Even
when the decision to overrule a prior caseis not, as in the rare, latter
instance, virtuallyforeordained, it is common wisdom that the rule ofstare
decisis is not an  inexorable command, andcertainly it is not such in every
constitutionalcase, see Burnet v. Coronado Oil Gas Co., 285 U. S. 393,
405-411 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).  Seealso Payne v. Tennessee, 501
U. S. ____, ____ (1991)(slip op., at ___) (Souter, J., joined by Kennedy,
J.,concurring); Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U. S. 203, 212(1984).  Rather, when
this Court reexamines a priorholding, its judgment is customarily informed by
aseries of prudential and pragmatic considerationsdesigned to test the
consistency of overruling aprior decision with the ideal of the rule of
law,and to gauge the respective costs of reaffirmingand overruling a prior
case.  Thus, for example, wemay ask whether the rule has proved to be
intol-erable simply in defying practical workability,Swift & Co. v. Wickham,
382 U. S. 111, 116 (1965);whether the rule is subject to a kind of
reliancethat would lend a special hardship to the conse-quences of overruling
and add inequity to thecost of repudiation, e. g., United States v. TitleIns.
& Trust Co., 265 U. S.  472, 486 (1924); whetherrelated principles of law
have so far developed asto have left the old rule no more than a remnantof
abandoned doctrine, see Patterson v. McLeanCredit Union, 491 U. S. 164,
173-174 (1989); orwhether facts have so changed or come to be seenso
differently, as to have robbed the old rule ofsignificant application or
justification, e.g.,Burnet, supra, at 412 (Brandeis, J., dissenting).  So in
this case we may inquire whether Roe'scentral rule has been found unworkable;
whetherthe rule's limitation on state power could beremoved without serious
inequity to those whohave relied upon it or significant damage to
thestability of the society governed by the rule inquestion; whether the
law's growth in the inter-vening years has left Roe's central rule a
doc-trinal anachronism discounted by society; andwhether Roe's premises of
fact have so farchanged in the ensuing two decades as to renderits central
holding somehow irrelevant or unjus-tifiable in dealing with the issue it
addressed.                       1  Although Roe has engendered opposition,
it hasin no sense proven  unworkable, see Garcia v. SanAntonio Metropolitan
Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 546 (1985), representing as it does a
simplelimitation beyond which a state law is unenforce-able.  While Roe has,
of course, required judicialassessment of state laws affecting the exerciseof
the choice guaranteed against governmentinfringement, and although the need
for suchreview will remain as a consequence of today'sdecision, the required
determinations fall withinjudicial competence.                       2  The
inquiry into reliance counts the cost of arule's repudiation as it would fall
on those whohave relied reasonably on the rule's continuedapplication.  Since
the classic case for weighingreliance heavily in favor of following the
earlierrule occurs in the commercial context, see Paynev. Tennessee, supra,
at ____ (slip op., at ___),where advance planning of great precision is
mostobviously a necessity, it is no cause for surprisethat some would find no
reliance worthy of consid-eration in support of Roe.  While neither
respondents nor their amici in somany words deny that the abortion right
invitessome reliance prior to its actual exercise, onecan readily imagine an
argument stressing thedissimilarity of this case to one involving prop-erty
or contract.  Abortion is customarily chosenas an unplanned response to the
consequence ofunplanned activity or to the failure of conven-tional birth
control, and except on the assumptionthat no intercourse would have occurred
but forRoe's holding, such behavior may appear to justifyno reliance claim. 
Even if reliance could beclaimed on that unrealistic assumption, theargument
might run, any reliance interest would bede minimis.  This argument would be
premised on thehypothesis that reproductive planning could takevirtually
immediate account of any sudden resto-ration of state authority to ban
abortions.  To eliminate the issue of reliance that easily,however, one would
need to limit cognizable reli-ance to specific instances of sexual activity.
But to do this would be simply to refuse to facethe fact that for two decades
of economic andsocial developments, people have organizedintimate
relationships and made choices thatdefine their views of themselves and their
placesin society, in reliance on the availability ofabortion in the event
that contraception shouldfail.  The ability of women to participate equallyin
the economic and social life of the Nation hasbeen facilitated by their
ability to control theirreproductive lives.  See, e.g., R. Petchesky,Abortion
and Woman's Choice 109, 133, n. 7 (rev. ed.1990).  The Constitution serves
human values, andwhile the effect of reliance on Roe cannot beexactly
measured, neither can the certain cost ofoverruling Roe for people who have
ordered theirthinking and living around that case be dismissed.             
         3  No evolution of legal principle has left Roe'sdoctrinal footings
weaker than they were in 1973. No development of constitutional law since
thecase was decided has implicitly or explicitly leftRoe behind as a mere
survivor of obsolete consti-tutional thinking.  It will be recognized, of
course, that Roe standsat an intersection of two lines of decisions, butin
whichever doctrinal category one reads thecase, the result for present
purposes will be thesame.  The Roe Court itself placed its holding inthe
succession of cases most prominently exempli-fied by Griswold v. Connecticut,
381 U. S. 479 (1965),see Roe, 410 U. S., at 152-153.  When it is so seen,Roe
is clearly in no jeopardy, since subsequentconstitutional developments have
neither dis-turbed, nor do they threaten to diminish, thescope of recognized
protection accorded to theliberty relating to intimate relationships,
thefamily, and decisions about whether or not tobeget or bear a child.  See,
e.g., Carey v. Popula-tion Services International, 431 U. S. 678 (1977);Moore
v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 678 (1977).  Roe, however, may be seen not only
as an exem-plar of Griswold liberty but as a rule (whether ornot mistaken) of
personal autonomy and bodilyintegrity, with doctrinal affinity to cases
recog-nizing limits on governmental power to mandatemedical treatment or to
bar its rejection.  If so,our cases since Roe accord with Roe's view that
aState's interest in the protection of life fallsshort of justifyingany
plenary override of individual liberty claims. Cruzan v. Director, Missouri
Dept. of Health, 497U. S. 261,278 (1990); Cf., e.g., Riggins v. Nevada, 504
U.S.____, ____ (1992) (slip. op., at 7); Washington v.Harper, 494 U. S.210
(1990); see also, e.g., Rochin v. California, 342U. S. 165 (1952); Jacobson
v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S.11, 24-30 (1905).  Finally, one could classify Roe
as sui generis.  Ifthe case is so viewed, then there clearly has beenno
erosion of its central determination.  Theoriginal holding resting on the
concurrence ofseven Members of the Court in 1973 was expresslyaffirmed by a
majority of six in 1983, see Akron v.Akron Center for Reproductive Health,
Inc., 462U. S. 416 (1983) (Akron I), and by a majority of fivein 1986, see
Thornburgh v. American College ofObstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S.
747(1986), expressing adherence to the constitutionalruling despite
legislative efforts in some Statesto test its limits.  More recently, in
Webster v.Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S. 490 (1989),although two of
the present authors questionedthe trimester framework in a way consistent
withour judgment today, see id., at 518 (Rehnquist C.J., joined by White, and
Kennedy, JJ.); id., at 529(O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring
injudgment), a majority of the Court either decidedto reaffirm or declined to
address the constitu-tional validity of the central holding of Roe. 
SeeWebster, 492 U. S., at 521 (Rehnquist, C. J., joinedby White and Kennedy,
JJ.); id., at 525-526 (O'Con-nor, J., concurring in part and concurring
injudgment); id., at 537, 553 (Blackmun, J., joined byBrennan and Marshall,
JJ., concurring in part anddissenting in part); id., at 561-563 (Stevens,
J.,concurring in part and dissenting in part).  Nor will courts building upon
Roe be likely tohand down erroneous decisions as a consequence. Even on the
assumption that the central holdingof Roe was in error, that error would go
only tothe strength of the state interest in fetalprotection, not to the
recognition afforded by theConstitution to the woman's liberty.  The
latteraspect of the decision fits comfortably within theframework of the
Court's prior decisions includingSkinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316
U. S. 535(1942), Griswold, supra, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S.1 (1967), and
Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438(1972), the holdings of which are  not a
series ofisolated points, but mark a  rational continuum. Poe v. Ullman, 367
U. S., at 543 (1961) (Harlan, J.,dissenting).  As we described in Carey v.
PopulationServices International, supra, the liberty whichencompasses those
decisions       includes `the interest in independence in  making certain
kinds of important decisions.'   While the outer limits of this aspect of 
[protected liberty] have not been marked by  the Court, it is clear that
among the deci-sions that an individual may make without  unjustified
government interference are  personal decisions `relating to marriage, 
procreation, contraception, family relation-ships, and child rearing and
education.'   Id., at 684-685 (citations omitted).The soundness of this prong
of the Roe analysisis apparent from a consideration of the alterna-tive.  If
indeed the woman's interest in decidingwhether to bear and beget a child had
not beenrecognized as in Roe, the State might as readilyrestrict a woman's
right to choose to carry apregnancy to term as to terminate it, to
furtherasserted state interests in population control,or eugenics, for
example.  Yet Roe has been sensi-bly relied upon to counter any such
suggestions. E.g., Arnold v. Board of Education of EscambiaCounty, Ala., 880
F. 2d 305, 311 (CA11 1989) (relyingupon Roe and concluding that government
officialsviolate the Constitution by coercing a minor tohave an abortion);
Avery v. County of Burke, 660 F.2d 111, 115 (CA4 1981) (county agency
inducingteenage girl to undergo unwanted sterilization onthe basis of
misrepresentation that she hadsickle cell trait); see also In re Quinlan, 70
N.J. 10,355 A. 2d 647, cert. denied sub nom. Garger v. NewJersey, 429 U. S.
922 (1976) (relying on Roe infinding a right to terminate medical treatment). 
Inany event, because Roe's scope is confined by thefact of its concern with
postconception potentiallife, a concern otherwise likely to be implicatedonly
by some forms of contraception protectedindependently under Griswold and
later cases, anyerror in Roe is unlikely to have serious ramifica-tions in
future cases.                       4  We have seen how time has overtaken
some ofRoe's factual assumptions: advances in maternalhealth care allow for
abortions safe to themother later in pregnancy than was true in 1973,see
Akron I, supra, at 429, n. 11, and advances inneonatal care have advanced
viability to a pointsomewhat earlier.  Compare Roe, 410 U. S., at 160,with
Webster, supra, at 515-516 (opinion of Rehnqu-ist, C.J.); see Akron I, supra,
at 457, and n. 5(O'Connor, J., dissenting).  But these facts go onlyto the
scheme of time limits on the realization ofcompeting interests, and the
divergences from thefactual premises of 1973 have no bearing on thevalidity
of Roe's central holding, that viabilitymarks the earliest point at which the
State'sinterest in fetal life is constitutionally ade-quate to justify a
legislative ban on nontherape-utic abortions.  The soundness or unsoundness
ofthat constitutional judgment in no sense turns onwhether viability occurs
at approximately 28weeks, as was usual at the time of Roe, at 23 to 24weeks,
as it sometimes does today, or at somemoment even slightly earlier in
pregnancy, as itmay if fetal respiratory capacity can somehow beenhanced in
the future.  Whenever it may occur,the attainment of viability may continue
to serveas the critical fact, just as it has done since Roewas decided; which
is to say that no change inRoe's factual underpinning has left its
centralholding obsolete, and none supports an argumentfor overruling it.    
                  5  The sum of the precedential inquiry to thispoint shows
Roe's underpinnings unweakened in anyway affecting its central holding. 
While it hasengendered disapproval, it has not been unwork-able.  An entire
generation has come of age freeto assume Roe's concept of liberty in defining
thecapacity of women to act in society, and to makereproductive decisions; no
erosion of principlegoing to liberty or personal autonomy has leftRoe's
central holding a doctrinal remnant; Roeportends no developments at odds with
otherprecedent for the analysis of personal liberty;and no changes of fact
have rendered viabilitymore or less appropriate as the point at which
thebalance of interests tips.  Within the bounds ofnormal stare decisis
analysis, then, and subjectto the considerations on which it
customarilyturns, the stronger argument is for affirmingRoe's central
holding, with whatever degree ofpersonal reluctance any of us may have, not
foroverruling it.                        B  In a less significant case, stare
decisis analy-sis could, and would, stop at the point we havereached.  But
the sustained and widespread debateRoe has provoked calls for some
comparisonbetween that case and others of comparabledimension that have
responded to national con-troversies and taken on the impress of the
con-troversies addressed.  Only two such decisionallines from the past
century present themselvesfor examination, and in each instance the
resultreached by the Court accorded with the principleswe apply today.  The
first example is that line of cases identi-fied with Lochner v. New York, 198
U. S. 45 (1905),which imposed substantive limitations on legisla-tion
limiting economic autonomy in favor of healthand welfare regulation,
adopting, in JusticeHolmes' view, the theory of laissez-faire.  Id., at75
(Holmes, J., dissenting).  The Lochner decisionswere exemplified by Adkins v.
Children's Hospitalof D.C., 261 U. S. 525 (1923), in which this Courtheld it
to be an infringement of constitutionallyprotected liberty of contract to
require theemployers of adult women to satisfy minimum wagestandards. 
Fourteen years later, West CoastHotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379 (1937),
signalledthe demise of Lochner by overruling Adkins.  In themeantime, the
Depression had come and, with it,the lesson that seemed unmistakable to
mostpeople by 1937, that the interpretation of con-tractual freedom protected
in Adkins rested onfundamentally false factual assumptions aboutthe capacity
of a relatively unregulated marketto satisfy minimal levels of human welfare. 
SeeWest Coast Hotel Co., supra, at 399.  As JusticeJackson wrote of the
constitutional crisis of 1937shortly before he came on the bench,  The
olderworld of laissez faire was recognized everywhereoutside the Court to be
dead.  R. Jackson, TheStruggle for Judicial Supremacy 85 (1941).  Thefacts
upon which the earlier case had premised aconstitutional resolution of social
controversyhad proved to be untrue, and history's demonstra-tion of their
untruth not only justified butrequired the new choice of constitutional
princi-ple that West Coast Hotel announced.  Of course, itwas true that the
Court lost something by itsmisperception, or its lack of prescience, and
theCourt-packing crisis only magnified the loss; butthe clear demonstration
that the facts of eco-nomic life were different from those previouslyassumed
warranted the repudiation of the old law.  The second comparison that 20th
century histo-ry invites is with the cases employing the sepa-rate-but-equal
rule for applying the FourteenthAmendment's equal protection guarantee. 
Theybegan with Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537 (1896),holding that
legislatively mandated racial segre-gation in public transportation works no
denial ofequal protection, rejecting the argument thatracial separation
enforced by the legal machineryof American society treats the black race
asinferior.  The Plessy Court considered  theunderlying fallacy of the
plaintiff's argument toconsist in the assumption that the enforcedseparation
of the two races stamps the coloredrace with a badge of inferiority.  If this
be so, itis not by reason of anything found in the act, butsolely because the
colored race chooses to putthat construction upon it.  Id., at at 551. 
Wheth-er, as a matter of historical fact, the Justices inthe Plessy majority
believed this or not, see id.,at 557, 562 (Harlan, J., dissenting), this
under-standing of the implication of segregation was thestated justification
for the Court's opinion.  Butthis understanding of the facts and the rule
itwas stated to justify were repudiated in Brown v.Board of Education, 347 U.
S. 483 (1954).  As onecommentator observed, the question before theCourt in
Brown was  whether discrimination in-heres in that segregation which is
imposed by lawin the twentieth century in certain specificstates in the
American Union.  And that questionhas meaning and can find an answer only on
theground of history and of common knowledge aboutthe facts of life in the
times and places afore-said.  Black, The Lawfulness of the
SegregationDecisions, 69 Yale L. J. 421, 427 (1960).  The Court in Brown
addressed these facts of lifeby observing that whatever may have been
theunderstanding in Plessy's time of the power ofsegregation to stigmatize 
those who were segre-gated with a  badge of inferiority, it was clearby 1954
that legally sanctioned segregation hadjust such an effect, to the point that
raciallyseparate public educational facilities weredeemed inherently unequal. 
374 U. S., at 494-495. Society's understanding of the facts upon which
aconstitutional ruling was sought in 1954 was thusfundamentally different
from the basis claimed forthe decision in 1896.  While we think Plessy
waswrong the day it was decided, see Plessy, supra, at552-564 (Harlan, J.,
dissenting), we must alsorecognize that the Plessy Court's explanation forits
decision was so clearly at odds with the factsapparent to the Court in 1954
that the decision toreexamine Plessy was on this ground alone notonly
justified but required.  West Coast Hotel and Brown each rested on facts,or
an understanding of facts, changed from thosewhich furnished the claimed
justifications for theearlier constitutional resolutions.  Each casewas
comprehensible as the Court's response tofacts that the country could
understand, or hadcome to understand already, but which the Courtof an
earlier day, as its own declarations dis-closed, had not been able to
perceive.  As thedecisions were thus comprehensible they werealso defensible,
not merely as the victories ofone doctrinal school over another by dint
ofnumbers (victories though they were), but asapplications of constitutional
principle to factsas they had not been seen by the Court before. 
Inconstitutional adjudication as elsewhere in life,changed circumstances may
impose new obligations,and the thoughtful part of the Nation couldaccept each
decision to overrule a prior case asa response to the Court's constitutional
duty.    Because the case before us presents no suchoccasion it could be seen
as no such response. Because neither the factual underpinnings ofRoe's
central holding nor our understanding of ithas changed (and because no other
indication ofweakened precedent has been shown) the Courtcould not pretend to
be reexamining the prior lawwith any justification beyond a present
doctrinaldisposition to come out differently from theCourt of 1973.  To
overrule prior law for no otherreason than that would run counter to the
viewrepeated in our cases, that a decision to over-rule should rest on some
special reason over andabove the belief that a prior case was wronglydecided. 
See, e.g., Mitchell v. W.T. Grant, 416 U. S.600, 636 (1974) (Stewart, J.,
dissenting) ( A basicchange in the law upon a ground no firmer than achange
in our membership invites the popularmisconception that this institution is
littledifferent from the two political branches of theGovernment.  No
misconception could do morelasting injury to this Court and to the system
oflaw which it is our abiding mission to serve); Mappv. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643,
677 (1961) (Harlan, J., dis-senting).                       C  The
examination of the conditions justifying therepudiation of Adkins by West
Coast Hotel andPlessy by Brown is enough to suggest the terribleprice that
would have been paid if the Court hadnot overruled as it did.  In the present
case,however, as our analysis to this point makesclear, the terrible price
would be paid for over-ruling.  Our analysis would not be complete,however,
without explaining why overruling Roe'scentral holding would not only reach
an unjustifi-able result under principles of stare decisis, butwould
seriously weaken the Court's capacity toexercise the judicial power and to
function as theSupreme Court of a Nation dedicated to the ruleof law.  To
understand why this would be so it isnecessary to understand the source of
thisCourt's authority, the conditions necessary forits preservation, and its
relationship to thecountry's understanding of itself as a constitu-tional
Republic.  The root of American governmental power isrevealed most clearly in
the instance of thepower conferred by the Constitution upon theJudiciary of
the United States and specificallyupon this Court.  As Americans of each
succeedinggeneration are rightly told, the Court cannot buysupport for its
decisions by spending money and,except to a minor degree, it cannot
independentlycoerce obedience to its decrees.  The Court'spower lies, rather,
in its legitimacy, a product ofsubstance and perception that shows itself in
thepeople's acceptance of the Judiciary as fit todetermine what the Nation's
law means and todeclare what it demands.  The underlying substance of this
legitimacy isof course the warrant for the Court's decisions inthe
Constitution and the lesser sources of legalprinciple on which the Court
draws.  That sub-stance is expressed in the Court's opinions, andour
contemporary understanding is such that adecision without principled
justification would beno judicial act at all.  But even when justificationis
furnished by apposite legal principle, somethingmore is required.  Because
not every conscien-tious claim of principled justification will beaccepted as
such, the justification claimed mustbe beyond dispute.  The Court must take
care tospeak and act in ways that allow people to acceptits decisions on the
terms the Court claims forthem, as grounded truly in principle, not
ascompromises with social and political pressureshaving, as such, no bearing
on the principledchoices that the Court is obliged to make.  Thus,the Court's
legitimacy depends on making legallyprincipled decisions under circumstances
in whichtheir principled character is sufficiently plausi-ble to be accepted
by the Nation.  The need for principled action to be perceivedas such is
implicated to some degree wheneverthis, or any other appellate court,
overrules aprior case.  This is not to say, of course, thatthis Court cannot
give a perfectly satisfactoryexplanation in most cases.  People
understandthat some of the Constitution's language is hardto fathom and that
the Court's Justices aresometimes able to perceive significant facts orto
understand principles of law that eluded theirpredecessors and that justify
departures fromexisting decisions.  However upsetting it may beto those most
directly affected when one judi-cially derived rule replaces another, the
countrycan accept some correction of error withoutnecessarily questioning the
legitimacy of theCourt.  In two circumstances, however, the Court wouldalmost
certainly fail to receive the benefit ofthe doubt in overruling prior cases. 
There is,first, a point beyond which frequent overrulingwould overtax the
country's belief in the Court'sgood faith.  Despite the variety of reasons
thatmay inform and justify a decision to overrule, wecannot forget that such
a decision is usuallyperceived (and perceived correctly) as, at theleast, a
statement that a prior decision waswrong.  There is a limit to the amount of
errorthat can plausibly be imputed to prior courts.  Ifthat limit should be
exceeded, disturbance ofprior rulings would be taken as evidence
thatjustifiable reexamination of principle had givenway to drives for
particular results in the shortterm.  The legitimacy of the Court would fade
withthe frequency of its vacillation.      That first circumstance can be
described ashypothetical; the second is to the point here andnow.  Where, in
the performance of its judicialduties, the Court decides a case in such a way
asto resolve the sort of intensely divisive contro-versy reflected in Roe and
those rare, comparablecases, its decision has a dimension that theresolution
of the normal case does not carry.  Itis the dimension present whenever the
Court'sinterpretation of the Constitution calls thecontending sides of a
national controversy to endtheir national division by accepting a
commonmandate rooted in the Constitution.  The Court is not asked to do this
very often,having thus addressed the Nation only twice inour lifetime, in the
decisions of Brown and Roe. But when the Court does act in this way,
itsdecision requires an equally rare precedentialforce to counter the
inevitable efforts to over-turn it and to thwart its implementation.  Some
ofthose efforts may be mere unprincipled emotionalreactions; others may
proceed from principlesworthy of profound respect.  But whatever thepremises
of opposition may be, only the mostconvincing justification under accepted
standardsof precedent could suffice to demonstrate that alater decision
overruling the first was anythingbut a surrender to political pressure, and
anunjustified repudiation of the principle on whichthe Court staked its
authority in the firstinstance.  So to overrule under fire in the ab-sence of
the most compelling reason to reexaminea watershed decision would subvert the
Court'slegitimacy beyond any serious question.  Cf. Brownv. Board of
Education, 349 U. S. 294, 300 (1955)(Brown II) ( [I]t should go without
saying that thevitality of th[e] constitutional principles [an-nounced in
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S.483 (1954),] cannot be allowed to yield
simplybecause of disagreement with them).  The country's loss of confidence
in the judiciarywould be underscored by an equally certain andequally
reasonable condemnation for anotherfailing in overruling unnecessarily and
underpressure.  Some cost will be paid by anyone whoapproves or implements a
constitutional decisionwhere it is unpopular, or who refuses to work
toundermine the decision or to force its reversal. The price may be criticism
or ostracism, or it maybe violence.  An extra price will be paid by thosewho
themselves disapprove of the decision'sresults when viewed outside of
constitutionalterms, but who nevertheless struggle to acceptit, because they
respect the rule of law.  To allthose who will be so tested by following, the
Courtimplicitly undertakes to remain steadfast, lest inthe end a price be
paid for nothing.  The promiseof constancy, once given, binds its maker for
aslong as the power to stand by the decision sur-vives and the understanding
of the issue has notchanged so fundamentally as to render the commit-ment
obsolete.  From the obligation of this prom-ise this Court cannot and should
not assume anyexemption when duty requires it to decide a casein conformance
with the Constitution.  A willingbreach of it would be nothing less than a
breachof faith, and no Court that broke its faith withthe people could
sensibly expect credit forprinciple in the decision by which it did that.  It
is true that diminished legitimacy may berestored, but only slowly.  Unlike
the politicalbranches, a Court thus weakened could not seek toregain its
position with a new mandate from thevoters, and even if the Court could
somehow go tothe polls, the loss of its principled charactercould not be
retrieved by the casting of so manyvotes.  Like the character of an
individual, thelegitimacy of the Court must be earned over time. So, indeed,
must be the character of a Nation ofpeople who aspire to live according to
the rule oflaw.  Their belief in themselves as such a peopleis not readily
separable from their understandingof the Court invested with the authority
todecide their constitutional cases and speakbefore all others for their
constitutional ideals. If the Court's legitimacy should be undermined,then,
so would the country be in its very abilityto see itself through its
constitutional ideals. The Court's concern with legitimacy is not for thesake
of the Court but for the sake of the Nationto which it is responsible.   The
Court's duty in the present case is clear. In 1973, it confronted the
already-divisive issueof governmental power to limit personal choice
toundergo abortion, for which it provided a newresolution based on the due
process guaranteedby the Fourteenth Amendment.  Whether or not anew social
consensus is developing on that issue,its divisiveness is no less today than
in 1973, andpressure to overrule the decision, like pressureto retain it, has
grown only more intense.  Adecision to overrule Roe's essential holding
underthe existing circumstances would address error,if error there was, at
the cost of both profoundand unnecessary damage to the Court's legitimacy,and
to the Nation's commitment to the rule of law. It is therefore imperative to
adhere to theessence of Roe's original decision, and we do sotoday.         
            IV  From what we have said so far it follows that itis a
constitutional liberty of the woman to havesome freedom to terminate her
pregnancy.  Weconclude that the basic decision in Roe was basedon a
constitutional analysis which we cannot nowrepudiate.  The woman's liberty is
not so unlimit-ed, however, that from the outset the Statecannot show its
concern for the life of the un-born, and at a later point in fetal
development theState's interest in life has sufficient force sothat the right
of the woman to terminate thepregnancy can be restricted.  That brings us, of
course, to the point wheremuch criticism has been directed at Roe, a
criti-cism that always inheres when the Court draws aspecific rule from what
in the Constitution is buta general standard.  We conclude, however, thatthe
urgent claims of the woman to retain theultimate control over her destiny and
her body,claims implicit in the meaning of liberty, requireus to perform that
function.  Liberty must not beextinguished for want of a line that is clear. 
Andit falls to us to give some real substance to thewoman's liberty to
determine whether to carry herpregnancy to full term.  We conclude the line
should be drawn at viabili-ty, so that before that time the woman has a
rightto choose to terminate her pregnancy.  We adhereto this principle for
two reasons.  First, as wehave said, is the doctrine of stare decisis. 
Anyjudicial act of line-drawing may seem somewhatarbitrary, but Roe was a
reasoned statement,elaborated with great care.  We have twice reaf-firmed it
in the face of great opposition.  SeeThornburgh v. American College of
Obstetricians &Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 759; Akron I, 462 U. S.,at
419-420.  Although we must overrule thoseparts of Thornburgh and Akron I
which, in our view,are inconsistent with Roe's statement that theState has a
legitimate interest in promoting thelife or potential life of the unborn, see
infra, at___, the central premise of those cases repre-sents an unbroken
commitment by this Court to theessential holding of Roe.  It is that premise
whichwe reaffirm today.  The second reason is that the concept of viabil-ity,
as we noted in Roe, is the time at which thereis a realistic possibility of
maintaining andnourishing a life outside the womb, so that theindependent
existence of the second life can inreason and all fairness be the object of
stateprotection that now overrides the rights of thewoman.  See Roe v. Wade,
410 U. S., at 163.  Consis-tent with other constitutional norms,
legisla-tures may draw lines which appear arbitrarywithout the necessity of
offering a justification. But courts may not.  We must justify the lines
wedraw.  And there is no line other than viabilitywhich is more workable.  To
be sure, as we havesaid, there may be some medical developments thataffect
the precise point of viability, see supra,at ___, but this is an imprecision
within tolerablelimits given that the medical community and allthose who must
apply its discoveries will continueto explore the matter.  The viability line
also has,as a practical matter, an element of fairness.  Insome broad sense
it might be said that a womanwho fails to act before viability has consented
tothe State's intervention on behalf of the develop-ing child.  The woman's
right to terminate her pregnancybefore viability is the most central
principle ofRoe v. Wade.  It is a rule of law and a component ofliberty we
cannot renounce.  On the other side of the equation is the inter-est of the
State in the protection of potentiallife.  The Roe Court recognized the
State's  im-portant and legitimate interest in protecting thepotentiality of
human life.  Roe, supra, at 162. The weight to be given this state interest,
notthe strength of the woman's interest, was thedifficult question faced in
Roe.  We do not need tosay whether each of us, had we been Members ofthe
Court when the valuation of the State inter-est came before it as an original
matter, wouldhave concluded, as the Roe Court did, that itsweight is
insufficient to justify a ban on abor-tions prior to viability even when it
is subject tocertain exceptions.  The matter is not before usin the first
instance, and coming as it does afternearly 20 years of litigation in Roe's
wake we aresatisfied that the immediate question is not thesoundness of Roe's
resolution of the issue, butthe precedential force that must be accorded
toits holding.  And we have concluded that theessential holding of Roe should
be reaffirmed.  Yet it must be remembered that Roe v. Wadespeaks with clarity
in establishing not only thewoman's liberty but also the State's 
importantand legitimate interest in potential life.  Roe,supra, at 163.  That
portion of the decision in Roehas been given too little acknowledgement
andimplementation by the Court in its subsequentcases.  Those cases decided
that any regulationtouching upon the abortion decision must survivestrict
scrutiny, to be sustained only if drawn innarrow terms to further a
compelling state inter-est.  See, e.g., Akron I, supra, at 427.  Not all
ofthe cases decided under that formulation can bereconciled with the holding
in Roe itself that theState has legitimate interests in the health ofthe
woman and in protecting the potential lifewithin her.  In resolving this
tension, we chooseto rely upon Roe, as against the later cases.  Roe
established a trimester framework to governabortion regulations.  Under this
elaborate butrigid construct, almost no regulation at all ispermitted during
the first trimester of pregnancy;regulations designed to protect the
woman'shealth, but not to further the State's interestinpotential life, are
permitted during the secondtrimester; and during the third trimester, whenthe
fetus is viable, prohibitions are permittedprovided the life or health of the
mother is not atstake.  Roe v. Wade, supra, at 163-166.  Most of ourcases
since Roe have involved the application ofrules derived from the trimester
framework.  See,e.g., Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetri-cians and
Gynecologists, supra; Akron I, supra.  The trimester framework no doubt was
erectedto ensure that the woman's right to choose notbecome so subordinate to
the State's interest inpromoting fetal life that her choice exists intheory
but not in fact.  We do not agree, however,that the trimester approach is
necessary toaccomplish this objective.  A framework of thisrigidity was
unnecessary and in its later inter-pretation sometimes contradicted the
State'spermissible exercise of its powers.   Though the woman has a right to
choose toterminate or continue her pregnancy beforeviability, it does not at
all follow that the Stateis prohibited from taking steps to ensure thatthis
choice is thoughtful and informed.  Even inthe earliest stages of pregnancy,
the State mayenact rules and regulations designed to encour-age her to know
that there are philosophic andsocial arguments of great weight that can
bebrought to bear in favor of continuing the preg-nancy to full term and that
there are proceduresand institutions to allow adoption of unwantedchildren as
well as a certain degree of stateassistance if the mother chooses to raise
thechild herself.   `[T]he Constitution does notforbid a State or city,
pursuant to democraticprocesses, from expressing a preference fornormal
childbirth.'  Webster v. ReproductiveHealth Services, 492 U. S., at 511
(opinion of theCourt) (quoting Poelker v. Doe, 432 U. S. 519, 521(1977)).  It
follows that States are free to enactlaws to provide a reasonable framework
for awoman to make a decision that has such profoundand lasting meaning. 
This, too, we find consistentwith Roe's central premises, and indeed the
inevi-table consequence of our holding that the Statehas an interest in
protecting the life of theunborn.    We reject the trimester framework, which
we donot consider to be part of the essential holdingof Roe.  See  Webster v.
Reproductive Health Ser-vices, supra, at 518 (opinion of Rehnquist, C.
J.);id., at 529 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part andconcurring in judgment)
(describing the trimesterframework as  problematic).  Measures aimed
atensuring that a woman's choice contemplates theconsequences for the fetus
do not necessarilyinterfere with the right recognized in Roe, al-though those
measures have been found to beinconsistent with the rigid trimester
frameworkannounced in that case.  A logical reading of thecentral holding in
Roe itself, and a necessaryreconciliation of the liberty of the woman and
theinterest of the State in promoting prenatal life,require, in our view,
that we abandon the trimes-ter framework as a rigid prohibition on all
previa-bility regulation aimed at the protection of fetallife.  The trimester
framework suffers from thesebasic flaws: in its formulation it misconceives
thenature of the pregnant woman's interest; and inpractice it undervalues the
State's interest inpotential life, as recognized in Roe.  As ourjurisprudence
relating to all liberties saveperhaps abortion has recognized, not every
lawwhich makes a right more difficult to exercise is,ipso facto, an
infringement of that right.  Anexample clarifies the point.  We have held
that notevery ballot access limitation amounts to aninfringement of the right
to vote.  Rather, theStates are granted substantial flexibility
inestablishing the framework within which voterschoose the candidates for
whom they wish to vote. Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780, 788
(1983);Norman v. Reed, 502 U. S. ___ (1992).  The abortion right is similar. 
Numerous forms ofstate regulation might have the incidental effectof
increasing the cost or decreasing the avail-ability of medical care, whether
for abortion orany other medical procedure.  The fact that a lawwhich serves
a valid purpose, one not designed tostrike at the right itself, has the
incidentaleffect of making it more difficult or more expen-sive to procure an
abortion cannot be enough toinvalidate it.  Only where state regulation
impos-es an undue burden on a woman's ability to makethis decision does the
power of the State reachinto the heart of the liberty protected by the
DueProcess Clause.  See Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497U. S. 417, 458-459 (1990)
(O'Connor, J., concurringin part and concurring in judgment in part); Ohio
v.Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U. S.502, --- (1990) (Akron II)
(opinion of Kennedy, J.)Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, supra, at530
(O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concur-ring in judgment); Thornburgh v.
American College ofObstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at
828(O'Connor, J., dissenting); Simopoulos v. Virginia,462 U. S. 506, 520
(1983) (O'Connor, J., concurringin part and concurring in judgment); Planned
Par-enthood Assn. of Kansas City v. Ashcroft, 462 U. S.476, 505 (1983)
(O'Connor, J., concurring in judg-ment in part and dissenting in part); Akron
I, 462U. S., at 464 (O'Connor, J., joined by White andRehnquist, JJ.,
dissenting); Bellotti v. Baird, 428U. S. 132, 147 (1976) (Bellotti I).  For
the most part, the Court's early abortioncases adhered to this view.  In
Maher v. Roe, 432U. S. 464, 473-474 (1977), the Court explained:  Roe did not
declare an unqualified `constitution-al right to an abortion,' as the
District Courtseemed to think.  Rather, the right protects thewoman from
unduly burdensome interference withher freedom to decide whether to terminate
herpregnancy.  See also Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179,198 (1973) ( [T]he
interposition of the hospitalabortion committee is unduly restrictive of
thepatient's rights); Bellotti I, supra, at 147 (Statemay not  impose undue
burdens upon a minorcapable of giving an informed consent); Harris v.McRae,
448 U. S. 297, 314 (1980) (citing Maher,supra).  Cf. Carey v. Population
Services Interna-tional, 431 U. S., at 688 ( [T]he same test must beapplied
to state regulations that burden anindividual's right to decide to prevent
conceptionor terminate pregnancy by substantially limitingaccess to the means
of effectuating that decisionas is applied to state statutes that prohibit
thedecision entirely).  These considerations of the nature of theabortion
right illustrate that it is an overstate-ment to describe it as a right to
decide whetherto have an abortion  without interference fromthe State,
Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v.Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 61 (1976).  All
abortionregulations interfere to some degree with awoman's ability to decide
whether to terminate herpregnancy.  It is, as a consequence, not
surprisingthat despite the protestations contained in theoriginal Roe opinion
to the effect that the Courtwas not recognizing an absolute right, 410 U. S.,
at154-155, the Court's experience applying thetrimester framework has led to
the striking downof some abortion regulations which in no realsense deprived
women of the ultimate decision. Those decisions went too far because the
rightrecognized by Roe is a right  to be free fromunwarranted governmental
intrusion into mattersso fundamentally affecting a person as the deci-sion
whether to bear or beget a child.  Eisenstadtv. Baird, 405 U. S., at 453. 
Not all governmentalintrusion is of necessity unwarranted; and thatbrings us
to the other basic flaw in the trimesterframework: even in Roe's terms, in
practice itundervalues the State's interest in the potentiallife within the
woman.  Roe v. Wade was express in its recognition of theState's  important
and legitimate interest[s] inpreserving and protecting the health of
thepregnant woman [and] in protecting the potentiali-ty of human life.  410
U. S., at 162.  The trimesterframework, however, does not fulfill Roe's
ownpromise that the State has an interest in pro-tecting fetal life or
potential life.  Roe began thecontradiction by using the trimester framework
toforbid any regulation of abortion designed toadvance that interest before
viability.  Id., at163.  Before viability, Roe and subsequent casestreat all
governmental attempts to influence awoman's decision on behalf of the
potential lifewithin her as unwarranted.  This treatment is, inour judgment,
incompatible with the recognitionthat there is a substantial state interest
inpotential life throughout pregnancy.  Cf. Webster,492 U. S., at 519
(opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.); AkronI, supra, at 461 (O'Connor, J.,
dissenting).  The very notion that the State has a substan-tial interest in
potential life leads to the con-clusion that not all regulations must be
deemedunwarranted.  Not all burdens on the right todecide whether to
terminate a pregnancy will beundue.  In our view, the undue burden standard
isthe appropriate means of reconciling the State'sinterest with the woman's
constitutionally pro-tected liberty.  The concept of an undue burden has been
utilizedby the Court as well as individual members of theCourt, including two
of us, in ways that could beconsidered inconsistent.  See, e.g., Hodgson
v.Minnesota, 497 U. S., at --- (O'Connor, J., concur-ring in part and
concurring in judgment); Akron II,497 U. S., at --- (opinion of Kennedy, J.);
Thorn-burgh v. American College of Obstetricians andGynecologists, 476 U. S.,
at 828-829 (O'Connor, J.,dissenting); Akron I, supra, at 461-466
(O'Connor,J., dissenting); Harris v. McRae, supra, at 314;Maher v. Roe,
supra, at 473; Beal v. Doe, 432 U. S.438, 446 (1977); Bellotti I, supra, at
147.  Becausewe set forth a standard of general application towhich we intend
to adhere, it is important toclarify what is meant by an undue burden.  A
finding of an undue burden is a shorthand forthe conclusion that a state
regulation has thepurpose or effect of placing a substantial obsta-cle in the
path of a woman seeking an abortion ofa nonviable fetus.  A statute with this
purpose isinvalid because the means chosen by the State tofurther the
interest in potential life must becalculated to inform the woman's free
choice, nothinder it.  And a statute which, while furtheringthe interest in
potential life or some other validstate interest, has the effect of placing
a sub-stantial obstacle in the path of a woman's choicecannot be considered
a permissible means ofserving its legitimate ends.  To the extent thatthe
opinions of the Court or of individual Justic-es use the undue burden
standard in a manner thatis inconsistent with this analysis, we set outwhat
in our view should be the controlling stan-dard.  Cf. McCleskey v. Zant, 499
U. S. ---, ---(1991) (slip op., at 20) (attempting to  define thedoctrine of
abuse of the writ with more precisionafter acknowledging tension among
earlier cases). In our considered judgment, an undue burden is
anunconstitutional burden.  See Akron II, supra, at--- (opinion of Kennedy,
J.).  Understood anotherway, we answer the question, left open in
previousopinions discussing the undue burden formulation,whether a law
designed to further the State'sinterest in fetal life which imposes an
undueburden on the woman's decision before fetalviability could be
constitutional.  See, e.g., AkronI, supra, at 462-463 (O'Connor, J.,
dissenting).  Theanswer is no.  Some guiding principles should emerge.  What
isat stake is the woman's right to make the ultimatedecision, not a right to
be insulated from allothers in doing so.  Regulations which do no morethan
create a structural mechanism by which theState, or the parent or guardian of
a minor, mayexpress profound respect for the life of theunborn are permitted,
if they are not a substan-tial obstacle to the woman's exercise of the
rightto choose.  See infra, at ___-___ (addressingPennsylvania's parental
consent requirement). Unless it has that effect on her right of choice,a
state measure designed to persuade her tochoose childbirth over abortion will
be upheld ifreasonably related to that goal.  Regulationsdesigned to foster
the health of a woman seekingan abortion are valid if they do not constitute
anundue burden.  Even when jurists reason from shared premises,some
disagreement is inevitable.  Compare Hodgs-on, 497 U. S., at ------- (opinion
of Kennedy, J.)with id., at ------- (O'Connor, J., concurring inpart and
concurring in judgment in part).  That isto be expected in the application of
any legalstandard which must accommodate life's complexi-ty.  We do not
expect it to be otherwise withrespect to the undue burden standard.  We
givethis summary:  (a) To protect the central right recognized byRoe v. Wade
while at the same time accommodatingthe State's profound interest in
potential life, wewill employ the undue burden analysis as explainedin this
opinion.  An undue burden exists, andtherefore a provision of law is invalid,
if itspurpose or effect is to place a substantialobstacle in the path of a
woman seeking an abor-tion before the fetus attains viability.  (b) We reject
the rigid trimester framework ofRoe v. Wade.  To promote the State's
profoundinterest in potential life, throughout pregnancythe State may take
measures to ensure that thewoman's choice is informed, and measures
designedto advance this interest will not be invalidatedas long as their
purpose is to persuade the womanto choose childbirth over abortion.  These
mea-sures must not be an undue burden on the right.  (c) As with any medical
procedure, the State mayenact regulations to further the health or safetyof
a woman seeking an abortion.  Unnecessaryhealth regulations that have the
purpose oreffect of presenting a substantial obstacle to awoman seeking an
abortion impose an undue burdenon the right.  (d) Our adoption of the undue
burden analysisdoes not disturb the central holding of Roe v.Wade, and we
reaffirm that holding.  Regardless ofwhether exceptions are made for
particularcircumstances, a State may not prohibit any womanfrom making the
ultimate decision to terminate herpregnancy before viability.    (e) We also
reaffirm Roe's holding that  subse-quent to viability, the State in promoting
itsinterest in the potentiality of human life may, ifit chooses, regulate,
and even proscribe, abortionexcept where it is necessary, in
appropriatemedical judgment, for the preservation of the lifeor health of the
mother.  Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S., at164-165.  These principles control our
assessment of thePennsylvania statute, and we now turn to theissue of the
validity of its challenged provisions.                       V  The Court of
Appeals applied what it believed tobe the undue burden standard and upheld
each ofthe provisions except for the husband notifica-tion requirement.  We
agree generally with thisconclusion, but refine the undue burden analysisin
accordance with the principles articulatedabove.  We now consider the
separate statutorysections at issue.                       A  Because it is
central to the operation of vari-ous other requirements, we begin with the
statut-e's definition of medical emergency.  Under thestatute, a medical
emergency is [t]hat condition which, on the basis of thephysician's good
faith clinical judgment, socomplicates the medical condition of a preg-nant
woman as to necessitate the immediateabortion of her pregnancy to avert her
deathor for which a delay will create serious riskof substantial and
irreversible impairment ofa major bodily function.  18 Pa. Cons. Stat.(1990). 
3203.Petitioners argue that the definition is toonarrow, contending that it
forecloses the possi-bility of an immediate abortion despite somesignificant
health risks.  If the contention werecorrect, we would be required to
invalidate therestrictive operation of the provision, for theessential
holding of Roe forbids a State frominterfering with a woman's choice to
undergo anabortion procedure if continuing her pregnancywould constitute a
threat to her health.  410 U. S.,at 164.  See also Harris v. McRae, 448 U.
S., at 316.  The District Court found that there were threeserious conditions
which would not be covered bythe statute: preeclampsia, inevitable
abortion,and premature ruptured membrane.  744 F. Supp., at1378.  Yet, as the
Court of Appeals observed, 947F. 2d, at 700-701, it is undisputed that under
somecircumstances each of these conditions could leadto an illness with
substantial and irreversibleconsequences.  While the definition could
beinterpreted in an unconstitutional manner, theCourt of Appeals construed
the phrase  seriousrisk to include those circumstances.  Id., at 701. It
stated:  we read the medical emergency excep-tion as intended by the
Pennsylvania legislatureto assure that compliance with its
abortionregulations would not in any way pose a signifi-cant threat to the
life or health of a woman. Ibid.  As we said in Brockett v. Spokane
Arcades,Inc., 472 U. S. 491, 499-500 (1985):  Normally, . . .we defer to the
construction of a state statutegiven it by the lower federal courts.  Indeed,
wehave said that we will defer to lower court inter-pretations of state law
unless they amount to plain error.  Palmer v. Hoffman, 318 U. S. 109,
118(1943).  This  `reflect[s] our belief that districtcourts and courts of
appeals are better schooledin and more able to interpret the laws of
theirrespective States.'  Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S.474, 482 (1988)
(citation omitted).  We adhere tothat course today, and conclude that, as
con-strued by the Court of Appeals, the medicalemergency definition imposes
no undue burden ona woman's abortion right.                       B  We next
consider the informed consent require-ment.  18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. 3205. 
Except in amedical emergency, the statute requires that atleast 24 hours
before performing an abortion aphysician inform the woman of the nature of
theprocedure, the health risks of the abortion and ofchildbirth, and the 
probable gestational age ofthe unborn child.  The physician or a
qualifiednonphysician must inform the woman of the avail-ability of printed
materials published by theState describing the fetus and providing
informa-tion about medical assistance for childbirth,information about child
support from the father,and a list of agencies which provide adoption
andother services as alternatives to abortion.  Anabortion may not be
performed unless the womancertifies in writing that she has been informed
ofthe availability of these printed materials andhas been provided them if
she chooses to viewthem.  Our prior decisions establish that as with
anymedical procedure, the State may require a womanto give her written
informed consent to an abor-tion.  See Planned Parenthood of Central Mo.
v.Danforth, 428 U. S., at 67.  In this respect, thestatute is unexceptional. 
Petitioners challengethe statute's definition of informed consentbecause it
includes the provision of specificinformation by the doctor and the
mandatory24-hour waiting period.  The conclusions reachedby a majority of the
Justices in the separateopinions filed today and the undue burden stan-dard
adopted in this opinion require us to over-rule in part some of the Court's
past decisions,decisions driven by the trimester framework'sprohibition of
all previability regulations de-signed to further the State's interest in
fetallife.  In Akron I, 462 U. S. 416 (1983), we invalidated anordinance
which required that a woman seeking anabortion be provided by her physician
with specif-ic information  designed to influence the woman'sinformed choice
between abortion or childbirth. Id., at 444.  As we later described the Akron
Iholding in Thornburgh v. American College of Obste-tricians and
Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 762, therewere two purported flaws in the Akron
ordinance:the information was designed to dissuade thewoman from having an
abortion and the ordinanceimposed  a rigid requirement that a specific bodyof
information be givenin all cases, irrespective of the particular needs of the
patient . . . .  Ibid.    To the extent Akron I and Thornburgh find
aconstitutional violation when the governmentrequires, as it does here, the
giving of truthful,nonmisleading information about the nature of
theprocedure, the attendant health risks and thoseof childbirth, and the 
probable gestational ageof the fetus, those cases go too far, are
incon-sistent with Roe's acknowledgment of an importantinterest in potential
life, and are overruled. This is clear even on the very terms of Akron Iand
Thornburgh.  Those decisions, along withDanforth, recognize a substantial
governmentinterest justifying a requirement that a woman beapprised of the
health risks of abortion and childbirth. E.g., Danforth, supra, at 66-67.  It
cannot bequestioned that psychological well-being is afacet of health.  Nor
can it be doubted that mostwomen considering an abortion would deem theimpact
on the fetus relevant, if not dispositive,to the decision.  In attempting to
ensure that awoman apprehend the full consequences of herdecision, the State
furthers the legitimatepurpose of reducing the risk that a woman mayelect an
abortion, only to discover later, withdevastating psychological consequences,
that herdecision was not fully informed.  If the informa-tion the State
requires to be made available tothe woman is truthful and not misleading,
therequirement may be permissible.  We also see no reason why the State may
notrequire doctors to inform a woman seeking anabortion of the availability
of materials relatingto the consequences to the fetus, even whenthose
consequences have no direct relation toher health.  An example illustrates
the point.  Wewould think it constitutional for the State torequire that in
order for there to be informedconsent to a kidney transplant operation
therecipient must be supplied with information aboutrisks to the donor as
well as risks to himself orherself.  A requirement that the physician
makeavailable information similar to that mandated bythe statute here was
described in Thornburgh as an outright attempt to wedge the
Commonwealth'smessage discouraging abortion into the privacy ofthe
informed-consent dialogue between the womanand her physician.  476 U. S., at
762.  We conclude,however, that informed choice need not be definedin such
narrow terms that all considerations ofthe effect on the fetus are made
irrelevant.  Aswe have made clear, we depart from the holdings ofAkron I and
Thornburgh to the extent that wepermit a State to further its legitimate goal
ofprotecting the life of the unborn by enactinglegislation aimed at ensuring
a decision that ismature and informed, even when in so doing theState
expresses a preference for childbirth overabortion.  In short, requiring that
the woman beinformed of the availability of information relat-ing to fetal
development and the assistanceavailable should she decide to carry the
pregnan-cy to full term is a reasonable measure to insurean informed choice,
one which might cause thewoman to choose childbirth over abortion. 
Thisrequirement cannot be considered a substantialobstacle to obtaining an
abortion, and, it follows,there is no undue burden.  Our prior cases also
suggest that the  strait-jacket,  Thornburgh, supra, at 762 (quoting
Danfo-rth, supra, at 67, n. 8), of particular informationwhich must be given
in each case interferes witha constitutional right of privacy between
apregnant woman and her physician.  As a prelimi-nary matter, it is worth
noting that the statutenow before us does not require a physician tocomply
with the informed consent provisions  if heor she can demonstrate by a
preponderance of theevidence, that he or she reasonably believed
thatfurnishing the information would have resulted ina severely adverse
effect on the physical ormental health of the patient.  18 Pa. Cons.
Stat.3205 (1990).  In this respect, the statute doesnot prevent the physician
from exercising his orher medical judgment.  Whatever constitutional status
the doctor-patient relation may have as a general matter, inthe present
context it is derivative of thewoman's position.  The doctor-patient
relationdoes not underlie or override the two more gener-al rights under
which the abortion right is justi-fied: the right to make family decisions
and theright to physical autonomy.  On its own, thedoctor-patient relation
here is entitled to thesame solicitude it receives in other contexts. Thus,
a requirement that a doctor give a womancertain information as part of
obtaining herconsent to an abortion is, for constitutionalpurposes, no
different from a requirement that adoctor give certain specific information
aboutany medical procedure.  All that is left of petitioners' argument is
anasserted First Amendment right of a physician notto provide information
about the risks of abor-tion, and childbirth, in a manner mandated by
theState.  To be sure, the physician's First Amend-ment rights not to speak
are implicated, seeWooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705 (1977), but only aspart
of the practice of medicine, subject toreasonable licensing and regulation by
the State. Cf. Whalen v. Roe, 429 U. S. 589, 603 (1977).  We seeno
constitutional infirmity in the requirementthat the physician provide the
information man-dated by the State here.  The Pennsylvania statute also
requires us toreconsider the holding in Akron I that the Statemay not require
that a physician, as opposed to aqualified assistant, provide information
relevantto a woman's informed consent.  462 U. S., at 448. Since there is no
evidence on this record thatrequiring a doctor to give the information
asprovided by the statute would amount in practicalterms to a substantial
obstacle to a womanseeking an abortion, we conclude that it is not anundue
burden.  Our cases reflect the fact that theConstitution gives the States
broad latitude todecide that particular functions may be performedonly by
licensed professionals, even if an objec-tive assessment might suggest that
those sametasks could be performed by others.  See William-son v. Lee Optical
of Oklahoma, Inc., 348 U. S. 483(1955).  Thus, we uphold the provision as a
reason-able means to insure that the woman's consent isinformed.  Our
analysis of Pennsylvania's 24-hour waitingperiod between the provision of the
informationdeemed necessary to informed consent and theperformance of an
abortion under the undueburden standard requires us to reconsider thepremise
behind the decision in Akron I invalidatinga parallel requirement.  In Akron
I we said:  Norare we convinced that the State's legitimateconcern that the
woman's decision be informed isreasonably served by requiring a 24-hour
delayas a matter of course.  462 U. S., at 450.  Weconsider that conclusion
to be wrong.  The ideathat important decisions will be more informed
anddeliberate if they follow some period of reflec-tion does not strike us as
unreasonable, particu-larly where the statute directs that
importantinformation become part of the background of thedecision.  The
statute, as construed by the Courtof Appeals, permits avoidance of the
waitingperiod in the event of a medical emergency and therecord evidence
shows that in the vast majorityof cases, a 24-hour delay does not create
anyappreciable health risk.  In theory, at least, thewaiting period is a
reasonable measure to imple-ment the State's interest in protecting the life
ofthe unborn, a measure that does not amount to anundue burden.    Whether
the mandatory 24-hour waiting period isnonetheless invalid because in
practice it is asubstantial obstacle to a woman's choice toterminate her
pregnancy is a closer question.  Thefindings of fact by the District Court
indicatethat because of the distances many women musttravel to reach an
abortion provider, the practi-cal effect will often be a delay of much more
thana day because the waiting period requires that awoman seeking an abortion
make at least twovisits to the doctor.  The District Court alsofound that in
many instances this will increasethe exposure of women seeking abortions to 
theharassment and hostility of anti-abortion pro-testors demonstrating
outside a clinic.  744 F.Supp., at 1351.  As a result, the District
Courtfound that for those women who have the fewestfinancial resources, those
who must travel longdistances, and those who have difficulty explain-ing
their whereabouts to husbands, employers, orothers, the 24-hour waiting
period will be  par-ticularly burdensome.  Id., at 1352.  These findings are
troubling in some respects,but they do not demonstrate that the waitingperiod
constitutes an undue burden.  We do notdoubt that, as the District Court
held, the waitingperiod has the effect of  increasing the cost andrisk of
delay of abortions, id., at 1378, but theDistrict Court did not conclude that
the increa-sed costs and potential delays amount to sub-stantial obstacles. 
Rather, applying the trimes-ter framework's strict prohibition of all
regula-tion designed to promote the State's interest inpotential life before
viability, see id., at 1374,the District Court concluded that the
waitingperiod does not further the state  interest inmaternal health and 
infringes the physician'sdiscretion to exercise sound medical judgment. Id.,
at 1378.  Yet, as we have stated, under theundue burden standard a State is
permitted toenact persuasive measures which favor childbirthover abortion,
even if those measures do notfurther a health interest.  And while the
waitingperiod does limit a physician's discretion, that isnot, standing
alone, a reason to invalidate it.  Inlight of the construction given the
statute'sdefinition of medical emergency by the Court ofAppeals, and the
District Court's findings, wecannot say that the waiting period imposes a
realhealth risk.  We also disagree with the District Court'sconclusion that
the  particularly burdensomeeffects of the waiting period on some
womenrequire its invalidation.  A particular burden isnot of necessity a
substantial obstacle.  Whethera burden falls on a particular group is a
distinctinquiry from whether it is a substantial obstacleeven as to the women
in that group.  And theDistrict Court did not conclude that the waitingperiod
is such an obstacle even for the women whoare most burdened by it.  Hence, on
the recordbefore us, and in the context of this facialchallenge, we are not
convinced that the 24-hourwaiting period constitutes an undue burden.  We are
left with the argument that the variousaspects of the informed consent
requirement areunconstitutional because they place barriers inthe way of
abortion on demand.  Even the broadestreading of Roe, however, has not
suggested thatthere is a constitutional right to abortion ondemand.  See,
e.g., Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S., at 189. Rather, the right protected by Roe is
a right todecide to terminate a pregnancy free of undueinterference by the
State.  Because the informedconsent requirement facilitates the wise
exerciseof that right it cannot be classified as an inter-ference with the
right Roe protects.  The informedconsent requirement is not an undue burden
onthat right.            C      Section 3209 of Pennsylvania's abortion
lawprovides, except in cases of medical emergency,that no physician shall
perform an abortion on amarried woman without receiving a signed state-ment
from the woman that she has notified herspouse that she is about to undergo
an abortion. The woman has the option of providing an alterna-tive signed
statement certifying that her husbandis not the man who impregnated her; that
herhusband could not be located; that the pregnancyis the result of spousal
sexual assault which shehas reported; or that the woman believes
thatnotifying her husband will cause him or someoneelse to inflict bodily
injury upon her.  A physicianwho performs an abortion on a married
womanwithout receiving the appropriate signed state-ment will have his or her
license revoked, and isliable to the husband for damages.  The District Court
heard the testimony ofnumerous expert witnesses, and made detailedfindings of
fact regarding the effect of thisstatute.  These included:      273.  The
vast majority of women consulttheir husbands prior to deciding to
terminatetheir pregnancy. . . .        .      .      .       .      .  
``279.  The `bodily injury' exception could notbe invoked by a married woman
whose husband,if notified, would, in her reasonable belief,threaten to (a)
publicize her intent to have anabortion to family, friends or
acquaintances;(b) retaliate against her in future child cus-tody or divorce
proceedings; (c) inflict psy-chological intimidation or emotional harm
uponher, her children or other persons; (d) inflictbodily harm on other
persons such as children,family members or other loved ones; or (e) usehis
control over financesto deprive of necessary monies for herself or
herchildren. . . .        .      .      .       .      .   ``281.  Studies
reveal that family violenceoccurs in two million families in the
UnitedStates.  This figure, however, is a conserva-tive one that
substantially understates(because battering is usually not reporteduntil it
reaches life-threatening proportions)the actual number of families affected
bydomestic violence.  In fact, researchersestimate that one of every two
women will bebattered at some time in their life. . . .   ``282.  A wife may
not elect to notify herhusband of her intention to have an abortionfor a
variety of reasons, including the husba-nd's illness, concernabout her own
health, the imminent failure of the marriage, or the husband's absolute
opposition to the abortion. . . .   ``283.  The required filing of the
spousalconsent form would require plaintiff-clinicsto change their counseling
procedures andforce women to reveal their most intimatedecision-making on
pain of criminal sanctions. The confidentiality of these revelations couldnot
be guaranteed, since the woman's recordsare not immune from subpoena. . . . 
 ``284.  Women of all class levels, educationalbackgrounds, and racial,
ethnic and religiousgroups are battered. . . .   ``285.  Wife-battering or
abuse can take onmany physical and psychological forms.  Thenature and scope
of the battering can cover abroad range of actions and be gruesome
andtorturous. . . .   ``286.  Married women, victims of battering,have been
killed in Pennsylvania and through-out the United States. . . .   ``287. 
Battering can often involve a sub-stantial amount of sexual abuse,
includingmarital rape and sexual mutilation. . . .   ``288.  In a domestic
abuse situation, it iscommon for the battering husband to alsoabuse the
children in an attempt to coerce thewife. . . .   ``289.  Mere notification
of pregnancy isfrequently a flashpoint for battering andviolence within the
family.  The number ofbattering incidents is high during the preg-nancy and
often the worst abuse can be asso-ciated with pregnancy. . . .  The
batteringhusband may deny parentage and use the preg-nancy as an excuse for
abuse. . . .   ``290.  Secrecy typically shrouds abusivefamilies.  Family
members are instructed notto tell anyone, especially police or doctors,about
the abuse and violence.  Batteringhusbands often threaten their wives or
herchildren with further abuse if she tells anoutsider of the violence and
tells her thatnobody will believe her.  A battered woman,therefore, is highly
unlikely to disclose theviolence against her for fear of retaliationby the
abuser. . . .   ``291.  Even when confronted directly bymedical personnel or
other helping profes-sionals, battered women often will not admitto the
battering because they have not admit-ted to themselves that they are
battered. . . .         .      .      .       .      .  ``294.  A woman in a
shelter or a safe houseunknown to her husband is not `reasonablylikely' to
have bodily harm inflicted upon herby her batterer, however her attempt
tonotify her husband pursuant to section 3209could accidentally disclose her
whereaboutsto her husband.  Her fear of future ramifica-tions would be
realistic under the circum-stances.   ``295.  Marital rape is rarely
discussed withothers or reported to law enforcement au-thorities, and of
those reported only few areprosecuted. . . .   ``296.  It is common for
battered women tohave sexual intercourse with their husbandsto avoid being
battered.  While this type ofcoercive sexual activity would be spousalsexual
assault as defined by the Act, manywomen may not consider it to be so and
otherswould fear disbelief. . . .   ``297.  The marital rape exception to
section3209 cannot be claimed by women who arevictims of coercive sexual
behavior otherthan penetration.  The 90-day reportingrequirement of the
spousal sexual assaultstatute, 18 Pa. Con. Stat. Ann. 3218(c), fur-ther
narrows the class of sexually abusedwives who can claim the exception, since
manyof these women may be psychologically unableto discuss or report the rape
for severalyears after the incident. . . .   ``298.  Because of the nature of
the batter-ing relationship, battered women are unlikelyto avail themselves
of the exceptions tosection 3209 of the Act, regardless of wheth-er the
section applies to them.''  744 F. Supp.,at 1360-1362.   These findings are
supported by studies ofdomestic violence.  The American Medical Associa-tion
(AMA) has published a summary of the recentresearch in this field, which
indicates that in anaverage 12-month period in this country, approxi-mately
two million women are the victims of severeassaults by their male partners. 
In a 1985 sur-vey, women reported that nearly one of everyeight husbands had
assaulted their wives duringthe past year.  The AMA views these figures as
marked underestimates, because the nature ofthese incidents discourages women
from reportingthem, and because surveys typically exclude thevery poor, those
who do not speak English well,and women who are homeless or in institutions
orhospitals when the survey is conducted.  Accord-ing to the AMA, 
[r]esearchers on family violenceagree that the true incidence of partner
violenceis probably double the above estimates; or fourmillion severely
assaulted women per year. Studies suggest that from one-fifth to one-thirdof
all women will be physically assaulted by apartner or ex-partner during their
lifetime.  AMACouncil on Scientific Affairs, Violence AgainstWomen 7 (1991)
(emphasis in original).  Thus on anaverage day in the United States, nearly
11,000women are severely assaulted by their malepartners.  Many of these
incidents involve sexualassault.  Id., at 3-4; Shields & Hanneke,
BatteredWives' Reactions to Marital Rape, in The Dark Sideof Families:
Current Family Violence Research 131,144 (D. Finkelhor, R. Gelles, G.
Hataling, & M. Strauseds. 1983).  In families where wife-beating takesplace,
moreover, child abuse is often present aswell.  Violence Against Women,
supra, at 12.  Other studies fill in the rest of this troublingpicture. 
Physical violence is only the mostvisible form of abuse. Psychological abuse,
par-ticularly forced social and economic isolation ofwomen, is also common. 
L. Walker, The BatteredWoman Syndrome 27-28 (1984).  Many victims ofdomestic
violence remain with their abusers,perhaps because they perceive no superior
alter-native.  Herbert, Silver, & Ellard, Coping with anAbusive Relationship:
I. How and Why do WomenStay?, 53 J. Marriage & the Family 311 (1991). 
Manyabused women who find temporary refuge in shel-ters return to their
husbands, in large partbecause they have no other source of income. Aguirre,
Why Do They Return? Abused Wives inShelters, 30 J. Nat. Assn. of Social
Workers 350,352 (1985).  Returning to one's abuser can bedangerous.  Recent
Federal Bureau of Investiga-tion statistics disclose that 8.8% of all
homicidevictims in the United States are killed by theirspouse.  Mercy &
Saltzman, Fatal Violence AmongSpouses in the United States, 1976-85, 79 Am.
J.Public Health 595 (1989).  Thirty percent of femalehomicide victims are
killed by their male partners. Domestic Violence: Terrorism in the Home,
Hearingbefore the Subcommittee on Children, Family,Drugs and Alcoholism of
the Senate Committee onLabor and Human Resources, 101st Cong., 2d Sess.,3
(1990).  The limited research that has been conductedwith respect to
notifying one's husband about anabortion, although involving samples too
small tobe representative, also supports the DistrictCourt's findings of
fact.  The vast majority ofwomen notify their male partners of their
decisionto obtain an abortion.  In many cases in whichmarried women do not
notify their husbands, thepregnancy is the result of an extramarital affair.
Where the husband is the father, the primaryreason women do not notify their
husbands is thatthe husband and wife are experiencing maritaldifficulties,
often accompanied by incidents ofviolence.  Ryan & Plutzer, When Married
Women HaveAbortions: Spousal Notification and MaritalInteraction, 51 J.
Marriage & the Family 41, 44(1989).  This information and the District
Court's find-ings reinforce what common sense would suggest. In
well-functioning marriages, spouses discussimportant intimate decisions such
as whether tobear a child.  But there are millions of women inthis country
who are the victims of regularphysical and psychological abuse at the hands
oftheir husbands.  Should these women becomepregnant, they may have very good
reasons fornot wishing to inform their husbands of theirdecision to obtain an
abortion.  Many may havejustifiable fears of physical abuse, but may be
noless fearful of the consequences of reportingprior abuse to the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Many may have a reasonable fear that
notifyingtheir husbands will provoke further instances ofchild abuse; these
women are not exempt from3209's notification requirement.  Many may
feardevastating forms of psychological abuse fromtheir husbands, including
verbal harassment,threats of future violence, the destruction ofpossessions,
physical confinement to the home,the withdrawal of financial support, or the
dis-closure of the abortion to family and friends. These methods of
psychological abuse may act aseven more of a deterrent to notification than
thepossibility of physical violence, but women whoare the victims of the
abuse are not exempt from3209's notification requirement.  And many womenwho
are pregnant as a result of sexual assaultsby their husbands will be unable
to avail them-selves of the exception for spousal sexual as-sault,
3209(b)(3), because the exception requiresthat the woman have notified law
enforcementauthorities within 90 days of the assault, and herhusband will be
notified of her report once aninvestigation begins.  3128(c).  If anything in
thisfield is certain, it is that victims of spousalsexual assault are
extremely reluctant to reportthe abuse to the government; hence, a great
manyspousal rape victims will not be exempt from thenotification requirement
imposed by 3209.  The spousal notification requirement is thuslikely to
prevent a significant number of womenfrom obtaining an abortion.  It does not
merelymake abortions a little more difficult or expen-sive to obtain; for
many women, it will impose asubstantial obstacle.  We must not blind
ourselvesto the fact that the significant number of womenwho fear for their
safety and the safety of theirchildren are likely to be deterred from
procuringan abortion as surely as if the Commonwealth hadoutlawed abortion in
all cases.  Respondents attempt to avoid the conclusionthat 3209 is invalid
by pointing out that itimposes almost no burden at all for the vastmajority
of women seeking abortions.  They beginby noting that only about 20 percent
of the womenwho obtain abortions are married.  They then notethat of these
women about 95 percent notify theirhusbands of their own volition.  Thus,
respondentsargue, the effects of 3209 are felt by only onepercent of the
women who obtain abortions. Respondents argue that since some of these
womenwill be able to notify their husbands withoutadverse consequences or
will qualify for one ofthe exceptions, the statute affects fewer thanone
percent of women seeking abortions.  For thisreason, it is asserted, the
statute cannot beinvalid on its face.  See Brief for Respondents83-86.  We
disagree with respondents' basicmethod of analysis.  The analysis does not
end with the one percentof women upon whom the statute operates; itbegins
there.  Legislation is measured for consis-tency with the Constitution by its
impact on thosewhose conduct it affects.  For example, we wouldnot say that
a law which requires a newspaper toprint a candidate's reply to an
unfavorableeditorial is valid on its face because most news-papers would
adopt the policy even absent the law. See Miami Herald Publishing Co. v.
Tornillo, 418U. S. 241 (1974).  The proper focus of constitu-tional inquiry
is the group for whom the law is arestriction, not the group for whom the law
isirrelevant.  Respondents' argument itself gives implicitrecognition to this
principle, at one of its criti-cal points.  Respondents speak of the one
percentof women seeking abortions who are married andwould choose not to
notify their husbands oftheir plans.  By selecting as the controlling
classwomen who wish to obtain abortions, rather thanall women or all pregnant
women, respondents ineffect concede that 3209 must be judged byreference to
those for whom it is an actual ratherthan irrelevant restriction.  Of course,
as wehave said, 3209's real target is narrower eventhan the class of women
seeking abortions identi-fied by the State: it is married women
seekingabortions who do not wish to notify their hus-bands of their
intentions and who do not qualifyfor one of the statutory exceptions to the
noticerequirement.  The unfortunate yet persistingconditions we document
above will mean that in alarge fraction of the cases in which 3209
isrelevant, it will operate as a substantial obsta-cle to a woman's choice to
undergo an abortion.  Itis an undue burden, and therefore invalid.     This
conclusion is in no way inconsistent withour decisions upholding parental
notification orconsent requirements.  See, e.g., Akron II, 497U. S., at ---;
Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U. S. 622 (1979)(Bellotti II); Planned Parenthood of
Central Mo. v.Danforth, 428 U. S., at 74.  Those enactments, andour judgment
that they are constitutional, arebased on the quite reasonable assumption
thatminors will benefit from consultation with theirparents and that children
will often not realizethat their parents have their best interests atheart. 
We cannot adopt a parallel assumptionabout adult women.  We recognize that a
husband has a  deep andproper concern and interest . . . in his
wife'spregnancy and in the growth and development ofthe fetus she is
carrying. Danforth, supra, at 69. With regard to the children he has fathered
andraised, the Court has recognized his  cognizableand substantial interest
in their custody. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 651-652 (1972);see also
Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U. S. 246 (1978);Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U. S. 380
(1979); Lehr v.Robertson, 463 U. S. 248 (1983).  If this case con-cerned a
State's ability to require the mother tonotify the father before taking some
action withrespect to a living child raised by both, there-fore, it would be
reasonable to conclude as ageneral matter that the father's interest in
thewelfare of the child and the mother's interest areequal.  Before birth,
however, the issue takes on a verydifferent cast.  It is an inescapable
biologicalfact that state regulation with respect to thechild a woman is
carrying will have a far greaterimpact on the mother's liberty than on the
father-'s.  The effect of state regulation on a woman'sprotected liberty is
doubly deserving of scrutinyin such a case, as the State has touched not
onlyupon the private sphere of the family but upon thevery bodily integrity
of the pregnant woman.  Cf.Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Dept. of Health,
497U. S., at 281.  The Court has held that  when thewife and the husband
disagree on this decision,the view of only one of the two marriage
partnerscan prevail.  Inasmuch as it is the woman whophysically bears the
child and who is the moredirectly and immediately affected by the pregnan-cy,
as between the two, the balance weighs in herfavor.  Danforth, supra, at 71. 
This conclusionrests upon the basic nature of marriage and thenature of our
Constitution:   [T]he marital coupleis not an independent entity with a mind
and heartof its own, but an association of two individualseach with a
separate intellectual and emotionalmakeup.  If the right of privacy means
anything, itis the right of the individual, married or single,to be free from
unwarranted governmental intru-sion into matters so fundamentally affecting
aperson as the decision whether to bear or begeta child.  Eisenstadt v.
Baird, 405 U. S., at 453(emphasis in original).  The Constitution
protectsindividuals, men and women alike, from unjustifiedstate interference,
even when that interferenceis enacted into law for the benefit of
theirspouses.  There was a time, not so long ago, when a differ-ent
understanding of the family and of the Consti-tution prevailed.  In Bradwell
v. Illinois, 16 Wall.130 (1873), three Members of this Court reaffirmedthe
common-law principle that  a woman had nolegal existence separate from her
husband, whowas regarded as her head and representative inthe social state;
and, notwithstanding somerecent modifications of this civil status, many
ofthe special rules of law flowing from and depen-dent upon this cardinal
principle still exist in fullforce in most States.  Id., at 141 (Bradley
J.,joined by Swayne and Field, JJ., concurring injudgment).  Only one
generation has passed sincethis Court observed that  woman is still
regardedas the center of home and family life, withattendant  special
responsibilities that pre-cluded full and independent legal status under
theConstitution.  Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S. 57, 62(1961).  These views, of
course, are no longerconsistent with our understanding of the family,the
individual, or the Constitution.  In keeping with our rejection of the
common-lawunderstanding of a woman's role within the family,the Court held in
Danforth that the Constitutiondoes not permit a State to require a
marriedwoman to obtain her husband's consent beforeundergoing an abortion. 
428 U. S., at 69.  Theprinciples that guided the Court in Danforthshould be
our guides today.  For the great manywomen who are victims of abuse inflicted
by theirhusbands, or whose children are the victims ofsuch abuse, a spousal
notice requirement enablesthe husband to wield an effective veto over
hiswife's decision.  Whether the prospect of notifica-tion itself deters such
women from seeking abor-tions, or whether the husband, through physicalforce
or psychological pressure or economiccoercion, prevents his wife from
obtaining anabortion until it is too late, the notice require-ment will often
be tantamount to the veto foundunconstitutional in Danforth.  The women
mostaffected by this law"those who most reasonablyfear the consequences of
notifying their husbandsthat they are pregnant"are in the gravest danger. 
The husband's interest in the life of the childhis wife is carrying does not
permit the State toempower him with this troubling degree of authori-ty over
his wife.  The contrary view leads toconsequences reminiscent of the common
law.  Ahusband has no enforceable right to require awife to advise him before
she exercises herpersonal choices.  If a husband's interest in thepotential
life of the child outweighs a wife'sliberty, the State could require a
married womanto notify her husband before she uses a postfer-tilization
contraceptive.  Perhaps next in linewould be a statute requiring pregnant
marriedwomen to notify their husbands before engaging inconduct causing risks
to the fetus.  After all, ifthe husband's interest in the fetus' safety is
asufficient predicate for state regulation, theState could reasonably
conclude that pregnantwives should notify their husbands before drink-ing
alcohol or smoking.  Perhaps married womenshould notify their husbands before
using contra-ceptives or before undergoing any type of sur-gery that may have
complications affecting thehusband's interest in his wife's
reproductiveorgans.  And if a husband's interest justifiesnotice in any of
these cases, one might reason-ably argue that it justifies exactly what
theDanforth Court held it did not justify"a require-ment of the husband's
consent as well.  A Statemay not give to a man the kind of dominion over
hiswife that parents exercise over their children.  Section 3209 embodies a
view of marriage conso-nant with the common-law status of married womenbut
repugnant to our present understanding ofmarriage and of the nature of the
rights securedby the Constitution.  Women do not lose theirconstitutionally
protected liberty when theymarry.  The Constitution protects all
individuals,male or female, married or unmarried, from theabuse of
governmental power, even where thatpower is employed for the supposed benefit
of amember of the individual's family.  These consider-ations confirm our
conclusion that 3209 isinvalid.                       D  We next consider the
parental consent provision. Except in a medical emergency, an
unemancipatedyoung woman under 18 may not obtain an abortionunless she and
one of her parents (or guardian)provides informed consent as defined above. 
Ifneither a parent nor a guardian provides consent,a court may authorize the
performance of anabortion upon a determination that the youngwoman is mature
and capable of giving informedconsent and has in fact given her informed
con-sent, or that an abortion would be in her bestinterests.  We have been
over most of this ground before. Our cases establish, and we reaffirm today,
thata State may require a minor seeking an abortion toobtain the consent of
a parent or guardian,provided that there is an adequate judicialbypass
procedure.  See, e.g., Akron II, 497 U. S.,at ---; Hodgson, 497 U. S., at
---; Akron I, supra,at 440; Bellotti II, supra, at 643-644
(pluralityopinion).  Under these precedents, in our view, theone-parent
consent requirement and judicialbypass procedure are constitutional.  The
only argument made by petitioners respect-ing this provision and to which our
prior decisionsdo not speak is the contention that the parentalconsent
requirement is invalid because it re-quires informed parental consent.  For
the mostpart, petitioners' argument is a reprise of theirargument with
respect to the informed consentrequirement in general, and we reject it for
thereasons given above.  Indeed, some of the provi-sions regarding informed
consent have particularforce with respect to minors: the waiting period,for
example, may provide the parent or parents ofa pregnant young woman the
opportunity to con-sult with her in private, and to discuss theconsequences
of her decision in the context ofthe values and moral or religious principles
oftheir family.  See Hodgson, supra, at ---.                       E   Under
the recordkeeping and reporting require-ments of the statute, every facility
which per-forms abortions is required to file a reportstating its name and
address as well as the nameand address of any related entity, such as
acontrolling or subsidiary organization.  In thecase of state-funded
institutions, the informa-tion becomes public.  For each abortion performed,
a report must befiled identifying: the physician (and the secondphysician
where required); the facility; the refer-ring physician or agency; the
woman's age; thenumber of prior pregnancies and prior abortionsshe has had;
gestational age; the type of abortionprocedure; the date of the abortion;
whetherthere were any pre-existing medical conditionswhich would complicate
pregnancy; medical compli-cations with the abortion; where applicable,
thebasis for the determination that the abortion wasmedically necessary; the
weight of the abortedfetus; and whether the woman was married, and ifso,
whether notice was provided or the basis forthe failure to give notice. 
Every abortion facili-ty must also file quarterly reports showing thenumber
of abortions performed broken down bytrimester.  See 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. 3207,
3214(1990).  In all events, the identity of each womanwho has had an abortion
remains confidential.  In Danforth, 428 U. S., at 80, we held that
recor-dkeeping and reporting provisions  that arereasonably directed to the
preservation ofmaternal health and that properly respect apatient's
confidentiality and privacy are permis-sible.  We think that under this
standard, all theprovisions at issue here except that relating tospousal
notice are constitutional.  Although theydo not relate to the State's
interest in informingthe woman's choice, they do relate to health. 
Thecollection of information with respect to actualpatients is a vital
element of medical research,and so it cannot be said that the
requirementsserve no purpose other than to make abortionsmore difficult.  Nor
do we find that the require-ments impose a substantial obstacle to a
woman'schoice.  At most they might increase the cost ofsome abortions by a
slight amount.  While at somepoint increased cost could become a
substantialobstacle, there is no such showing on the recordbefore us. 
Subsection (12) of the reporting provisionrequires the reporting of, among
other things, amarried woman's  reason for failure to providenotice to her
husband.  3214(a)(12).  This provi-sion in effect requires women, as a
condition ofobtaining an abortion, to provide the Common-wealth with the
precise information we havealready recognized that many women have
pressingreasons not to reveal.  Like the spousal noticerequirement itself,
this provision places an undueburden on a woman's choice, and must be
invalidat-ed for that reason.                         VI  Our Constitution is
a covenant running from thefirst generation of Americans to us and then
tofuture generations.  It is a coherent succession. Each generation must
learn anew that the Consti-tution's written terms embody ideas and
aspira-tions that must survive more ages than one.  Weaccept our
responsibility not to retreat frominterpreting the full meaning of the
covenant inlight of all of our precedents.  We invoke it onceagain to define
the freedom guaranteed by theConstitution's own promise, the promise of
liber-ty.                *      *      *  The judgment in No. 91-902 is
affirmed.  Thejudgment in No. 91-744 is affirmed in part andreversed in
part,and the case is remanded for proceedings consis-tent with this opinion,
including consideration ofthe question of severability.                     
       It is so ordered.                                 APPENDIX TO
OPINIONSelected Provisions of the 1988 and 1989Amendments to the
PennsylvaniaAbortion Control Act of 1982         18 PA. CONS. STAT. ANN.
(1990).  ``3203.  Definitions.       .       .      .      .       .   
`Medical emergency.'  That condition which, onthe basis of the physician's
good faith clinicaljudgment, so complicates the medical condition ofa
pregnant woman as to necessitate the immediateabortion of her pregnancy to
avert her death orfor which a delay will create serious risk ofsubstantial
and irreversible impairment of majorbodily function.''   ``3205.  Informed
Consent.  ``(a) General Rule. " No abortion shall be per-formed or induced
except with the voluntary andinformed consent of the woman upon whom
theabortion is to be performed or induced.  Except inthe case of a medical
emergency, consent to anabortion is voluntary and informed if and only
if:``(1)  At least 24 hours prior to the abortion,       the physician who is
to perform the abor-       tion or the referring physician has orally      
informed the woman of:           ``(i) The nature of the proposed proce-    
            dure or treatment and of those                 risks and
alternatives to the pro-                 cedure or treatment that a rea-    
            sonable patient would consider                 material to the
decision of whether                 or not to undergo the abortion.         
``(ii)  The probable gestational age of the                 unborn child at
the time the abortion                  is to be performed.       ``(iii)  
The medical risks associated with car-                 rying her child to
term.``(2)  At least 24 hours prior to the abortion,       the physician who
is to perform the       abortion or the referring physician, or       a
qualified physician assistant, health       care practitioner, technician or
social       worker to whom the responsibility has       been delegated by
either physician, has       informed the pregnant woman that:       ``(i) The
department publishes printed             materials which describe the un-   
         born child and list agencies which             offer alternatives to
abortion and             that she has a right to review the            
printed materials and that a copy             will be provided to her free of 
           charge if she chooses to review it.      ``(ii) Medical assistance
benefits may be av-             ailable for prenatal care, childbirth and   
         neonatal care, and that more detailed             information on the
availability of such             assistance is contained in the printed     
       materials published by the department.     ``(iii) The father of the
unborn child is liable             to assist in the support of her child,   
         even in instances where he has offered             to pay for the
abortion.  In the case of             rape, this information may be
omitted.``(3) A copy of the printed materials has been      pro-vided to the
woman if she chooses to      view these materials.``(4) The pregnant woman
certifies in writing,      prior to the abortion, that the informa-tion
required to be provided under para-graphs (1), (2) and (3) has been
provided.``(b) Emergency. " Where a medical emergencycompels the performance
of an abortion, thephysician shall inform the woman, prior to theabortion if
possible, of the medical indicationssupporting his judgment that an abortion
isnecessary to avert her death or to avert sub-stantial and irreversible
impairment of majorbodily function.  ``(c) Penalty. " Any physician who
violates theprovisions of this section is guilty of `unprofes-sional conduct'
and his license for the practice ofmedicine and surgery shall be subject to
suspen-sion or revocation in accordance with proceduresprovided under the act
of October 5, 1978 (P.L.1109, No. 261), known as the Osteopathic
MedicalPractice Act, the act of December 20, 1985 (P.L.457, No. 112), known
as the Medical Practice Act of1985, or their successor acts.  Any physician
whoperforms or induces an abortion without firstobtaining the certification
required by subsec-tion (a)(4) or with knowledge or reason to knowthat the
informed consent of the woman has notbeen obtained shall for the first
offense beguilty of a summary offense and for each subse-quent offense be
guilty of a misdemeanor of thethird degree.  No physician shall be guilty
ofviolating this section for failure to furnish theinformation required by
subsection (a) if he or shecan demonstrate, by a preponderance of
theevidence, that he or she reasonably believed thatfurnishing the
information would have resulted ina severely adverse effect on the physical
ormental health of the patient.  ``(d) Limitation on Civil Liability. " Any
physicianwho complies with the provisions of this sectionmay not be held
civilly liable to his patient forfailure to obtain informed consent to the
abor-tion within the meaning of that term as defined bythe act of October 15,
1975 (P.L. 390, No. 111), knownas the Health Care Services Malpractice Act.'' 
``3206.  Parental Consent.  ``(a) General rule. " Except in the case of
amedical emergency or except as provided in thissection, if a pregnant woman
is less than 18 yearsof age and not emancipated, or if she has beenadjudged
an incompetent under 20 Pa. C.S. 5511(relating to petition and hearing;
examination bycourt-appointed physician), a physician shall notperform an
abortion upon her unless, in the caseof a woman who is less than 18 years of
age, hefirst obtains the informed consent both of thepregnant woman and of
one of her parents; or, inthe case of a woman who is incompetent, he
firstobtains the informed consent of her guardian.  Indeciding whether to
grant such consent, a preg-nant woman's parent or guardian shall consideronly
their child's or ward's best interests.  In thecase of a pregnancy that is
the result of incest,where the father is a party to the incestuous act,the
pregnant woman need only obtain the consentof her mother.  ``(b)
Unavailability of parent or guardian. " Ifboth parents have died or are
otherwise unavail-able to the physician within a reasonable time andin a
reasonable manner, consent of the pregnantwoman's guardian or guardians shall
be sufficient. If the pregnant woman's parents are divorced,consent of the
parent having custody shall besufficient.  If neither any parent nor a
legalguardian is available to the physician within areasonable time and in a
reasonable manner,consent of any adult person standing in locoparentis shall
be sufficient.  ``(c) Petition to the court for consent. " If bothof the
parents or guardians of the pregnant womanrefuse to consent to the
performance of anabortion or if she elects not to seek the consentof either
of her parents or of her guardian, thecourt of common pleas of the judicial
district inwhich the applicant resides or in which the abor-tion is sought
shall, upon petition or motion,after an appropriate hearing, authorize a
physi-cian to perform the abortion if the court deter-mines that the pregnant
woman is mature andcapable of giving informed consent to the pro-posed
abortion, and has, in fact, given suchconsent.  ``(d) Court order. " If the
court determines thatthe pregnant woman is not mature and capable ofgiving
informed consent or if the pregnant womandoes not claim to be mature and
capable of givinginformed consent, the court shall determinewhether the
performance of an abortion upon herwould be in her best interests.  If the
courtdetermines that the performance of an abortionwould be in the best
interests of the woman, itshall authorize a physician to perform the
abor-tion.  ``(e) Representation in proceedings. " The preg-nant woman may
participate in proceedings in thecourt on her own behalf and the court may
appointa guardian ad litem to assist her.  The courtshall, however, advise
her that she has a right tocourt appointed counsel, and shall provide herwith
such counsel unless she wishes to appearwith private counsel or has knowingly
and intelli-gently waived representation by counsel.''   ``3207.  Abortion
Facilities.       .       .      .      .       .  ``(b) Reports. " Within 30
days after the effec-tive date of this chapter, every facility at
whichabortions are performed shall file, and updateimmediately upon any
change, a report with thedepartment, containing the following
information:``(1)Name and address of the facility.``(2)Name and address of
any parent, subsidiary or      affiliated organizations, corporations or
associations.``(3)Name and address of any parent, subsid-     iary or
affiliated organizations, corpo-     rations or associations having contempo- 
   raneous commonality of ownership, bene-     ficial interest, directorship
or officer-     ship with any other facility.The information contained in
those reports whichare filed pursuant to this subsection by facili-ties which
receive State-appropriated fundsduring the 12-calendar-month period
immediatelypreceding a request to inspect or copy suchreports shall be deemed
public information. Reports filed by facilities which do not
receiveState-appropriated funds shall only be availableto law enforcement
officials, the State Board ofMedicine and the State Board of
OsteopathicMedicine for use in the performance of theirofficial duties.  Any
facility failing to comply withthe provisions of this subsection shall be
as-sessed by the department a fine of $500 for eachday it is in violation
hereof.''   ``3208.  Printed Information.  ``(a) General Rule. " The
department shall causeto be published in English, Spanish and Vietnam-ese,
within 60 days after this chapter becomeslaw, and shall update on an annual
basis, thefollowing easily comprehensible printed
materials:``(1)Geographically indexed materials designed     to inform the
woman of public and private     agencies and services available to assist   
 a woman through pregnancy, upon child-     birth and while the child is
dependent,     including adoption agencies, which shall     include a
comprehensive list of the agen-     cies available, a description of the ser- 
   vices they offer and a description of the     manner, including telephone
numbers, in     which they might be contacted, or, at the     option of the
department, printed materi-     als including a toll-free 24-hour a day    
telephone number which may be called to     obtain, orally, such a list and
description     of agencies in the locality of the caller     and of the
services they offer.  The     materials shall provide information on     the
availability of medical assistance     benefits for prenatal care, childbirth
and     neonatal care, and state that it is unlaw-     ful for any individual
to coerce a woman     to undergo abortion, that any physician     who
performs an abortion upon a woman     without obtaining her informed consent
or     without according her a private medical     consultation may be liable
to her for     damages in a civil action at law, that the     father of a
child is liable to assist in the     support of that child, even in instances 
   where the father has offered to pay for     an abortion and that the law
permits     adoptive parents to pay costs of prena-     tal care, childbirth
and neonatal care.``(2)Materials designed to inform the woman of     the
probable anatomical and physiological     characteristics of the unborn child
at     two-week gestational increments from     fertilization to full term,
including pic-     tures representing the development of     unborn children
at two-week gestational     increments, and any relevant information     on
the possibility of the unborn child's     survival; provided that any such
pictures     or drawings must contain the dimensions     of the fetus and
must be realistic and     appropriate for the woman's stage of     pregnancy. 
The materials shall be objec-     tive, non-judgmental and designed to    
convey only accurate scientific informa-     tion about the unborn child at
the vari-     ous gestational ages.  The material shall     also contain
objective information de-     scribing the methods of abortion proce-    
dures commonly employed, the medical     risks commonly associated with each
such     procedure, and the medical risks commonly     associated with
carrying a child to term.``(b)Format. " The materials shall be printed in a 
   typeface large enough to be clearly legible.``(c)Free distribution. " The
materials required     under this section shall be available at no cost    
from the department upon request and in appropri-     ate number to any
person, facility or hospital.''   ``3209.  Spousal Notice.  ``(a) Spousal
notice required. " In order tofurther the Commonwealth's interest in
promotingthe integrity of the marital relationship and toprotect a spouse's
interests in having childrenwithin marriage and in protecting the prenatal
lifeof that spouse's child, no physician shall performan abortion on a
married woman, except as provid-ed in subsections (b) and (c), unless he or
she hasreceived a signed statement, which need not benotarized, from the
woman upon whom the abortionis to be performed, that she has notified
herspouse that she is about to undergo an abortion. The statement shall bear
a notice that any falsestatement made therein is punishable by law.  ``(b)
Exceptions. " The statement certifying thatthe notice required by subsection
(a) has beengiven need not be furnished where the womanprovides the physician
a signed statement certi-fying at least one of the following:``(1)   Her
spouse is not the father of the child.``(2)Her spouse, after diligent effort,
could     not be located.``(3)The pregnancy is a result of spousal     sexual
assault as described in section     3128 (relating to spousal sexual
assault),     which has been reported to a law enforce-     ment agency
having the requisite juris-     diction.``(4)The woman has reason to believe
that the     furnishing of notice to her spouse is     likely to result in
the infliction of bodily     injury upon her by her spouse or by an-    
other individual.Such statement need not be notarized, but shallbear a notice
that any false statements madetherein are punishable by law.  ``(c) Medical
emergency. " The requirements ofsubsection (a) shall not apply in case of a
medicalemergency.  ``(d) Forms. " The department shall cause to bepublished,
forms which may be utilized for purpos-es of providing the signed statements
required bysubsections (a) and (b).  The department shalldistribute an
adequate supply of such forms to allabortion facilities in this Commonwealth. 
``(e) Penalty; civil action. " Any physician whoviolates the provisions of
this section is guiltyof `unprofessional conduct,' and his or her licensefor
the practice of medicine and surgery shall besubject to suspension or
revocation in accor-dance with procedures provided under the act ofOctober 5,
1978 (P.L. 1109, No. 261), known as theOsteopathic Medical Practice Act, the
act ofDecember 20, 1985 (P.L. 457, No. 112), known as theMedical Practice Act
of 1985, or their successoracts.  In addition, any physician who
knowinglyviolates the provisions of this section shall becivilly liable to
the spouse who is the father ofthe aborted child for any damages caused
therebyand for punitive damages in the amount of $5,000,and the court shall
award a prevailing plaintiff areasonable attorney fee as part of costs.''  
``3214.  Reporting.  ``(a) General rule. " For the purpose of promotionof
maternal health and life by adding to the sum ofmedical and public health
knowledge through thecompilation of relevant data, and to promote
theCommonwealth's interest in protection of theunborn child, a report of each
abortion performedshall be made to the department on forms pre-scribed by it. 
The report forms shall not identifythe individual patient by name and shall
includethe following information:  ``(1)  Identification of the physician who 
    performed the abortion, the concurring      physician as required by
section 3211(c-)      (2) (relating to abortion on unborn child      of 24 or
more weeks gestational age),      the second physician as required by     
section 3211(c)(5) and the facility where      the abortion was performed and
of the      referring physician, agency or service,      if any.  ``(2)The
county and state in which the woman      resides.  ``(3)The woman's age. 
``(4)The number of prior pregnancies and      prior abortions of the woman. 
``(5)The gestational age of the unborn child      at the time of the
abortion.  ``(6)The type of procedure performed or      prescribed and the
date of the abortion.  ``(7)Pre-existing medical conditions of the      woman
which would complicate pregnancy,      if any, and if known, any medical
compli-      cation which resulted from the abortion      itself.  ``(8)The
basis for the medical judgment of      the physician who performed the abor- 
    tion that the abortion was necessary to      prevent either the death of
the preg-      nant woman or the substantial and irre-      versible
impairment of a major bodily      function of the woman, where an abortion  
   has been performed pursuant to section      3211(b)(1).  ``(9)The weight
of the aborted child for any      abortion performed pursuant to section    
 3211(b)(1).``(10)Basis for any medical judgment that a      medical
emergency existed which excused      the physician from compliance with any 
    provision of this chapter.``(11)The information required to be reported 
    under section 3210(a) (relating to deter-      mination of gestational
age).``(12)Whether the abortion was performed      upon a married woman and,
if so, whether      notice to her spouse was given.  If no      notice to her
spouse was given, the      report shall also indicate the reason      for
failure to provide notice.    .       .      .      .       .   ``(f) Report
by facility. " Every facility in whichan abortion is performed within this
Commonwealthduring any quarter year shall file with the de-partment a report
showing the total number ofabortions performed within the hospital or
otherfacility during that quarter year.  This reportshall also show the total
abortions performed ineach trimester of pregnancy.  Any report shall
beavailable for public inspection and copying only ifthe facility receives
State-appropriated fundswithin the 12-calendar-month period
immediatelypreceding the filing of the report.  These reportsshall be
submitted on a form prescribed by thedepartment which will enable a facility
to indicatewhether or not it is receiving State-appropriatedfunds.  If the
facility indicates on the form thatit is not receivingState-appropriated
funds, the department shallregard its report as confidential unless it
re-ceives other evidence which causes it to concludethat the facility
receives State-appropriatedfunds.''Concur/dissent 1      SUPREME COURT OF THE
UNITED STATESÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ       Nos. 91-744 and 91-902              ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN       PENNSYLVANIA, et al.,
PETITIONERS91-744                v.          ROBERT P. CASEY, et al., etc.  
      ROBERT P. CASEY, et al., etc.,                  PETITIONERS91-902     
          v.       PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN             
PENNSYLVANIA et al.  on writs of certiorari to the united statescourt of    
    appeals for the third circuit                [June 29, 1992]      Justice
Stevens, concurring in part and dis-senting in part.  The portions of the
Court's opinion that I havejoined are more important than those with which
Idisagree.  I shall therefore first comment onsignificant areas of agreement,
and then explainthe limited character of my disagreement.                   
    I  The Court is unquestionably correct in conclud-ing that the doctrine
of stare decisis has con-trolling significance in a case of this kind,
not-withstanding an individual justice's concernsabout the merits.  The
central holding of Roe v.Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), has been a  part of
ourlaw for almost two decades.  Planned Parenthoodof Central Mo. v. Danforth,
428 U. S. 52, 101 (1976)(Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting
inpart).  It was a natural sequel to the protectionof individual liberty
established in Griswold v.Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965).  See also Carey
v.Population Services Int'l, 431 U. S. 678, 687, 702(1977)  (White, J.,
concurring in part and concurringin result).  The societal costs of
overruling Roeat this late date would be enormous.  Roe is anintegral part of
a correct understanding of boththe concept of liberty and the basic equality
ofmen and women.     Stare decisis also provides a sufficient basisfor my
agreement with the joint opinion's reaffir-mation of Roe's post-viability
analysis.  Specifi-cally, I accept the proposition that  [i]f theState is
interested in protecting fetal life afterviability, it may go so far as to
proscribe abor-tion during that period, except when it is neces-sary to
preserve the life or health of the moth-er.  410 U. S., at 163-164; see ante,
at 36-37.  I also accept what is implicit in the Court'sanalysis, namely, a
reaffirmation of Roe's expla-nation of why the State's obligation to
protectthe life or health of the mother must take prece-dence over any duty
to the unborn.  The Court inRoe carefully considered, and rejected,
theState's argument  that the fetus is a `person'within the language and
meaning of the FourteenthAmendment.  410 U. S., at 156.  After analyzing
theusage of  person in the Constitution, the Courtconcluded that that word 
has application onlypostnatally.  Id., at 157.  Commenting on thecontingent
property interests of the unborn thatare generally represented by guardians
ad litem,the Court noted:  Perfection of the interestsinvolved, again, has
generally been contingentupon live birth.  In short, the unborn have
neverbeen recognized in the law as persons in the wholesense.  Id., at 162. 
Accordingly, an abortion isnot  the termination of life entitled to
Four-teenth Amendment protection.  Id., at 159.  Fromthis holding, there was
no dissent, see id., at 173;indeed, no member of the Court has ever
ques-tioned this fundamental proposition.  Thus, as amatter of federal
constitutional law, a developingorganism that is not yet a  person does not
havewhat is sometimes described as a  right tolife.  This has been and, by
the Court's holdingtoday, remains a fundamental premise of ourconstitutional
law governing reproductive auton-omy.                      II  My
disagreement with the joint opinion beginswith its understanding of the
trimester frameworkestablished in Roe.  Contrary to the suggestion ofthe
joint opinion, ante, at 33, it is not a  contra-diction to recognize that the
State may have alegitimate interest in potential human life and, atthe same
time, to conclude that that interestdoes not justify the regulation of
abortionbefore viability (although other interests, suchas maternal health,
may).  The fact that theState's interest is legitimate does not tell uswhen,
if ever, that interest outweighs the preg-nant woman's interest in personal
liberty.  It isappropriate, therefore, to consider more careful-ly the nature
of the interests at stake.   First, it is clear that, in order to be
legitimate,the State's interest must be secular; consistentwith the First
Amendment the State may notpromote a theological or sectarian interest. 
SeeThornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians andGynecologists, 476 U.
S. 747, 778 (1986) (Stevens,J., concurring); see generally Webster v.
Repro-ductive Health Services, 492 U. S. 490, 563-572(1989) (Stevens, J.,
concurring in part and dis-senting in part).  Moreover, as discussed
above,the state interest in potential human life is notan interest in loco
parentis, for the fetus is nota person.    Identifying the State's
interests"which theStates rarely articulate with any precision"ma-kes clear
that the interest in protecting poten-tial life is not grounded in the
Constitution.  Itis, instead, an indirect interest supported byboth
humanitarian and pragmatic concerns.  Manyof our citizens believe that any
abortion reflectsan unacceptable disrespect for potential humanlife and that
the performance of more than amillion abortions each year is intolerable;
manyfind third-trimester abortions performed when thefetus is approaching
personhood particularlyoffensive.  The State has a legitimate interest
inminimizing such offense.  The State may also havea broader interest in
expanding the population,believing society would benefit from the servicesof
additional productive citizens"or that thepotential human lives might include
the occasionalMozart or Curie.  These are the kinds of concernsthat comprise
the State's interest in potentialhuman life.  In counterpoise is the woman's
constitutionalinterest in liberty.  One aspect of this liberty isa right to
bodily integrity, a right to controlone's person.  See e.g., Rochin v.
California, 342U. S. 165 (1952); Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535(1942). 
This right is neutral on the question ofabortion: The Constitution would be
equallyoffended by an absolute requirement that allwomen undergo abortions as
by an absolute prohi-bition on abortions.   Our whole constitutionalheritage
rebels at the thought of giving govern-ment the power to control men's minds. 
Stanley v.Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, 565 (1969).  The same holdstrue for the
power to control women's bodies.    The woman's constitutional liberty
interest alsoinvolves her freedom to decide matters of thehighest privacy and
the most personal nature.  Cf.Whalen v. Roe, 409 U. S. 589, 598-600 (1977). 
Awoman considering abortion faces  a difficultchoice having serious and
personal consequencesof major importance to her own future"perhaps tothe
salvation of her own immortal soul.  Thornbu-rgh, 476 U. S., at 781.  The
authority to make suchtraumatic and yet empowering decisions is anelement of
basic human dignity.  As the jointopinion so eloquently demonstrates, a
woman'sdecision to terminate her pregnancy is nothingless than a matter of
conscience.  Weighing the State's interest in potential lifeand the woman's
liberty interest, I agree with thejoint opinion that the State may 
`expres[s] apreference for normal childbirth,' that the Statemay take steps
to ensure that a woman's choice is thoughtful and informed, and that 
Statesare free to enact laws to provide a reasonableframework for a woman to
make a decision that hassuch profound and lasting meaning.  Ante, at 30.
Serious questions arise, however, when a Stateattempts to  persuade the woman
to choosechildbirth over abortion.  Ante, at 36.  Decisionalautonomy must
limit the State's power to injectinto a woman's most personal deliberations
its ownviews of what is best.  The State may promote itspreferences by
funding childbirth, by creating andmaintaining alternatives to abortion, and
byespousing the virtues of family; but it mustrespect the individual's
freedom to make suchjudgments.  This theme runs throughout our
decisionsconcerning reproductive freedom.  In general,Roe's requirement that
restrictions on abortionsbefore viability be justified by the State'sinterest
in maternal health has prevented Statesfrom interjecting regulations designed
to influ-ence a woman's decision.  Thus, we have upheldregulations of
abortion that are not efforts tosway or direct a woman's choice but rather
areefforts to enhance the deliberative quality ofthat decision or are neutral
regulations on thehealth aspects of her decision.  We have, forexample,
upheld regulations requiring writteninformed consent, see Planned Parenthood
ofCentral Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52 (1976); limitedrecordkeeping and
reporting, see ibid.; and pa-thology reports, see Planned Parenthood Assn.
ofKansas City, Mo., Inc. v. Ashcroft, 462 U. S. 476(1983); as well as various
licensing and qualifica-tion provisions, see e.g., Roe, 410 U. S., at
150;Simopoulos v. Virginia, 462 U. S. 506 (1983).  Con-versely, we have
consistently rejected stateefforts to prejudice a woman's choice, either
bylimiting the information available to her, seeBigelow v. Virginia, 421 U.
S. 809 (1975), or by requir[ing] the delivery of information designed`to
influence the woman's informed choice betweenabortion or childbirth.' 
Thornburgh, 476 U. S., at760; see also Akron v. Akron Center for
Reproduc-tive Health, Inc., 462 U. S. 416, 442-449 (1983).  In my opinion,
the principles established in thislong line of cases and the wisdom reflected
inJustice Powell's opinion for the Court in Akron(and followed by the Court
just six years ago inThornburgh) should govern our decision today. Under
these principles, 3205(a)(2)(i)-(iii) of thePennsylvania statute are
unconstitutional. Those sections require a physician or counselorto provide
the woman with a range of materialsclearly designed to persuade her to choose
not toundergo the abortion.  While the State is free,pursuant to 3208 of the
Pennsylvania law, toproduce and disseminate such material, the Statemay not
inject such information into the woman'sdeliberations just as she is weighing
such animportant choice.    Under this same analysis, 3205(a)(1)(i) and
(iii)of the Pennsylvania statute are constitutional. Those sections, which
require the physician toinform a woman of the nature and risks of theabortion
procedure and the medical risks ofcarrying to term, are neutral
requirementscomparable to those imposed in other medicalprocedures.  Those
sections indicate no effort bythe State to influence the woman's choice in
anyway.  If anything, such requirements enhance,rather than skew, the woman's
decisionmaking.  III  The 24-hour waiting period required by 3205-(a)(1)-(2)
of the Pennsylvania statute raises evenmore serious concerns.  Such a
requirementarguably furthers the State's interests in twoways, neither of
which is constitutionally permis-sible.  First, it may be argued that the
24-hour delayis justified by the mere fact that it is likely toreduce the
number of abortions, thus furtheringthe State's interest in potential life. 
But suchan argument would justify any form of coercionthat placed an obstacle
in the woman's path.  TheState cannot further its interests by simplywearing
down the ability of the pregnant woman toexercise her constitutional right. 
Second, it can more reasonably be argued thatthe 24-hour delay furthers the
State's interestin ensuring that the woman's decision is informedand
thoughtful.  But there is no evidence that themandated delay benefits women
or that it isnecessary to enable the physician to convey anyrelevant
information to the patient.  The manda-tory delay thus appears to rest on
outmoded andunacceptable assumptions about the decisionmak-ing capacity of
women.  While there are well-established and consistently maintained
reasonsfor the State to view with skepticism the abilityof minors to make
decisions, see Hodgson v. Minne-sota, 497 U. S. 417, 449 (1990), none of
thosereasons applies to an adult woman's decisionmak-ing ability.  Just as we
have left behind the beliefthat a woman must consult her husband
beforeundertaking serious matters, see ante, at 54-57,so we must reject the
notion that a woman is lesscapable of deciding matters of gravity.  Cf.
Reedv. Reed, 404 U. S. 71 (1971).  In the alternative, the delay requirement
may bepremised on the belief that the decision to termi-nate a pregnancy is
presumptively wrong.  Thispremise is illegitimate.  Those who
disagreevehemently about the legality and morality ofabortion agree about one
thing: The decision toterminate a pregnancy is profound and difficult. No
person undertakes such a decision lightly"andStates may not presume that a
woman has failed toreflect adequately merely because her conclusiondiffers
from the State's preference.  A woman whohas, in the privacy of her thoughts
and conscien-ce, weighed the options and made her decisioncannot be forced to
reconsider all, simply becausethe State believes she has come to the
wrongconclusion.    Part of the constitutional liberty to choose isthe equal
dignity to which each of us is entitled. A woman who decides to terminate her
pregnancy isentitled to the same respect as a woman whodecides to carry the
fetus to term.  The mandato-ry waiting period denies women that equal
respect.                       IV  In my opinion, a correct application of
the undue burden standard leads to the same con-clusion concerning the
constitutionality of theserequirements.  A state-imposed burden on
theexercise of a constitutional right is measuredboth by its effects and by
its character: A burdenmay be  undue either because the burden is toosevere
or because it lacks a legitimate, rationaljustification.     The 24-hour
delay requirement fails both partsof this test.  The findings of the District
Courtestablish the severity of the burden that the24-hour delay imposes on
many pregnant women. Yet even in those cases in which the delay is
notespecially onerous, it is, in my opinion,  unduebecause there is no
evidence that such a delayserves a useful and legitimate purpose. 
Asindicated above, there is no legitimate reason torequire a woman who has
agonized over her deci-sion to leave the clinic or hospital and returnagain
another day.  While a general requirementthat a physician notify her patients
about therisks of a proposed medical procedure is appro-priate, a rigid
requirement that all patients wait24 hours or (what is true in practice) much
longerto evaluate the significance of information thatis either common
knowledge or irrelevant is anirrational and, therefore,  undue burden.    The
counseling provisions are similarly infirm. Whenever government commands
private citizens tospeak or to listen, careful review of the justifi-cation
for that command is particularly appropri-ate.  In this case, the
Pennsylvania statutedirects that counselors provide women seekingabortions
with information concerning alterna-tives to abortion, the availability of
medicalassistance benefits, and the possibility of child-support payments. 
3205(a)(2)(i)-(iii).  Thestatute requires that this information be givento
all women seeking abortions, including thosefor whom such information is
clearly useless, suchas those who are married, those who have under-gone the
procedure in the past and are fullyaware of the options, and those who are
fullyconvinced that abortion is their only reasonableoption.  Moreover, the
statute requires physi-cians to inform all of their patients of  theprobable
gestational age of the unborn child. 3205(a)(1)(ii).  This information is of
little deci-sional value in most cases, because 90% of allabortions are
performed during the first trimes-ter when fetal age has less relevance than
whenthe fetus nears viability.  Nor can the informa-tion required by the
statute be justified asrelevant to any  philosophic or  social argu-ment,
ante, at 30, either favoring or disfavoringthe abortion decision in a
particular case.  Inlight of all of these facts, I conclude that
theinformation requirements in 3205(a)(1)(ii) and3205(a)(2)(i)-(iii) do not
serve a useful purposeand thus constitute an unnecessary"and there-fore
undue"burden on the woman's constitutionalliberty to decide to terminate her
pregnancy.   Accordingly, while I disagree with Parts IV, V-B,and V-D of the
joint opinion, I join the remain-der of the Court's opinion.Concur/dissent 2 
    SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATESÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ       Nos. 91-744 and 91-902 
            ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ      PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN      
PENNSYLVANIA, et al., PETITIONERS91-744                v.          ROBERT P.
CASEY, et al., etc.         ROBERT P. CASEY, et al., etc.,                 
PETITIONERS91-902                v.       PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN 
            PENNSYLVANIA et al.  on writs of certiorari to the united
statescourt of         appeals for the third circuit                [June 29,
1992]   Justice Blackmun, concurring in part, concur-ring in the judgment in
part, and dissenting inpart.  I join parts I, II, III, V-A, V-C, and VI of
thejoint opinion of Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, andSouter, ante.  Three years
ago, in Webster v. ReproductiveHealth Serv., 492 U. S. 490 (1989), four
Members ofthis Court appeared poised to  cas[t] into dark-ness the hopes and
visions of every woman in thiscountry who had come to believe that the
Consti-tution guaranteed her the right to reproductivechoice.  Id., at 557
(Blackmun, J., dissenting).  Seeid., at 499 (opinion of Rehnquist, C.J.);
id., at 532(opinion of Scalia, J.).  All that remained betweenthe promise of
Roe and the darkness of the plural-ity was a single, flickering flame. 
Decisions sinceWebster gave little reason to hope that this flamewould cast
much light.  See, e.g., Ohio v. AkronCenter for Reproductive Health, 497 U.
S. 502, 524(1990) (opinion of Blackmun, J.).  But now, just whenso many
expected the darkness to fall, the flamehas grown bright.  I do not
underestimate the significance oftoday's joint opinion.  Yet I remain
steadfast inmy belief that the right to reproductive choice isentitled to the
full protection afforded by thisCourt before Webster.  And I fear for the
darknessas four Justices anxiously await the single votenecessary to
extinguish the light.                       I  Make no mistake, the joint
opinion of JusticesO'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter is an act of per-sonal
courage and constitutional principle.  Incontrast to previous decisions in
which JusticesO'Connor and Kennedy postponed reconsiderationof Roe v. Wade,
410 U. S. 113 (1973), the authors ofthe joint opinion today join Justice
Stevens andme in concluding that  the essential holding ofRoe should be
retained and once again reaffirmed. Ante, at 3.  In brief, five Members of
this Courttoday recognize that  the Constitution protectsa woman's right to
terminate her pregnancy in itsearly stages.  Id., at 1.  A fervent view of
individual liberty and theforce of stare decisis have led the Court to
thisconclusion.  Ante, at 11.  Today a majority reaf-firms that the Due
Process Clause of the Four-teenth Amendment establishes  a realm of person-al
liberty which the government may not enter,ante, at 5"a realm whose outer
limits cannot bedetermined by interpretations of the Constitutionthat focus
only on the specific practices ofStates at the time the Fourteenth Amendment
wasadopted.  See ante, at 6.  Included within thisrealm of liberty is  `the
right of the individual,married or single, to be free from
unwarrantedgovernmental intrusion into matters so fundamen-tally affecting a
person as the decision whetherto bear or beget a child.'  Ante, at 9,
quotingEisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 453 (1972)(emphasis in original). 
 These matters, involvingthe most intimate and personal choices a personmay
make in a lifetime, choices central to person-al dignity and autonomy, are
central to the libertyprotected by the Fourteenth Amendment.  Ante, at9
(emphasis added).  Finally, the Court todayrecognizes that in the case of
abortion,  theliberty of the woman is at stake in a sense uniqueto the human
condition and so unique to the law. The mother who carries a child to full
term issubject to anxieties, to physical constraints, topain that only she
must bear.  Ante, at 10.  The Court's reaffirmation of Roe's centralholding
is also based on the force of stare deci-sis.   [N]o erosion of principle
going to liberty orpersonal autonomy has left Roe's central holdinga
doctrinal remnant; Roe portends no developmentsat odds with other precedent
for the analysis ofpersonal liberty; and no changes of fact haverendered
viability more or less appropriate asthe point at which the balance of
interests tips. Ante, at 18.  Indeed, the Court acknowledges thatRoe's
limitation on state power could not beremoved  without serious inequity to
those whohave relied upon it or significant damage to thestability of the
society governed by the rule inquestion.  Ante, at 13.  In the 19 years since
Roewas decided, that case has shaped more thanreproductive planning" an
entire generation hascome of age free to assume Roe's concept ofliberty in
defining the capacity of women to act insociety and to make reproductive
decisions. Ante, at 18.  The Court understands that, having call[ed] the
contending sides . . . to end theirnational division by accepting a common
mandaterooted in the Constitution, ante, at 24, a deci-sion to overrule Roe 
would seriously weaken theCourt's capacity to exercise the judicial powerand
to function as the Supreme Court of a Nationdedicated to the rule of law. 
Ante, at 22.  Whathas happened today should serve as a model forfuture
Justices and a warning to all who havetried to turn this Court into yet
another politi-cal branch.  In striking down the Pennsylvania
statute'sspousal notification requirement, the Court hasestablished a
framework for evaluating abortionregulations that responds to the social
contextof women facing issues of reproductive choice. In determining the
burden imposed by the chal-lenged regulation, the Court inquires whether
theregulation's  purpose or effect is to place asubstantial obstacle in the
path of a womanseeking an abortion before the fetus attainsviability.  Ante,
at 35 (emphasis added).  TheCourt reaffirms:  The proper focus of
constitu-tional inquiry is the group for whom the law is arestriction, not
the group for whom the law isirrelevant.  Ante, at 53-54.  Looking at
thisgroup, the Court inquires, based on expert testi-mony, empirical studies,
and common sense, wheth-er  in a large fraction of the cases in which
[therestriction] is relevant, it will operate as asubstantial obstacle to a
woman's choice toundergo an abortion.  Id., at 54.   A statute withthis
purpose is invalid because the means chosenby the State to further the
interest in potentiallife must be calculated to inform the woman's
freechoice, not hinder it.  Ante, at 35.  And in apply-ing its test, the
Court remains sensitive to theunique role of women in the
decision-makingprocess.  Whatever may have been the practicewhen the
Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, theCourt observes,  [w]omen do not lose
their con-stitutionally protected liberty when they marry. The Constitution
protects all individuals, male orfemale, married or unmarried, from the abuse
ofgovernmental power, even where that power isemployed for the supposed
benefit of a member ofthe individual's family.  Ante, at 57-58.  Lastly,
while I believe that the joint opinionerrs in failing to invalidate the other
regula-tions, I am pleased that the joint opinion has notruled out the
possibility that these regulationsmay be shown to impose an
unconstitutionalburden.  The joint opinion makes clear that itsspecific
holdings are based on the insufficiencyof the record before it.  See, e.g.,
id., at 43.  I amconfident that in the future evidence will beproduced to
show that  in a large fraction of thecases in which [these regulations are]
relevant,[they] will operate as a substantial obstacle toa woman's choice to
undergo an abortion.  Ante, at54.                      II  Today, no less
than yesterday, the Constitutionand decisions of this Court require that a
State'sabortion restrictions be subjected to the strict-est of judicial
scrutiny.  Our precedents and thejoint opinion's principles require us to
subjectall non-de minimis abortion regulations to strictscrutiny.  Under this
standard, the Pennsylvaniastatute's provisions requiring
content-basedcounseling, a 24-hour delay, informed parentalconsent, and
reporting of abortion-relatedinformation must be invalidated.               
       A  The Court today reaffirms the long recognizedrights of privacy and
bodily integrity.  As earlyas 1891, the Court held,  [n]o right is held
moresacred, or is more carefully guarded by thecommonlaw, than the right of
every individual tothe possession and control of his own person,free from all
restraint or interference of oth-ers . . . .  Union Pacific R. Co. v.
Botsford, 141 U. S.250, 251 (1891).  Throughout this century, thisCourt also
has held that the fundamental right ofprivacy protects citizens against
governmentalintrusion in such intimate family matters asprocreation,
childrearing, marriage, and contra-ceptive choice.  See ante, at 5-6.  These
casesembody the principle that personal decisions thatprofoundly affect
bodily integrity, identity, anddestiny should be largely beyond the reach
ofgovernment.  Eisenstadt, 405 U.S., at 453.  In Roe v.Wade, this Court
correctly applied these princi-ples to a woman's right to choose abortion. 
State restrictions on abortion violate a woma-n's right of privacy in two
ways.  First, compelledcontinuation of a pregnancy infringes upon awoman's
right to bodily integrity by imposingsubstantial physical intrusions and
significantrisks of physical harm.  During pregnancy, womenexperience
dramatic physical changes and a widerange of health consequences.  Labor and
deliverypose additional health risks and physical demands. In short,
restrictive abortion laws force women toendure physical invasions far more
substantialthan those this Court has held to violate theconstitutional
principle of bodily integrity inother contexts.  See, e.g., Winston v. Lee,
470 U.S.753 (1985) (invalidating surgical removal of bulletfrom murder
suspect); Rochin v. California, 342 U.S.165 (1952) (invalidating
stomach-pumping).  Further, when the State restricts a woman'sright to
terminate her pregnancy, it deprives awoman of the right to make her own
decision aboutreproduction and family planning"critical lifechoices that this
Court long has deemed centralto the right to privacy.  The decision to
terminateor continue a pregnancy has no less an impact ona woman's life than
decisions about contraceptionor marriage.  410 U.S., at 153.  Because
motherhoodhas a dramatic impact on a woman's educationalprospects, employment
opportunities, and self-determination, restrictive abortion laws depriveher
of basic control over her life.  For thesereasons,  the decision whether or
not to beget orbear a child lies at  the very heart of thiscluster of
constitutionally protected choices. Carey v. Population Services, Int'l, 431
U.S. 678(1977).  A State's restrictions on a woman's right toterminate her
pregnancy also implicate constitu-tional guarantees of gender equality. 
Staterestrictions on abortion compel women to continuepregnancies they
otherwise might terminate.  Byrestricting the right to terminate
pregnancies,the State conscripts women's bodies into itsservice, forcing
women to continue their pregnan-cies, suffer the pains of childbirth, and in
mostinstances, provide years of maternal care.  TheState does not compensate
women for their ser-vices; instead, it assumes that they owe this dutyas a
matter of course.  This assumption"thatwomen can simply be forced to accept
the  natu-ral status and incidents of motherhood"appearsto rest upon a
conception of women's role that hastriggered the protection of the Equal
ProtectionClause.  See, e.g., Mississippi Univ. for Women v.Hogan, 458 U. S.
718, 724-726 (1982); Craig v. Boren,429 U. S. 190, 198-199 (1976).  The joint
opinionrecognizes that these assumptions about women'splace in society  are
no longer consistent withour understanding of the family, the individual,
orthe Constitution.  Ante, at 55.                       B  The Court has held
that limitations on the rightof privacy are permissible only if they survive
strict constitutional scrutiny"that is, only ifthe governmental entity
imposing the restrictioncan demonstrate that the limitation is bothnecessary
and narrowly tailored to serve acompelling governmental interest.  Griswold
v.Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 485 (1965).  We haveapplied this principle
specifically in the contextof abortion regulations.  Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S.,
at155.  Roe implemented these principles through aframework that was designed 
to insure that thewoman's right to choose not become so subordinateto the
State's interest in promoting fetal lifethat her choice exists in theory but
not in fact,ante, at 30.  Roe identified two relevant Stateinterests:  an
interest in preserving and pro-tecting the health of the pregnant woman and
aninterest in  protecting the potentiality of humanlife.  410 U. S., at 162. 
With respect to theState's interest in the health of the mother, 
the`compelling' point . . . is at approximately the endof the first
trimester, because it is at thatpoint that the mortality rate in abortion
ap-proaches that in childbirth.  Roe, 410 U. S., at 163. With respect to the
State's interest in potentiallife,  the `compelling' point is at viability,
because it is at that point that the fetus  pre-sumably has the capability of
meaningful lifeoutside the mother's womb.  Ibid.  In order tofulfill the
requirement of narrow tailoring,  theState is obligated to make a reasonable
effort tolimit the effect of its regulations to the periodin the trimester
during which its health interestwill be furthered.  Akron, 462 U. S., at 434. 
In my view, application of this analytical frame-work is no less warranted
than when it was ap-proved by seven Members of this Court in Roe. Strict
scrutiny of state limitations on reproduc-tive choice still offers the most
secure protec-tion of the woman's right to make her own repro-ductive
decisions, free from state coercion.  Nomajority of this Court has ever
agreed upon analternative approach.  The factual premises ofthe trimester
framework have not been under-mined, see Webster, 492 U.S., at 553 (Blackmun,
J.,dissenting), and the Roe framework is far moreadministrable, and far less
manipulable, than the undue burden standard adopted by the jointopinion. 
Nonetheless, three criticisms of the trimesterframework continue to be
uttered.  First, thetrimester framework is attacked because its keyelements
do not appear in the text of the Consti-tution.  My response to this attack
remains thesame as it was in Webster: Were this a true concern, we would have
toabandon most of our constitutional jurispru-dence.  [T]he `critical
elements' of countlessconstitutional doctrines nowhere appear inthe
Constitution's text . . . .  The Constitutionmakes no mention, for example,
of the FirstAmendment's `actual malice' standard forproving certain libels,
see New York Times Co.v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). . . .  Similarly,the
Constitution makes no mention of therational-basis test, or the specific
verbalformulations of intermediate and strict scru-tiny by which this Court
evaluates claimsunder the Equal Protection Clause.  The rea-son is simple. 
Like the Roe framework, thesetests or standards are not, and do not pur-port
to be, rights protected by the Constitu-tion.  Rather, they are judge-made
methods forevaluating and measuring the strength andscope of constitutional
rights or for balanc-ing the constitutional rights of individualsagainst the
competing interests ofgovernment.  492 U.S., at 548.   The second criticism
is that the framework moreclosely resembles a regulatory code than a bodyof
constitutional doctrine.  Again, my answerremains the same as in Webster.
[I]f this were a true and genuine concern, wewould have to abandon vast areas
of ourconstitutional jurisprudence. . . .  Are [thedistinctions entailed in
the trimester frame-work] any finer, or more `regulatory,' than
thedistinctions we have often drawn in our FirstAmendment jurisprudence,
where, for example,we have held that a `release time' programpermitting
public-school students to leaveschool grounds during school hours
receivereligious instruction does not violate theEstablishment Clause, even
though a release-time program permitting religious instructionon school
grounds does violate the Clause? Compare Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306
(1952),with Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board ofEducation of School Dist.
No. 71, ChampaignCounty, 333 U.S. 203 (1948). . . .  Similarly, in aSixth
Amendment case, the Court held thatalthough an overnight ban on
attorney-clientcommunication violated the constitutionallyguaranteed right to
counsel, Geders v. UnitedStates, 425 U.S. 80 (1976), that right was
notviolated when a trial judge separated a defen-dant from his lawyer during
a 15-minute recessafter the defendant's direct testimony.  Perryv. Leake, 488
U.S. 272 (1989).  That numerousconstitutional doctrines result in
narrowdifferentiations between similar circumstanc-es does not mean that this
Court has aban-doned adjudication in favor of regulation. Id., at 549-550.  
The final, and more genuine, criticism of thetrimester framework is that it
fails to find theState's interest in potential human life
compellingthroughout pregnancy.  No member of thisCourt"nor for that matter,
the Solicitor General,Tr. of Oral Arg. 42"has ever questioned ourholding in
Roe that an abortion is not  the termi-nation of life entitled to Fourteenth
Amendmentprotection.  410 U.S., at 159.  Accordingly, aState's interest in
protecting fetal life is notgrounded in the Constitution.  Nor,
consistentwith our Establishment Clause, can it be a theo-logical or
sectarian interest.  See Thornburgh,476 U.S., at 778 (Stevens, J.,
concurring).  It is,instead, a legitimate interest grounded in humani-tarian
or pragmatic concerns.  See ante, at 4-5(opinion of Stevens, J.).  But while
a State has  legitimate interests fromthe outset of the pregnancy in
protecting thehealth of the woman and the life of the fetus thatmay become a
child, ante, at 4, legitimate inter-ests are not enough.  To overcome the
burden ofstrict scrutiny, the interests must be compelling. The question then
is how best to accommodate theState's interest in potential human life with
theconstitutional liberties of pregnant women. Again, I stand by the views I
expressed in Webster: I remain convinced, as six other Members ofthis Court
16 years ago were convinced, thatthe Roe framework, and the viability
standardin particular, fairly, sensibly, and effectivelyfunctions to
safeguard the constitutionalliberties of pregnant women while recognizingand
accommodating the State's interest inpotential human life.  The viability
line re-flects the biological facts and truths of fetaldevelopment; it marks
that threshold momentprior to which a fetus cannot survive sepa-rate from the
woman and cannot reasonably andobjectively be regarded as a subject of
rightsor interests distinct from, or paramount to,those of the pregnant
woman.  At the sametime, the viability standard takes account ofthe
undeniable fact that as the fetus evolvesinto its postnatal form, and as it
loses itsdependence on the uterine environment, theState's interest in the
fetus' potential humanlife, and in fostering a regard for human lifein
general, becomes compelling.  As a practicalmatter, because viability
follows`quickening'"the point at which a woman feelsmovement in her womb"and
because viabilityoccurs no earlier than 23 weeks gestationalage, it
establishes an easily applicable stan-dard for regulating abortion while
providing apregnant woman ample time to exercise herfundamental right with
her responsible physi-cian to terminate her pregnancy.  492 U.S., at553-554. 
   Roe's trimester framework does not ignore theState's interest in prenatal
life.  Like JusticeStevens, I agree  that the State may take stepsto ensure
that a woman's choice  is thoughtfuland informed, ante, at 29, and that 
States arefree to enact laws to provide a reasonable frame-work for a woman
to make a decision that has suchprofound and lasting meaning.  Ante, at 30. 
But [s]erious questions arise when a Stateattempts to `persuade the woman to
choosechildbirth over abortion.'  Ante, at 36.  Deci-sional autonomy must
limit the State's powerto inject into a woman's most personal delib-erations
its own views of what is best.  TheState may promote its preferences by
fundingchildbirth, by creating and maintaining alter-natives to abortion, and
by espousing thevirtues of family, but it must respect theindividual's
freedom to make such judgments. Ante, at 6 (opinion of Stevens, J.).As the
joint opinion recognizes,  the meanschosen by the State to further the
interest inpotential life must be calculated to inform thewoman's free
choice, not hinder it.  Ante, at 35.  In sum, Roe's requirement of strict
scrutiny asimplemented through a trimester framework shouldnot be disturbed. 
No other approach has gained amajority, and  no other is more protective of
thewoman's fundamental right.  Lastly, no otherapproach properly accommodates
the woman'sconstitutional right with the State's legitimateinterests.       
               C  Application of the strict scrutiny standardresults in the
invalidation of all the challengedprovisions.  Indeed, as this Court has
invalidatedvirtually identical provisions in prior cases,stare decisis
requires that we again strike themdown.  This Court has upheld informed and
writtenconsent requirements only where the State hasdemonstrated that they
genuinely further impor-tant health-related state concerns.  See Danfor-th,
428 U. S., at 65-67.  A State may not, under theguise of securing informed
consent,  require thedelivery of information `designed to influence
thewoman's informed choice between abortion or childbirth.' Thornburgh v.
American College of Obstetricians &Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747, 760 (1986),
(quotingAkron, 462 U. S., at 443-444).  Rigid requirementsthat a specific
body of information be imparted toa woman in all cases, regardless of the
needs ofthe patient, improperly intrude upon the discre-tion of the pregnant
woman's physician and there-by impose an  `undesired and uncomfortable
straitjacket.' Thornburgh, 476 U. S., at 762 (quoting Danforth, 428U. S., at
67, n. 8).  Measured against these principles, some as-pects of the
Pennsylvania informed-consentscheme are unconstitutional.  While it is
unobjectionable for the Commonwealth to require that the patient be
informedof the nature of the procedure, the health risksof the abortion and
of childbirth, and the probablegestational age of the unborn child,
compare3205(a)(i)-(iii) with Akron, 462 U. S., at 446, n.37, I remain
unconvinced that there is a vitalstate need for insisting that the
information beprovided by a physician rather than a counselor. Id., at 448. 
The District Court found that thephysician-only requirement necessarily
wouldincrease costs to the plaintiff-clinics, coststhat undoubtedly would be
passed on to patients. And because trained women counselors are oftenmore
understanding than physicians, and generallyhave more time to spend with
patients, see App.366a-387a, the physician-only disclosure re-quirement is
not narrowly tailored to serve theCommonwealth's interest in protecting
maternalhealth.  Sections 3205(a)(2)(i)-(iii) of the Act furtherrequires that
the physician or a qualified non-physician inform the woman that printed
materialsare available from the Commonwealth that describethe fetus and
provide information about medicalassistance for childbirth, information about
childsupport from the father, and a list of agenciesoffering that provide
adoption and other servicesas alternatives to abortion.  Thornburgh
invali-dated biased patient-counseling requirementsvirtually identical to the
one at issue here.  Whatwe said of those requirements fully applies inthis
case: the listing of agencies in the printed Penn-sylvania form presents
serious problems; itcontains names of agencies that well may beout of step
with the needs of the particularwoman and thus places the physician in
anawkward position and infringes upon his or herprofessional
responsibilities.  Forcing thephysician or counselor to present the
materi-als and the list to the woman makes him or herin effect an agent of
the State in treating thewoman and places his or her imprimatur uponboth the
materials and the list.  All this is, orcomes close to being, state medicine
imposedupon the woman, not the professional medicalguidance she seeks, and it
officially struc-tures"as it obviously was intended to do"thedialogue between
the woman and her physician.   The requirements . . . that the woman
beadvised that medical assistance benefits maybe available, and that the
father is responsi-ble for financial assistance in the support ofthe child
similarly are poorly disguised ele-ments of discouragement for the
abortiondecision.  Much of this . . ., for many patients,would be irrelevant
and inappropriate.  For apatient with a life-threatening pregnancy,
the`information' in its very rendition may be cruelas well as destructive of
the physician-pa-tient relationship.  As any experienced socialworker or
other counselor knows, theoreticalfinancial responsibility often does not
equatewith fulfillment . . . .  Under the guise ofinformed consent, the Act
requires the dis-semination of information that is not relevantto such
consent, and, thus, it advances nolegitimate state interest.  476 U. S., at
763.    This type of compelled information is theantithesis of informed
consent, id., at 764, andgoes far beyond merely describing the generalsubject
matter relevant to the woman's decision.  That the Commonwealth does not, and
surelywould not, compel similar disclosure of everypossible peril of
necessary surgery or of simplevaccination, reveals the anti-abortion
characterof the statute and its real purpose.  Ibid.  The 24-hour waiting
period following the provi-sion of the foregoing information is also
clearlyunconstitutional.  The District Court found thatthe mandatory 24-hour
delay could lead to delaysin excess of 24 hours, thus increasing healthrisks,
and that it would require two visits to theabortion provider, thereby
increasing travel time,exposure to further harassment, and financialcost. 
Finally, the District Court found that therequirement would pose especially
significantburdens on women living in rural areas and thosewomen that have
difficulty explaining their where-abouts.  App. to Pet. for Cert. in No.
91-902, pp.380a-382a (hereinafter App.).  In Akron this Courtinvalidated a
similarly arbitrary or inflexiblewaiting period because, as here, it
furthered nolegitimate state interest.  As Justice Stevens insightfully
concludes, themandatory delay rests either on outmoded orunacceptable
assumptions about the decisionmak-ing capacity of women or the belief that
thedecision to terminate the pregnancy is presump-tively wrong.  Ante, at 8. 
The requirement thatwomen consider this obvious and slanted informa-tion for
an additional 24 hours contained in theseprovisions will only influence the
woman's decisionin improper ways.  The vast majority of women willknow this
information"of the few that do not, it isless likely that their minds will be
changed by thisinformation than it will be either by the realiza-tion that
the State opposes their choice or theneed once again to endure abuse and
harassmenton return to the clinic.  Except in the case of a medical
emergency,3206 requires a physician to obtain the informedconsent of a parent
or guardian before performingan abortion on an unemancipated minor or
anincompetent woman.  Based on evidence in therecord, the District Court
concluded that, inorder to fulfill the informed-consent require-ment,
generally accepted medical principles wouldrequire an in-person visit by the
parent to thefacility.  App. 399a.  Although the Court  hasrecognized that
the State has somewhat broaderauthority to regulate the activities of
childrenthan of adults, the State nevertheless mustdemonstrate that there is
a  significant stateinterest in conditioning an abortion . . . that isnot
present in the case of an adult.  Danforth,428 U. S., at 74-75 (emphasis
added).  The require-ment of an in-person visit would carry with it therisk
of a delay of several days or possibly weeks,even where the parent is willing
to consent.  Whilethe State has an interest in encouraging
parentalinvolvement in the minor's abortion decision,3206 is not narrowly
drawn to serve that inter-est.        Finally, the Pennsylvania statute
requiresevery facility performing abortions to report itsactivities to the
Commonwealth.  Pennsylvaniacontends that this requirement is valid
underDanforth, in which this Court held that recordkee-ping and reporting
requirements that are reason-ably directed to the preservation of
maternalhealth and that properly respect a patient'sconfidentiality are
permissible.  428 U. S., at79-81.  The Commonwealth attempts to justify
itsrequired reports on the ground that the publichas a right to know how its
tax dollars are spent. A regulation designed to inform the public aboutpublic
expenditures does not further the Common-wealth's interest in protecting
maternal health. Accordingly, such a regulation cannot justify alegally
significant burden on a woman's right toobtain an abortion.  The confidential
reports concerning the identi-ties and medical judgment of physicians
involvedin abortions at first glance may seem valid, giventhe State's
interest in maternal health andenforcement of the Act.  The District Court
found,however, that, notwithstanding the confidenti-ality protections, many
physicians, particularlythose who have previously discontinued perform-ing
abortions because of harassment, wouldrefuse to refer patients to abortion
clinics iftheir names were to appear on these reports.  App.447a-448a. The
Commonwealth has failed to showthat the name of the referring physician
eitheradds to the pool of scientific knowledge concern-ing abortion or is
reasonably related to theCommonwealth's interest in maternal health. 
Itherefore agree with the District Court's conclu-sion that the confidential
reporting requirementsare unconstitutional insofar as they require thename of
the referring physician and the basis forhis or her medical judgment.  In
sum, I would affirm the judgment in No. 91-902and reverse the judgment in No.
91-744 and remandthe cases for further proceedings.                      III 
At long last, The Chief Justice admits it.  Goneare the contentions that the
issue need not be (orhas not been) considered.  There, on the firstpage, for
all to see, is what was expected:  Webelieve that Roe was wrongly decided,
and that itcan and should be overruled consistently with ourtraditional
approach to stare decisis inconstitutional cases.  Post, at 1.  If there
ismuch reason to applaud the advances made by thejoint opinion today, there
is far more to fear fromThe Chief Justice's opinion.  The Chief Justice's
criticism of Roe followsfrom his stunted conception of individual liberty.
While recognizing that the Due Process Clauseprotects more than simple
physical liberty, hethen goes on to construe this Court's personal-liberty
cases as establishing only a laundry listof particular rights, rather than a
principledaccount of how these particular rights are groun-ded in a more
general right of privacy.  Post, at 9. This constricted view is reinforced by
The ChiefJustice's exclusive reliance on tradition as asource of fundamental
rights.  He argues that therecord in favor of a right to abortion is
nostronger than the record in Michael H. v. Gerald D.,491 U. S. 110 (1989),
where the plurality found nofundamental right to visitation privileges by
anadulterous father, or in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478U. S. 186 (1986), where the
Court found no funda-mental right to engage in homosexual sodomy, or ina case
involving the  firing of a gun . . . intoanother person's body.  Post, at
9-10.  In TheChief Justice's world, a woman considering wheth-er to terminate
a pregnancy is entitled to no moreprotection than adulterers, murderers, and
so-called  sexual deviates.  Given The ChiefJustice's exclusive reliance on
tradition, peopleusing contraceptives seem the next likely candi-date for his
list of outcasts.  Even more shocking than The Chief Justice'scramped notion
of individual liberty is his com-plete omission of any discussion of the
effectsthat compelled childbirth and motherhood have onwomen's lives.  The
only expression of concernwith women's health is purely instrumental"forThe
Chief Justice, only women's psychologicalhealth is a concern, and only to the
extent that heassumes that every woman who decides to have anabortion does so
without serious consideration ofthe moral implications of their decision. 
Post, at25-26.  In short, The Chief Justice's view of theState's compelling
interest in maternal health hasless to do with health than it does with
compellingwomen to be maternal.  Nor does The Chief Justice give any
seriousconsideration to the doctrine of stare decisis. For The Chief Justice,
the facts that gave riseto Roe are surprisingly simple:  women
becomepregnant, there is a point somewhere, dependingon medical technology,
where a fetus becomesviable, and women give birth to children.  Ante, at13. 
This characterization of the issue thus allowsThe Chief Justice quickly to
discard the jointopinion's reliance argument by asserting that reproductive
planning could take . . . virtuallyimmediate account of a decision overruling
Roe. Id., at 14 (internal quotations omitted).    The Chief Justice's narrow
conception of indi-vidual liberty and stare decisis leads him topropose the
same standard of review proposed bythe plurality in Webster.   States may
regulateabortion procedures in ways rationally related toa legitimate state
interest.  Williamson v. LeeOptical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 491 (1955); cf.
Stanley v.Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 651-653 (1972).  Post, at24.  The Chief
Justice then further weakens thetest by providing an insurmountable
requirementfor facial challenges:  petitioners must  `showthat no set of
circumstances exists under whichthe [provision] would be valid.'  Post, at
30,quoting Ohio v. Akron Center for ReproductiveHealth, 497 U. S., at 514. 
In short, in his view,petitioners must prove that the statute
cannotconstitutionally be applied to anyone.  Finally, inapplying his
standard to the spousal-notificationprovision, The Chief Justice contends
that therecord lacks any  hard evidence to support thejoint opinion's
contention that a  large fractionof women who prefer not to notify their
husbandsinvolve situations of battered women and unre-ported spousal assault. 
Post, at 31, n. 2.  Yetthroughout the explication of his standard, TheChief
Justice never explains what hard evidenceis, how large a fraction is
required, or how abattered women is supposed to pursue an as-applied
challenge.  Under his standard, States can ban abortion ifthat ban is
rationally related to a legitimatestate interest"a standard which the
UnitedStates calls  deferential, but not toothless. Yet when pressed at oral
argument to describe theteeth, the best protection that the SolicitorGeneral
could offer to women was that a prohibi-tion, enforced by criminal penalties,
with noexception for the life of the mother,  could raisevery serious
questions.  Tr. of Oral Arg. 49. Perhaps, the Solicitor General offered,
thefailure to include an exemption for the life of themother would be 
arbitrary and capricious.  Id.,at 49.  If, as The Chief Justice contends,
theundue burden test is made out of whole cloth, theso-called  arbitrary and
capricious limit is theSolicitor General's  new clothes.  Even if it is
somehow  irrational for a Stateto require a woman to risk her life for her
child,what protection is offered for women who becomepregnant through rape or
incest?  Is there any-thing arbitrary or capricious about a
State'sprohibiting the sins of the father from beingvisited upon his
offspring?       But, we are reassured, there is always theprotection of the
democratic process.  While thereis much to be praised about our democracy,
ourcountry since its founding has recognized thatthere are certain
fundamental liberties that arenot to be left to the whims of an election. 
Awoman's right to reproductive choice is one ofthose fundamental liberties. 
Accordingly, thatliberty need not seek refuge at the ballot box.            
           IV  In one sense, the Court's approach is worldsapart from that of
The Chief Justice and JusticeScalia.  And yet, in another sense, the
distancebetween the two approaches is short"the distanceis but a single vote. 
 I am 83 years old.  I cannot remain on this Courtforever, and when I do step
down, the confirmationprocess for my successor well may focus on theissue
before us today.  That, I regret, may beexactly where the choice between the
two worldswill be made.Concur/dissent 3      SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED
STATESÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ       Nos. 91-744 and 91-902              ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ      
PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN       PENNSYLVANIA, et al.,
PETITIONERS91-744                v.          ROBERT P. CASEY, et al., etc.  
      ROBERT P. CASEY, et al., etc.,                  PETITIONERS91-902     
          v.       PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN             
PENNSYLVANIA et al.  on writs of certiorari to the united statescourt of    
    appeals for the third circuit                [June 29, 1992]   Chief
Justice Rehnquist, with whom JusticeWhite, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas
join, -concurring in the judgment in part and dissentingin part.  The joint
opinion, following its newly-mintedvariation on stare decisis, retains the
outershell of Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), but beatsa wholesale retreat
from the substance of thatcase.  We believe that Roe was wrongly decided,and
that it can and should be overruled consist-ently with our traditional
approach to staredecisis in constitutional cases.  We would adoptthe approach
of the plurality in Webster v. Repro-ductive Health Services, 492 U. S. 490
(1989), anduphold the challenged provisions of the Pennsyl-vania statute in
their entirety.                       I  In ruling on this case below, the
Court of Ap-peals for the Third Circuit first observed that this appeal does
not directly implicate Roe; thiscase involves the regulation of abortions
ratherthan their outright prohibition.  947 F. 2d 682,687 (1991). 
Accordingly, the court directed itsattention to the question of the standard
ofreview for abortion regulations.  In attempting tosettle on the correct
standard, however, thecourt confronted the confused state of thisCourt's
abortion jurisprudence.  After consideringthe several opinions in Webster v.
ReproductiveHealth Services, supra, and Hodgson v. Minnesota,497 U. S. 417
(1990), the Court of Appeals concludedthat Justice O'Connor's  undue burden
test wascontrolling, as that was the narrowest ground onwhich we had upheld
recent abortion regulations. 947 F. 2d, at 693-697 ( `When a fragmented
courtdecides a case and no single rationale explainingthe result enjoys the
assent of five Justices,the holding of the Court may be viewed as
thatposition taken by those Members who concurred inthe judgments on the
narrowest grounds' (quotingMarks v. United States, 430 U. S. 188, 193
(1977)(internal quotation marks omitted)).  Applying thisstandard, the Court
of Appeals upheld all of thechallenged regulations except the one requiring
awoman to notify her spouse of an intended abor-tion.  In arguing that this
Court should invalidateeach of the provisions at issue, petitionersinsist
that we reaffirm our decision in Roe v.Wade, supra, in which we held
unconstitutional aTexas statute making it a crime to procure anabortion
except to save the life of the moth-er.  We agree with the Court of Appeals
thatour decision in Roe is not directly implicated bythe Pennsylvania
statute, which does not prohibit,but simply regulates, abortion.  But, as the
Courtof Appeals found, the state of our post-Roedecisional law dealing with
the regulation ofabortion is confusing and uncertain, indicatingthat a
reexamination of that line of cases is inorder.  Unfortunately for those who
must applythis Court's decisions, the reexamination under-taken today leaves
the Court no less divided thanbeforehand.  Although they reject the
trimesterframework that formed the underpinning of Roe,Justices O'Connor,
Kennedy, and Souter adopt arevised undue burden standard to analyze
thechallenged regulations.  We conclude, however,that such an outcome is an
unjustified constitu-tional compromise, one which leaves the Court ina
position to closely scrutinize all types ofabortion regulations despite the
fact that itlacks the power to do so under the Constitution.    In Roe, the
Court opined that the State  doeshave an important and legitimate interest
inpreserving and protecting the health of thepregnant woman, . . . and that
it has still anotherimportant and legitimate interest in protectingthe
potentiality of human life.  410 U. S., at 162(emphasis omitted).  In the
companion case of Doev. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973), the Court referredto
its conclusion in Roe  that a pregnant womandoes not have an absolute
constitutional right toan abortion on her demand.  410 U. S., at 189. 
Butwhile the language and holdings of these casesappeared to leave States
free to regulate abor-tion procedures in a variety of ways, laterdecisions
based on them have found considerablyless latitude for such regulations than
mighthave been expected.  For example, after Roe, many States have soughtto
protect their young citizens by requiring thata minor seeking an abortion
involve her parents inthe decision.  Some States have simply
requirednotification of the parents, while others haverequired a minor to
obtain the consent of herparents.  In a number of decisions, however,
theCourt has substantially limited the States intheir ability to impose such
requirements.  Withregard to parental notice requirements, we ini-tially held
that a State could require a minor tonotify her parents before proceeding
with anabortion.  H. L. v. Matheson, 450 U. S. 398, 407-410(1981).  Recently,
however, we indicated that aState's ability to impose a notice
requirementactually depends on whether it requires notice ofone or both
parents.  We concluded that althoughthe Constitution might allow a State to
demandthat notice be given to one parent prior to anabortion, it may not
require that similar notice begiven to two parents, unless the State
incorpo-rates a judicial bypass procedure in that two-parent requirement. 
Hodgson v. Minnesota, supra.  We have treated parental consent provisionseven
more harshly.  Three years after Roe, weinvalidated a Missouri regulation
requiring thatan unmarried woman under the age of 18 obtain theconsent of one
her parents before proceeding withan abortion.  We held that our abortion
jurispru-dence prohibited the State from imposing such a blanket provision .
. . requiring the consent of aparent.  Planned Parenthood of Central Mo.
v.Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 74 (1976).  In Bellotti v.Baird, 443 U. S. 622
(1979), the Court struck downa similar Massachusetts parental consent
stat-ute.  A majority of the Court indicated, however,that a State could
constitutionally requireparental consent, if it alternatively allowed
apregnant minor to obtain an abortion withoutparental consent by showing
either that she wasmature enough to make her own decision, or thatthe
abortion would be in her best interests.  Seeid., at 643-644 (plurality
opinion); id., at 656-657(White, J., dissenting).  In light of Bellotti,
wehave upheld one parental consent regulation whichincorporated a judicial
bypass option we viewedas sufficient, see Planned Parenthood Assn. ofKansas
City, Mo., Inc. v. Ashcroft, 462 U. S. 476(1983), but have invalidated
another because ofour belief that the judicial procedure did notsatisfy the
dictates of Bellotti.  See Akron v.Akron Center for Reproductive Health,
Inc., 462U. S. 416, 439-442 (1983).  We have never hadoccasion, as we have in
the parental noticecontext, to further parse our parental
consentjurisprudence into one-parent and two-parentcomponents.  In Roe, the
Court observed that certain Statesrecognized the right of the father to
participatein the abortion decision in certain circumstances. Because neither
Roe nor Doe involved the asser-tion of any paternal right, the Court
expresslystated that the case did not disturb the validityof regulations that
protected such a right.  Roe v.Wade, 410 U. S., at 165, n. 67.  But three
yearslater, in Danforth, the Court extended its abor-tion jurisprudence and
held that a State could notrequire that a woman obtain the consent of
herspouse before proceeding with an abortion. Planned Parenthood of Central
Mo. v. Danforth, 428U. S., at 69-71.  States have also regularly tried to
ensure thata woman's decision to have an abortion is aninformed and
well-considered one.  In Danforth, weupheld a requirement that a woman sign
a consentform prior to her abortion, and observed that  itis desirable and
imperative that [the decision] bemade with full knowledge of its nature and
conse-quences.  Id., at 67.  Since that case, however,we have twice
invalidated state statutes de-signed to impart such knowledge to a woman
seek-ing an abortion.  In Akron, we held unconstitution-al a regulation
requiring a physician to inform awoman seeking an abortion of the status of
herpregnancy, the development of her fetus, the dateof possible viability,
the complications that couldresult from an abortion, and the availability
ofagencies providing assistance and informationwith respect to adoption and
childbirth.  Akron v.Akron Center for Reproductive Health, supra, at442-445. 
More recently, in Thornburgh v. AmericanCollege of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists, 476U. S. 747 (1986), we struck down a more limitedPennsylvania
regulation requiring that a woman beinformed of the risks associated with the
abor-tion procedure and the assistance available toher if she decided to
proceed with her pregnancy,because we saw the compelled information as 
theantithesis of informed consent.  Id., at 764. Even when a State has sought
only to provideinformation that, in our view, was consistent withthe Roe
framework, we concluded that the Statecould not require that a physician
furnish theinformation, but instead had to alternativelyallow nonphysician
counselors to provide it. Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health,
462U. S., at 448-449.  In Akron as well, we went fur-ther and held that a
State may not require aphysician to wait 24 hours to perform an abortionafter
receiving the consent of a woman.  Althoughthe State sought to ensure that
the woman'sdecision was carefully considered, the Courtconcluded that the
Constitution forbade theState from imposing any sort of delay.  Id.,
at449-451.  We have not allowed States much leeway toregulate even the actual
abortion procedure. Although a State can require that second-trimes-ter
abortions be performed in outpatient clinics,see Simopoulos v. Virginia, 462
U. S. 506 (1983), weconcluded in Akron and Ashcroft that a State couldnot
require that such abortions be performed onlyin hospitals.  See Akron v.
Akron Center for Repro-ductive Health, supra, at 437-439; Planned Parent-hood
Assn. of Kansas City, Mo., Inc. v. Ashcroft,supra, at 481-482.  Despite the
fact that Roeexpressly allowed regulation after the firsttrimester in
furtherance of maternal health, `present medical knowledge,' in our view,
couldnot justify such a hospitalization requirementunder the trimester
framework.  Akron v. AkronCenter for Reproductive Health, supra, at
437(quoting Roe v. Wade, supra, at 163).  And in Danfor-th, the Court held
that Missouri could not outlawthe saline amniocentesis method of
abortion,concluding that the Missouri Legislature had failed to appreciate
and to consider severalsignificant facts in making its decision.  428U. S.,
at 77.  Although Roe allowed state regulation after thepoint of viability to
protect the potential life ofthe fetus, the Court subsequently
rejectedattempts to regulate in this manner.  In Colauttiv. Franklin, 439 U.
S. 379 (1979), the Court struckdown a statute that governed the
determinationof viability.  Id., at 390-397.  In the process, wemade clear
that the trimester framework incorpo-rated only one definition of
viability"ours"as weforbade States from deciding that a certainobjective
indicator"``be it weeks of gestation orfetal weight or any other single
factor"shouldgovern the definition of viability.  Id., at 389.  Inthat same
case, we also invalidated a regulationrequiring a physician to use the
abortion tech-nique offering the best chance for fetal survivalwhen
performing postviability abortions.  See id.,at 397-401; see also Thornburgh
v. American Col-lege of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, supra, at768-769
(invalidating a similar regulation).  InThornburgh, the Court struck down
Pennsylvania'srequirement that a second physician be present atpostviability
abortions to help preserve thehealth of the unborn child, on the ground that
itdid not incorporate a sufficient medical emergen-cy exception.  Id., at
769-771.  Regulations gov-erning the treatment of aborted fetuses have meta
similar fate.  In Akron, we invalidated a provi-sion requiring physicians
performing abortions to insure that the remains of the unborn child
aredisposed of in a humane and sanitary manner.  462U. S., at 451 (internal
quotation marks omitted).  Dissents in these cases expressed the view thatthe
Court was expanding upon Roe in imposing evergreater restrictions on the
States.  See Thornbu-rgh v. American College of Obstetricians and
Gyne-cologists, 476 U. S., at 783 (Burger, C. J., dissent-ing) ( The extent
to which the Court has departedfrom the limitations expressed in Roe is
readilyapparent); id., at 814 (White, J., dissenting)( [T]he majority
indiscriminately strikes downstatutory provisions that in no way
contravenethe right recognized in Roe).  And, when confront-ed with State
regulations of this type in pastyears, the Court has become increasingly
moredivided: the three most recent abortion caseshave not commanded a Court
opinion.  See Ohio v.Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U. S.
502(1990); Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U. S. 417 (1990);Webster v. Reproductive
Health Services, 492 U. S.490 (1989).  The task of the Court of Appeals in
the presentcase was obviously complicated by this confusionand uncertainty. 
Following Marks v. United States,430 U. S. 188 (1977), it concluded that in
light ofWebster and Hodgson, the strict scrutiny standardenunciated in Roe
was no longer applicable, andthat the  undue burden standard adopted
byJustice O'Connor was the governing principle. This state of confusion and
disagreement war-rants reexamination of the  fundamental rightaccorded to a
woman's decision to abort a fetus inRoe, with its concomitant requirement
that anystate regulation of abortion survive  strictscrutiny.  See Payne v.
Tennessee, 501 U. S. ---,------- (1991) (slip op., at 17-20) (observing
thatreexamination of constitutional decisions isappropriate when those
decisions have generateduncertainty and failed to provide clear
guidance,because  correction through legislative action ispractically
impossible (internal quotation marksomitted)); Garcia v. San Antonio
Metropolitan Tran-sit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 546-547, 557 (1985).  We have
held that a liberty interest protectedunder the Due Process Clause of the
FourteenthAmendment will be deemed fundamental if it is implicit in the
concept of ordered liberty. Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 325 (1937).
Three years earlier, in Snyder v. Massachusetts,291 U. S. 97 (1934), we
referred to a  principle ofjustice so rooted in the traditions and
conscie-nce of our people as to be ranked as fundamental. Id., at 105; see
also Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491U. S. 110, 122 (1989) (plurality opinion)
(citing thelanguage from Snyder).  These expressions areadmittedly not
precise, but our decisions imple-menting this notion of  fundamental rights
do notafford any more elaborate basis on which to basesuch a classification. 
In construing the phrase  liberty incorporatedin the Due Process Clause of
the FourteenthAmendment, we have recognized that its meaningextends beyond
freedom from physical restraint. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S.
510 (1925),we held that it included a parent's right to send achild to
private school; in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262U. S. 390 (1923), we held that it
included a right toteach a foreign language in a parochial school. Building
on these cases, we have held that thatthe term  liberty includes a right to
marry,Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967); a right toprocreate, Skinner v.
Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson,316 U. S. 535 (1942); and a right to use
contracep-tives.  Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965);Eisenstadt v.
Baird, 405 U. S. 438 (1972).  But areading of these opinions makes clear that
theydo not endorse any all-encompassing  right ofprivacy.  In Roe v. Wade,
the Court recognized a  guaran-tee of personal privacy which  is broad
enoughto encompass a woman's decision whether or not toterminate her
pregnancy.  410 U. S., at 152-153. We are now of the view that, in terming
this rightfundamental, the Court in Roe read the earlieropinions upon which
it based its decision much toobroadly.  Unlike marriage, procreation and
contra-ception, abortion  involves the purposeful termi-nation of potential
life. Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S.297, 325 (1980).  The abortion decision
musttherefore  be recognized as sui generis, differentin kind from the others
that the Court has pro-tected under the rubric of personal or familyprivacy
and autonomy.  Thornburgh v. AmericanCollege of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists, supra,at 792 (White, J., dissenting).  One cannot ignorethe
fact that a woman is not isolated in herpregnancy, and that the decision to
abort neces-sarily involves the destruction of a fetus.  SeeMichael H. v.
Gerald D., supra, at 124, n. 4 (To look at the act which is assertedly the
subject of aliberty interest in isolation from its effect uponother people
[is] like inquiring whether there is aliberty interest in firing a gun where
the case athand happens to involve its discharge into anoth-er person's
body).  Nor do the historical traditions of the Americanpeople support the
view that the right to termi-nate one's pregnancy is  fundamental.  Thecommon
law which we inherited from England madeabortion after  quickening an
offense.  At thetime of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment,statutory
prohibitions or restrictions on abor-tion were commonplace; in 1868, at least
28 of thethen-37 States and 8 Territories had statutesbanning or limiting
abortion.  J. Mohr, Abortion inAmerica 200 (1978).  By the turn of the
centuryvirtually every State had a law prohibiting orrestricting abortion on
its books.  By the middleof the present century, a liberalization trend
hadset in.  But 21 of the restrictive abortion laws ineffect in1868 were
still in effect in 1973 when Roe wasdecided,and an overwhelming majority of
the States pro-hibited abortion unless necessary to preservethe life or
healthof the mother.  Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S., at 139-140;id.,at 176-177, n.
2 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).  Onthis record, it can scarcely be said that
anydeeply rooted tradition of relatively unrestrict-ed abortion in our
history supported the classifi-cation of the right to abortion as 
fundamentalunder the Due Process Clause of the FourteenthAmendment.  We
think, therefore, both in view of this historyand of our decided cases
dealing with substantiveliberty under the Due Process Clause, that theCourt
was mistaken in Roe when it classified awoman's decision to terminate her
pregnancy as a fundamental right that could be abridged only ina manner which
withstood  strict scrutiny.  In soconcluding, we repeat the observation made
inBowers v. Hardwick, 478 U. S. 186 (1986):      Nor are we inclined to take
a more expan-sive view of our authority to discover newfundamental rights
imbedded in the Due Pro-cess Clause.  The Court is most vulnerable andcomes
nearest to illegitimacy when it dealswith judge-made constitutional law
havinglittle or no cognizable roots in the languageor design of the
Constitution.  Id., at 194.We believe that the sort of
constitutionallyimposed abortion code of the type illustrated byour decisions
following Roe is inconsistent  withthe notion of a Constitution cast in
generalterms, as ours is, and usually speaking in generalprinciples, as ours
does.  Webster v. ReproductiveHealth Services, 492 U. S., at 518 (plurality
opin-ion).  The Court in Roe reached too far when itanalogized the right to
abort a fetus to therights involved in Pierce, Meyer, Loving, andGriswold,
and thereby deemed the right to abor-tion fundamental.                     
II  The joint opinion of Justices O'Connor, Kennedy,and Souter cannot bring
itself to say that Roewas correct as an original matter, but the au-thors are
of the view that  the immediate ques-tion is not the soundness of Roe's
resolution ofthe issue, but the precedential force that mustbe accorded to
its holding.  Ante, at 29.  Insteadof claiming that Roe was correct as a
matter oforiginal constitutional interpretation, theopinion therefore
contains an elaborate discus-sion of stare decisis.  This discussion of
theprinciple of stare decisis appears to be almostentirely dicta, because the
joint opinion does notapply that principle in dealing with Roe.  Roedecided
that a woman had a fundamental right to anabortion.  The joint opinion
rejects that view. Roe decided that abortion regulations were to besubjected
to  strict scrutiny and could bejustified only in the light of  compelling
stateinterests.  The joint opinion rejects that view. Ante, at 29-30; see Roe
v. Wade, supra, at 162-164. Roe analyzed abortion regulation under a
rigidtrimester framework, a framework which has guidedthis Court's
decisionmaking for 19 years.  Thejoint opinion rejects that framework.  Ante,
at 31.  Stare decisis is defined in Black's Law Dictio-nary as meaning  to
abide by, or adhere to, decid-ed cases.  Black's Law Dictionary 1406 (6th
ed.1990).  Whatever the  central holding of Roe thatis left after the joint
opinion finishes dissectingit is surely not the result of that principle.
While purporting to adhere to precedent, the jointopinion instead revises it. 
Roe continues toexist, but only in the way a storefront on awestern movie set
exists: a mere facade to givethe illusion of reality.  Decisions following
Roe,such as Akron v. Akron Center for ReproductiveHealth, Inc., 462 U. S. 416
(1983), and Thornburgh v.American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecolo-gists, 476 U. S. 747 (1986), are frankly overruledin part under the 
undue burden standard ex-pounded in the joint opinion.  Ante, at 39-42.  In
our view, authentic principles of stare deci-sis do not require that any
portion of the reason-ing in Roe be kept intact.   Stare decisis is not . .
.a universal, inexorable command, especially incases involving the
interpretation of the FederalConstitution.  Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co.,
285U. S. 393, 405 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). Erroneous decisions in
such constitutional casesare uniquely durable, because correction
throughlegislative action, save for constitutionalamendment, is impossible. 
It is therefore our dutyto reconsider constitutional interpretationsthat 
depar[t] from a proper understanding ofthe Constitution.  Garcia v. San
Antonio Metropoli-tan Transit Authority, 469 U. S., at 557; see UnitedStates
v. Scott, 437 U. S. 82, 101 (1978) ( `[I]n casesinvolving the Federal
Constitution, . . . [t]heCourt bows to the lessons of experience and theforce
of better reasoning, recognizing that theprocess of trial and error, so
fruitful in thephysical sciences, is appropriate also in thejudicial
function.' (quoting Burnet v. Coronado Oil& Gas Co., supra, at 406-408
(Brandeis, J., dis-senting))); Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, 665(1944). 
Our constitutional watch does not ceasemerely because we have spoken before
on an issue;when it becomes clear that a prior constitutionalinterpretation
is unsound we are obliged toreexamine the question.  See, e.g., West
VirginiaState Bd. of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624,642 (1943); Erie R.
Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64,74-78 (1938).  The joint opinion discusses
several staredecisis factors which, it asserts, point towardretaining a
portion of Roe.  Two of these factorsare that the main  factual underpinning
of Roehas remained the same, and that its doctrinalfoundation is no weaker
now than it was in 1973. Ante, at 14-18.  Of course, what might be called
thebasic facts which gave rise to Roe have remainedthe same"women become
pregnant, there is a pointsomewhere, depending on medical technology, wherea
fetus becomes viable, and women give birth tochildren.  But this is only to
say that the samefacts which gave rise to Roe will continue to giverise to
similar cases.  It is not a reason, in and ofitself, why those cases must be
decided in thesame incorrect manner as was the first case todeal with the
question.  And surely there is norequirement, in considering whether to
departfrom stare decisis in a constitutional case, thata decision be more
wrong now than it was at thetime it was rendered.  If that were true, the
mostoutlandish constitutional decision could surviveforever, based simply on
the fact that it was nomore outlandish later than it was when
originallyrendered.  Nor does the joint opinion faithfully follow thisalleged
requirement.  The opinion frankly conclu-des that Roe and its progeny were
wrong in failingto recognize that the State's interests in mater-nal health
and in the protection of unborn humanlife exist throughout pregnancy.  Ante,
29-31.  Butthere is no indication that these components ofRoe are any more
incorrect at this juncture thanthey were at its inception.  The joint opinion
also points to the relianceinterests involved in this context in its effort
toexplain why precedent must be followed for prece-dent's sake.  Certainly it
is true that wherereliance is truly at issue, as in the case ofjudicial
decisions that have formed the basis forprivate decisions,  [c]onsiderations
in favor ofstare decisis are at their acme.  Payne v. Tennes-see, 501 U. S.,
at "" (slip op., at 18).  But, as thejoint opinion apparently agrees, ante,
at 13-14,any traditional notion of reliance is not applica-ble here.  The
Court today cuts back on the pro-tection afforded by Roe, and no one claims
thatthis action defeats any reliance interest in thedisavowed trimester
framework.  Similarly, reli-ance interests would not be diminished were
theCourt to go further and acknowledge the fullerror of Roe, as  reproductive
planning could takevirtually immediate account of this action.  Ante,at 14. 
The joint opinion thus turns to what can only bedescribed as an
unconventional"and unconvinc-ing"notion of reliance, a view based on the
sur-mise that the availability of abortion since Roehas led to  two decades
of economic and socialdevelopments that would be undercut if the errorof Roe
were recognized.  Ibid.  The joint opinion'sassertion of this fact is
undeveloped and totallyconclusory.  In fact, one can not be sure to
whateconomic and social developments the opinion isreferring.  Surely it is
dubious to suggest thatwomen have reached their  places in society inreliance
upon Roe, rather than as a result oftheir determination to obtain higher
educationand compete with men in the job market, and ofsociety's increasing
recognition of their abilityto fill positions that were previously thought
tobe reserved only for men.  Ibid.  In the end, having failed to put forth
any evi-dence to prove any true reliance, the jointopinion's argument is
based solely on generalizedassertions about the national psyche, on a
beliefthat the people of this country have grown accus-tomed to the Roe
decision over the last 19 yearsand have  ordered their thinking and
livingaround it.  Ibid.  As an initial matter, one mightinquire how the joint
opinion can view the  cen-tral holding of Roe as so deeply rooted in
ourconstitutional culture, when it so casuallyuproots and disposes of that
same decision'strimester framework.  Furthermore, at variouspoints in the
past, the same could have been saidabout this Court's erroneous decisions
that theConstitution allowed  separate but equal treat-ment of minorities,
see Plessy v. Ferguson, 163U. S. 537 (1896), or that  liberty under the
DueProcess Clause protected  freedom of contract. See Adkins v. Children's
Hospital of D. C., 261 U. S.525 (1923); Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45
(1905). The  separate but equal doctrine lasted 58years after Plessy, and
Lochner's protection ofcontractual freedom lasted 32 years.  However,the
simple fact that a generation or more hadgrown used to these major decisions
did notprevent the Court from correcting its errors inthose cases, nor should
it prevent us from cor-rectly interpreting the Constitution here.  SeeBrown
v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954)(rejecting the  separate but equal
doctrine);West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379 (1937)(overruling
Adkins v. Children's Hospital, supra, inupholding Washington's minimum wage
law).        Apparently realizing that conventional staredecisis principles
do not support its position, thejoint opinion advances a belief that
retaining aportion of Roe is necessary to protect the  le-gitimacy of this
Court.  Ante, at 19-27.  Becausethe Court must take care to render decisions
grounded truly in principle, and not simply aspolitical and social
compromises, ante, at 23, thejoint opinion properly declares it to be
thisCourt's duty to ignore the public criticism andprotest that may arise as
a result of a decision. Few would quarrel with this statement, although itmay
be doubted that Members of this Court, hold-ing their tenure as they do
during constitutional good behavior, are at all likely to be intimidat-ed by
such public protests.  But the joint opinion goes on to state that whenthe
Court  resolve[s] the sort of intenselydivisive controversy reflected in Roe
and thoserare, comparable cases, its decision is exemptfrom reconsideration
under established principlesof stare decisis in constitutional cases.  Ante,
at24.  This is so, the joint opinion contends, be-cause in those  intensely
divisive cases theCourt has  call[ed] the contending sides of anational
controversy to end their national divi-sion by accepting a common mandate
rooted in theConstitution, and must therefore take specialcare not to be
perceived as  surrender[ing] topolitical pressure and continued opposition.
Ante, at 24-25.  This is a truly novel principle,one which is contrary to
both the Court's histori-cal practice and to the Court's traditional
will-ingness to tolerate criticism of its opinions. Under this principle,
when the Court has ruled ona divisive issue, it is apparently prevented
fromoverruling that decision for the sole reason thatit was incorrect, unless
opposition to the originaldecision has died away.     The first difficulty
with this principle lies inits assumption that cases which are 
intenselydivisive can be readily distinguished from thosethat are not.  The
question of whether a particu-lar issue is  intensely divisive enough
toqualify for special protection is entirely subjec-tive and dependent on the
individual assumptionsof the members of this Court.  In addition, becausethe
Court's duty is to ignore public opinion andcriticism on issues that come
before it, itsmembers are in perhaps the worst position tojudge whether a
decision divides the Nation deeplyenough to justify such uncommon protection.
Although many of the Court's decisions divide thepopulace to a large degree,
we have not previous-ly on that account shied away from applying normalrules
of stare decisis when urged to reconsiderearlier decisions.  Over the past 21
years, forexample, the Court has overruled in whole or inpart 34 of its
previous constitutional decisions. See Payne v. Tennessee, supra, at "", and
n. 1 (slipop., at 18-19, and n. 1) (listing cases).  The joint opinion picks
out and discusses twoprior Court rulings that it believes are of the
intensely divisive variety, and concludes thatthey are of comparable
dimension to Roe.  Ante, at19-22 (discussing Lochner v. New York, supra,
andPlessy v. Ferguson, supra).  It appears to us veryodd indeed that the
joint opinion chooses asbenchmarks two cases in which the Court chose notto
adhere to erroneous constitutional precedent,but instead enhanced its stature
by acknowledgingand correcting its error, apparently in violationof the joint
opinion's  legitimacy principle.  SeeWest Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, supra;
Brown v.Board of Education, supra.  One might also wonderhow it is that the
joint opinion puts these, andnot others, in the  intensely divisive
category,and how it assumes that these are the only twolines of cases of
comparable dimension to Roe. There is no reason to think that either Plessy
orLochner produced the sort of public protest whenthey were decided that Roe
did.  There wereundoubtedly large segments of the bench and barwho agreed
with the dissenting views in thosecases, but surely that cannot be what the
Courtmeans when it uses the term  intensely divisive,or many other cases
would have to be added to thelist.  In terms of public protest, however, Roe,
sofar as we know, was unique.  But just as the Courtshould not respond to
that sort of protest byretreating from the decision simply to allay
theconcerns of the protesters, it should likewise notrespond by determining
to adhere to the decisionat all costs lest it seem to be retreating
underfire.  Public protests should not alter the normalapplication of stare
decisis, lest perfectly lawfulprotest activity be penalized by the Court
itself.  Taking the joint opinion on its own terms, wedoubt that its
distinction between Roe, on the onehand, and Plessy and Lochner, on the
other, with-stands analysis.  The joint opinion acknowledgesthat the Court
improved its stature by overrulingPlessy in Brown on a deeply divisive issue. 
Andour decision in West Coast Hotel, which overruledAdkins v. Children's
Hospital, supra, and Lochner,was rendered at a time when Congress was
consid-ering President Franklin Roosevelt's proposal to reorganize this Court
and enable him to name sixadditional Justices in the event that any memberof
the Court over the age of 70 did not elect toretire.  It is difficult to
imagine a situation inwhich the Court would face more intense opposi-tion to
a prior ruling than it did at that time, and,under the general principle
proclaimed in the jointopinion, the Court seemingly should have respond-ed to
this opposition by stubbornly refusing toreexamine the Lochner rationale,
lest it loselegitimacy by appearing to  overrule under fire. Ante, at 25.  
The joint opinion agrees that the Court's stat-ure would have been seriously
damaged if in Brownand West Coast Hotel it had dug in its heels andrefused to
apply normal principles of stare deci-sis to the earlier decisions.  But the
opinioncontends that the Court was entitled to overrulePlessy and Lochner in
those cases, despite theexistence of opposition to the original
decisions,only because both the Nation and the Court hadlearned new lessons
in the interim.  This is atbest a feebly supported, post hoc
rationalizationfor those decisions.  For example, the opinion asserts that
the Courtcould justifiably overrule its decision in Lochneronly because the
Depression had convinced  mostpeople that constitutional protection of
con-tractual freedom contributed to an economy thatfailed to protect the
welfare of all.  Ante, at 19. Surely the joint opinion does not mean to
suggestthat people saw this Court's failure to upholdminimum wage statutes as
the cause of the GreatDepression-  In any event, the Lochner Court didnot
base its rule upon the policy judgment that anunregulated market was
fundamental to a stableeconomy; it simple believed, erroneously, that liberty
under the Due Process Clause protectedthe  right to make a contract.  Lochner
v. NewYork, 198 U. S., at 53.  Nor is it the case that thepeople of this
Nation only discovered the dangersof extreme laissez faire economics because
of theDepression.  State laws regulating maximum hoursand minimum wages were
in existence well beforethat time.  A Utah statute of that sort enacted
in1896 was involved in our decision in Holden v.Hardy, 169 U. S. 366 (1898),
and other statesfollowed suit shortly afterwards.  See, e.g., Mullerv.
Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908); Bunting v. Oregon, 243U. S. 426 (1917).  These
statutes were indeedenacted because of a belief on the part of theirsponsors
that  freedom of contract did notprotect the welfare of workers,
demonstratingthat that belief manifested itself more than ageneration before
the Great Depression.  Whether most people had come to share it in the
hardtimes of the 1930's is, insofar as anything thejoint opinion advances,
entirely speculative.  Thecrucial failing at that time was not that
workerswere not paid a fair wage, but that there was nowork available at any
wage.  When the Court finally recognized its error inWest Coast Hotel, it did
not engage in the post hocrationalization that the joint opinion attributesto
it today; it did not state that Lochner had beenbased on an economic view
that had fallen intodisfavor, and that it therefore should be over-ruled. 
Chief Justice Hughes in his opinion for theCourt simply recognized what
Justice Holmes hadpreviously recognized in his Lochner dissent, that [t]he
Constitution does not speak of freedom ofcontract.  West Coast Hotel Co. v.
Parrish, 300U. S., at 391; Lochner v. New York, supra, at 75(Holmes, J.,
dissenting) ( [A] Constitution is notintended to embody a particular economic
theory,whether of paternalism and the organic relationof the citizen to the
State or of laissez faire). Although the Court did acknowledge in the
lastparagraph of its opinion the state of affairsduring the then-current
Depression, the theme ofthe opinion is that the Court had been mistaken asa
matter of constitutional law when it embraced freedom of contract 32 years
previously.  The joint opinion also agrees that the Courtacted properly in
rejecting the doctrine of separate but equal in Brown.  In fact, theopinion
lauds Brown in comparing it to Roe.  Ante,at 25.  This is strange, in that
under the opinion's legitimacy principle the Court would seeminglyhave been
forced to adhere to its erroneousdecision in Plessy because of its 
intenselydivisive character.  To us, adherence to Roetoday under the guise of 
legitimacy would seemto resemble more closely adherence to Plessy onthe same
ground.  Fortunately, the Court did notchoose that option in Brown, and
instead franklyrepudiated Plessy.  The joint opinion concludesthat such
repudiation was justified only becauseof newly discovered evidence that
segregationhad the effect of treating one race as inferior toanother.  But it
can hardly be argued that thiswas not urged upon those who decided Plessy,
asJustice Harlan observed in his dissent that thelaw at issue  puts the brand
of servitude anddegradation upon a large class of our fellow-citizens, our
equals before the law.  Plessy v.Ferguson, 163 U. S., at 562 (Harlan, J.,
dissenting). It is clear that the same arguments made beforethe Court in
Brown were made in Plessy as well. The Court in Brown simply recognized, as
JusticeHarlan had recognized beforehand, that the Four-teenth Amendment does
not permit racial segrega-tion.  The rule of Brown is not tied to
popularopinion about the evils of segregation; it is ajudgment that the Equal
Protection Clause doesnot permit racial segregation, no matter whetherthe
public might come to believe that it is benefi-cial.  On that ground it
stands, and on that groundalone the Court was justified in properly
conclud-ing that the Plessy Court had erred.  There is also a suggestion in
the joint opinionthat the propriety of overruling a  divisivedecision depends
in part on whether  most peoplewould now agree that it should be overruled.
Either the demise of opposition or its progres-sion to substantial popular
agreement apparentlyis required to allow the Court to reconsider adivisive
decision.  How such agreement would beascertained, short of a public opinion
poll, thejoint opinion does not say.  But surely even thesuggestion is
totally at war with the idea of legitimacy in whose name it is invoked. 
TheJudicial Branch derives its legitimacy, not fromfollowing public opinion,
but from deciding by itsbest lights whether legislative enactments of
thepopular branches of Government comport with theConstitution.  The doctrine
of stare decisis is anadjunct of this duty, and should be no more sub-ject to
the vagaries of public opinion than is thebasic judicial task.  There are
other reasons why the joint opinion'sdiscussion of legitimacy is unconvincing
as well. In assuming that the Court is perceived as  sur-render[ing] to
political pressure when it over-rules a controversial decision, ante, at 25,
thejoint opinion forgets that there are two sides toany controversy.  The
joint opinion asserts that,in order to protect its legitimacy, the Court
mustrefrain from overruling a controversial decisionlest it be viewed as
favoring those who opposethe decision.  But a decision to adhere to
priorprecedent is subject to the same criticism, for insuch a case one can
easily argue that the Courtis responding to those who have demonstrated
infavor of the original decision.  The decision in Roehas engendered large
demonstrations, includingrepeated marches on this Court and on Congress,both
in opposition to and in support of thatopinion.  A decision either way on Roe
can there-fore be perceived as favoring one group or theother.  But this
perceived dilemma arises only ifone assumes, as the joint opinion does, that
theCourt should make its decisions with a view towardspeculative public
perceptions.  If one assumesinstead, as the Court surely did in both Brown
andWest Coast Hotel, that the Court's legitimacy isenhanced by faithful
interpretion of the Consti-tution irrespective of public opposition,
suchself-engendered difficulties may be put to oneside.  Roe is not this
Court's only decision to gener-ate conflict.  Our decisions in some recent
capitalcases, and in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U. S. 186(1986), have also
engendered demonstrations inopposition.  The joint opinion's message to
suchprotesters appears to be that they must ceasetheir activities in order to
serve their cause,because their protests will only cement in placea decision
which by normal standards of staredecisis should be reconsidered.  Nearly a
centuryago, Justice David J. Brewer of this Court, in anarticle discussing
criticism of its decisions,observed that  many criticisms may be, like
theirauthors, devoid of good taste, but better allsorts of criticism than no
criticism at all. Justice Brewer on  The Nation's Anchor, 57Albany L.J. 166,
169 (1898).  This was good advice tothe Court then, as it is today.  Strong
and oftenmisguided criticism of a decision should notrender the decision
immune from reconsideration,lest a fetish for legitimacy penalize freedom
ofexpression.  The end result of the joint opinion's paeans ofpraise for
legitimacy is the enunciation of abrand new standard for evaluating state
regula-tion of a woman's right to abortion"the  undueburden standard.  As
indicated above, Roe v. Wadeadopted a  fundamental right standard underwhich
state regulations could survive only if theymet the requirement of  strict
scrutiny.  Whilewe disagree with that standard, it at least had arecognized
basis in constitutional law at the timeRoe was decided.  The same cannot be
said for the undue burden standard, which is created largelyout of whole
cloth by the authors of the jointopinion.  It is a standard which even today
doesnot command the support of a majority of thisCourt.  And it will not, we
believe, result in thesort of  simple limitation, easily applied, whichthe
joint opinion anticipates.  Ante, at 13.  In sum,it is a standard which is
not built to last.      In evaluating abortion regulations under
thatstandard, judges will have to decide whether theyplace a  substantial
obstacle in the path of awoman seeking an abortion.  Ante, at 34.  In
thatthis standard is based even more on a judge'ssubjective determinations
than was the trimesterframework, the standard will do nothing to prevent
judges from roaming at large in the constitu-tional field guided only by
their personal views. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S., at 502 (Harlan,J.,
concurring in judgment).  Because the undueburden standard is plucked from
nowhere, thequestion of what is a  substantial obstacle toabortion will
undoubtedly engender a variety ofconflicting views.  For example, in the very
matterbefore us now, the authors of the joint opinionwould uphold
Pennsylvania's 24-hour waitingperiod, concluding that a ``particular burden''
onsome women is not a substantial obstacle.  Ante,at 44.  But the authors
would at the same timestrike down Pennsylvania's spousal notice provi-sion,
after finding that in a  large fraction ofcases the provision will be a
substantial obsta-cle.  Ante, at 53.  And, while the authors concludethat the
informed consent provisions do notconstitute an  undue burden, Justice
Stevenswould hold that they do.  Ante, at 9-11.  Furthermore, while striking
down the spousalnotice regulation, the joint opinion would upholda parental
consent restriction that certainlyplaces very substantial obstacles in the
path ofa minor's abortion choice.  The joint opinion isforthright in
admitting that it draws this distinc-tion based on a policy judgment that
parents willhave the best interests of their children atheart, while the same
is not necessarily true ofhusbands as to their wives.  Ante, at 53.  This
mayor may not be a correct judgment, but it is quint-essentially a
legislative one.  The  undue burdeninquiry does not in any way supply the
distinctionbetween parental consent and spousal consentwhich the joint
opinion adopts.  Despite theefforts of the joint opinion, the undue
burdenstandard presents nothing more workable than thetrimester framework
which it discards today. Under the guise of the Constitution, this Courtwill
still impart its own preferences on theStates in the form of a complex
abortion code.  The sum of the joint opinion's labors in the nameof stare
decisis and  legitimacy is this: Roe v.Wade stands as a sort of judicial
Potemkin Village,which may be pointed out to passers by as amonument to the
importance of adhering to prece-dent.  But behind the facade, an entirely
newmethod of analysis, without any roots in consti-tutional law, is imported
to decide the constitu-tionality of state laws regulating abortion. Neither
stare decisis nor  legitimacy are trulyserved by such an effort.  We have
stated above our belief that the Con-stitution does not subject state
abortion regula-tions to heightened scrutiny.  Accordingly, wethink that the
correct analysis is that set forthby the plurality opinion in Webster.  A
woman'sinterest in having an abortion is a form of libertyprotected by the
Due Process Clause, but Statesmay regulate abortion procedures in ways
ratio-nally related to a legitimate state interest. Williamson v. Lee Optical
of Okla., Inc., 348 U. S.483, 491 (1955); cf. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.
S.645, 651-653 (1972).  With this rule in mind, weexamine each of the
challenged provisions.                      III                       A 
Section 3205 of the Act imposes certain re-quirements related to the informed
consent of awoman seeking an abortion.  18 Pa. Cons. Stat.3205 (1990). 
Section 3205(a)(1) requires that thereferring or performing physician must
inform awoman contemplating an abortion of (i) the natureof the procedure,
and the risks and alternativesthat a reasonable patient would find material;
(ii)the fetus' probable gestational age; and (iii) themedical risks involved
in carrying her pregnancyto term.  Section 3205(a)(2) requires a physicianor
a nonphysician counselor to inform the womanthat (i) the state health
department publishesfree materials describing the fetus at differentstages
and listing abortion alternatives; (ii)medical assistance benefits may be
available forprenatal, childbirth, and neonatal care; and (iii)the child's
father is liable for child support.  TheAct also imposes a 24-hour waiting
period betweenthe time that the woman receives the requiredinformation and
the time that the physician isallowed to perform the abortion.  See
Appendix,ante, at 61-63.  This Court has held that it is certainly withinthe
province of the States to require a woman'svoluntary and informed consent to
an abortion. See Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetri-cians and
Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 760.  Here,Pennsylvania seeks to further its
legitimateinterest in obtaining informed consent by ensur-ing that each woman 
is aware not only of thereasons for having an abortion, but also of therisks
associated with an abortion and the avail-ability of assistance that might
make the alterna-tive of normal childbirth more attractive than itmight
otherwise appear.  Id., at 798-799 (White,J., dissenting).  We conclude that
this provision of the statuteis rationally related to the State's interest
inassuring thata woman's consent to an abortion be a fully infor-meddecision.
Section 3205(a)(1) requires a physician to dis-close certain information
about the abortionprocedure and its risks and alternatives.  Thisrequirement
is certainly no large burden, as theCourt of Appeals found that  the record
showsthat the clinics, without exception, insist onproviding this information
to women before anabortion is performed.  947 F. 2d, at 703.  We areof the
view that this information  clearly isrelated to maternal health and to the
State'slegitimate purpose in requiring informed consent. Akron v. Akron
Center for Reproductive Health, 462U. S., at 446.  An accurate description of
thegestational age of the fetus and of the risksinvolved in carrying a child
to term helps tofurther both those interests and the State'slegitimate
interest in unborn human life.  See id.,at 445-446, n. 37 (required
disclosure of gesta-tional age of the fetus  certainly is not
objec-tionable).  Although petitioners contend that itis unreasonable for the
State to require that aphysician, as opposed to a nonphysician counsel-or,
disclose this information, we agree with theCourt of Appeals that a State 
may rationallydecide that physicians are better qualified thancounselors to
impart this information and answerquestions about the medical aspects of
theavailable alternatives.  947 F. 2d, at 704.  Section 3205(a)(2) compels
the disclosure, by aphysician or a counselor, of information concern-ing the
availability of paternal child support andstate-funded alternatives if the
woman decidesto proceed with her pregnancy.  Here again, theCourt of Appeals
observed that  the recordindicates that most clinics already require thata
counselor consult in person with the womanabout alternatives to abortion
before the abor-tion is performed.  Id., at 704-705.  And peti-tioners do not
claim that the information requiredto be disclosed by statute is in any way
false orinaccurate; indeed, the Court of Appeals found itto be  relevant,
accurate, and non-inflammatory. Id., at 705.  We conclude that this required
pre-sentation of  balanced information is rationallyrelated to the State's
legitimate interest inensuring that the woman's consent is truly in-formed,
Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetri-cians and Gynecologists, 476 U.
S., at 830 (O'Conn-or, J., dissenting), and in addition furthers theState's
interest in preserving unborn life.  Thatthe information might create some
uncertainty andpersuade some women to forgo abortions does notlead to the
conclusion that the Constitutionforbids the provision of such information. 
Indeed,it only demonstrates that this information mightvery well make a
difference, and that it is there-fore relevant to a woman's informed choice. 
Cf.id., at 801 (White, J., dissenting) ( [T]he ostensi-ble objective of Roe
v. Wade is not maximizing thenumber of abortions, but maximizing choice). 
Weacknowledge that in Thornburgh this Court struckdown informed consent
requirements similar to theones at issue here.  See id., at 760-764.  It
isclear, however, that while the detailed frameworkof Roe led to the Court's
invalidation of thoseinformational requirements, they  would have
beensustained under any traditional standard ofjudicial review, . . . or for
any other surgicalprocedure except abortion.  Webster v. Reproduc-tive Health
Services, 492 U. S., at 517 (pluralityopinion) (citing Thornburgh v. American
College ofObstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 802(White, J.,
dissenting); id., at 783 (Burger, C. J.,dissenting)).  In light of our
rejection of Roe's fundamental right approach to this subject, wedo not
regard Thornburgh as controlling.  For the same reason, we do not feel bound
tofollow this Court's previous holding that a Stat-e's 24-hour mandatory
waiting period is unconsti-tutional.  See Akron v. Akron Center for
Reproduc-tive Health, 462 U. S., at 449-451.  Petitioners arecorrect that
such a provision will result indelays for some women that might not
otherwiseexist, therefore placing a burden on their liberty. But the
provision in no way prohibits abortions,and the informed consent and waiting
periodrequirements do not apply in the case of a medicalemergency.  See 18
Pa. Cons. Stat. 3205(a), (b)(1990).  We are of the view that, in providing
timefor reflection and reconsideration, the waitingperiod helps ensure that
a woman's decision toabort is a well-considered one, and reasonablyfurthers
the State's legitimate interest inmaternal health and in the unborn life of
thefetus.  It  is surely a small cost to impose toensure that the woman's
decision is well consid-ered in light of its certain and
irreparableconsequences on fetal life, and the possibleeffects on her own. 
Id., at 474 (O'Connor, J.,dissenting).                       B  In addition
to providing her own informed con-sent, before an unemancipated woman under
theage of 18 may obtain an abortion she must eitherfurnish the consent of one
of her parents, or mustopt for the judicial procedure that allows her
tobypass the consent requirement.  Under thejudicial bypass option, a minor
can obtain anabortion if a state court finds that she is capa-ble of giving
her informed consent and has indeedgiven such consent, or determines that an
abor-tion is in her best interests.  Records of thesecourt proceedings are
kept confidential.  The Actdirects the state trial court to render a
decisionwithin three days of the woman's application, andthe entire
procedure, including appeal to Pennsyl-vania Superior Court, is to last no
longer thaneight business days.  The parental consent re-quirement does not
apply in the case of a medicalemergency.  18 Pa. Cons. Stat. 3206 (1990). 
SeeAppendix, ante, at 64-65.  This provision is entirely consistent with
thisCourt's previous decisions involving parentalconsent requirements.  See
Planned ParenthoodAssociation of Kansas City, Mo., Inc. v. Ashcroft,462 U. S.
476 (1983) (upholding parental consentrequirement with a similar judicial
bypass option);Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health,supra, at
439-440 (approving of parental consentstatutes that include a judicial bypass
optionallowing a pregnant minor to  demonstrate thatshe is sufficiently
mature to make the abortiondecision herself or that, despite her
immaturity,an abortion would be in her best interests);Bellotti v. Baird, 443
U. S. 622 (1979).  We think it beyond dispute that a State  has astrong and
legitimate interest in the welfare ofits young citizens, whose immaturity,
inexperi-ence, and lack of judgment may sometimes impairtheir ability to
exercise their rights wisely. Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U. S., at 444
(opinion ofStevens, J.).  A requirement of parental consentto abortion, like
myriad other restrictions placedupon minors in other contexts, is
reasonablydesigned to further this important and legitimatestate interest. 
In our view, it is entirely  ratio-nal and fair for the State to conclude
that, inmost instances, the family will strive to give alonely or even
terrified minor advice that is bothcompassionate and mature.  Ohio v. Akron
Centerfor Reproductive Health, 497 U. S., at 520 (opinionof Kennedy, J.); see
also Planned Parenthood ofCentral Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 91
(Stewart,J., concurring) ( There can be little doubt thatthe State furthers
a constitutionally permissibleend by encouraging an unmarried pregnant minor
toseek the help and advice of her parents in makingthe very important
decision whether or not tobear a child).  We thus conclude that
Pennsylvan-ia's parental consent requirement should beupheld.               
       C  Section 3209 of the Act contains the spousalnotification provision. 
It requires that, beforea physician may perform an abortion on a
marriedwoman, the woman must sign a statement indicatingthat she has notified
her husband of her plannedabortion.  A woman is not required to notify
herhusband if (1) her husband is not the father, (2) herhusband, after
diligent effort, cannot be located,(3) the pregnancy is the result of a
spousal sexualassault that has been reported to the authori-ties, or (4) the
woman has reason to believe thatnotifying her husband is likely to result in
theinfliction of bodily injury upon her by him or byanother individual.  In
addition, a woman is ex-empted from the notification requirement in thecase
of a medical emergency.  18 Pa. Cons. Stat.3209 (1990).  See Appendix, ante,
at 68-69.  We first emphasize that Pennsylvania has notimposed a spousal
consent requirement of the typethe Court struck down in Planned Parenthood
ofCentral Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 67-72. Missouri's spousal consent
provision was invali-dated in that case because of the Court's viewthat it
unconstitutionally granted to the husband a veto power exercisable for any
reason whatso-ever or for no reason at all.  Id., at 71.  But thiscase
involves a much less intrusive requirementof spousal notification, not
consent.  Such a lawrequiring only notice to the husband  does notgive any
third party the legal right to make the[woman's] decision for her, or to
prevent her fromobtaining an abortion should she choose to haveone performed. 
Hodgson v. Minnesota, supra, at496 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment in
partand dissenting in part); see H. L. v. Matheson, 450U. S., at 411, n. 17. 
Danforth thus does not controlour analysis.  Petitioners contend that it
should,however; they argue that the real effect of sucha notice requirement
is to give the power tohusbands to veto a woman's abortion choice. 
TheDistrict Court indeed found that the notificationprovision created a risk
that some woman whowould otherwise have an abortion will be pre-vented from
having one.  947 F. 2d, at 712.  Forexample, petitioners argue, many notified
hus-bands will prevent abortions through physicalforce, psychological
coercion, and other types ofthreats.  But Pennsylvania has
incorporatedexceptions in the notice provision in an attemptto deal with
these problems.  For instance, awoman need not notify her husband if the
pregnan-cy is result of a reported sexual assault, or ifshe has reason to
believe that she wouldsuffer bodily injury as a result of the notifica-tion. 
18 Pa. Cons. Stat. 3209(b) (1990).  Further-more, because this is a facial
challenge to theAct, it is insufficient for petitioners to showthat the
notification provision  might operateunconstitutionally under some
conceivable set ofcircumstances.  United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S.739, 745
(1987).  Thus, it is not enough for peti-tioners to show that, in some 
worst-casecircumstances, the notice provision will operateas a grant of veto
power to husbands.  Ohio v.Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U. S.,
at514.  Because they are making a facial challenge tothe provision, they must 
show that no set ofcircumstances exists under which the [provision]would be
valid.  Ibid. (internal quotation marksomitted).  This they have failed to
do.   The question before us is therefore whether thespousal notification
requirement rationallyfurthers any legitimate state interests.  Weconclude
that it does.  First, a husband's inter-ests in procreation within marriage
and in thepotential life of his unborn child are certainlysubstantial ones. 
See Planned Parenthood ofCentral Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 69 ( We
arenot unaware of the deep and proper concern andinterest that a devoted and
protective husbandhas in his wife's pregnancy and in the growth
anddevelopment of the fetus she is carrying); id., at93 (White, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting inpart); Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel.
Williamson, 316U. S., at 541.  The State itself has legitimateinterests both
in protecting these interests ofthe father and in protecting the potential
life ofthe fetus, and the spousal notification require-ment is reasonably
related to advancing thosestate interests.  By providing that a husband
willusually know of his spouse's intent to have anabortion, the provision
makes it more likely thatthe husband will participate in deciding the fateof
his unborn child, a possibility that mightotherwise have been denied him. 
This participa-tion might in some cases result in a decision toproceed with
the pregnancy.  As Judge Alitoobserved in his dissent below,  [t]he
Pennsylvanialegislature could have rationally believed thatsome married women
are initially inclined toobtain an abortion without their husbands'
knowl-edge because of perceived problems"such aseconomic constraints, future
plans, or the husba-nds' previously expressed opposition"that may beobviated
by discussion prior to the abortion. 947 F. 2d, at 726 (Alito, J., concurring
in part anddissenting in part).  The State also has a legitimate interest
inpromoting  the integrity of the marital relation-ship.  18 Pa. Cons. Stat.
3209(a) (1990).  ThisCourt has previously recognized  the importanceof the
marital relationship in our society. Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v.
Danforth,supra, at 69.  In our view, the spousal noticerequirement is a
rational attempt by the State toimprove truthful communication between
spousesand encourage collaborative decisionmaking, andthereby fosters marital
integrity.  See Labine v.Vincent, 401 U. S. 532, 538 (1971) ( [T]he power
tomake rules to establish, protect, and strengthenfamily life is committed to
the state legisla-tures).  Petitioners argue that the notificationrequirement
does not further any such interest;they assert that the majority of wives
alreadynotify their husbands of their abortion decisions,and the remainder
have excellent reasons forkeeping their decisions a secret.  In the
firstcase, they argue, the law is unnecessary, and inthe second case it will
only serve to fostermarital discord and threats of harm.  Thus, peti-tioners
see the law as a totally irrational meansof furthering whatever legitimate
interest theState might have.  But, in our view, it is unrealis-tic to assume
that every husband-wife relation-ship is either (1) so perfect that this type
oftruthful and important communication will takeplace as a matter of course,
or (2) so imperfectthat, upon notice, the husband will react selfish-ly,
violently, or contrary to the best interestsof his wife.  See Planned
Parenthood of Central Mo.v. Danforth, supra, at 103-104 (Stevens, J.,
con-curring in part and dissenting in part) (making asimilar point in the
context of a parental consentstatute).  The spousal notice provision will
admit-tedly be unnecessary in some circumstances, andpossibly harmful in
others, but  the existence ofparticular cases in which a feature of a
statuteperforms no function (or is even counterproduc-tive) ordinarily does
not render the statuteunconstitutional or even constitutionally sus-pect. 
Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetri-cians and Gynecologists, 476 U.
S., at 800 (White,J., dissenting).  The Pennsylvania Legislature wasin a
position to weigh the likely benefits of theprovi-sion against its likely
adverse effects, andpresumably concluded, on balance, that the provi-sion
would be beneficial.  Whether this was a wisedecision or not, we cannot say
that it was irra-tional.  We therefore conclude that the spousalnotice
provision comports with the Constitution. See Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S., at
325-326 ( It isnot the mission of this Court or any other todecide whether
the balance of competing interests. . . is wise social policy).             
         D  The Act also imposes various reporting require-ments.  Section
3214(a) requires that abortionfacilities file a report on each abortion
per-formed.  The reports do not include the identity ofthe women on whom
abortions are performed, butthey do contain a variety of information aboutthe
abortions.  For example, each report mustinclude the identities of the
performing andreferring physicians, the gestational age of thefetus at the
time of abortion, and the basis forany medical judgment that a medical
emergencyexisted.  See 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. 3214(a)(1), (5), (10)(1990).  See
Appendix, ante, at 69-71.  The DistrictCourt found that these reports are
kept com-pletely confidential.  947 F. 2d, at 716.  We furtherconclude that
these reporting requirementsrationally further the State's legitimate
inter-ests in advancing the state of medical knowledgeconcerning maternal
health and prenatal life, ingathering statistical information with respect
topatients, and in ensuring compliance with otherprovisions of the Act. 
Section 3207 of the Act requires each abortionfacility to file a report with
its name and ad-dress, as well as the names and addresses of anyparent,
subsidiary or affiliated organizations.  18Pa. Cons. Stat. 3207(b) (1990). 
Section 3214(f)further requires each facility to file quarterlyreports
stating the total number of abortionsperformed, broken down by trimester. 
Both ofthese reports are available to the public only ifthe facility received
state funds within thepreceding 12 months.  See Appendix, ante, at 65-66,71. 
Petitioners do not challenge the requirementthat facilities provide this
information.  Theycontend, however, that the forced public disclo-sure of the
information given by facilities re-ceiving public funds serves no legitimate
stateinterest.  We disagree.  Records relating to theexpenditure of public
funds are generally avail-able to the public under Pennsylvania law.  See
Pa.Stat. Ann., Tit. 65, 66.1, 66.2 (Purdon 1959 andSupp. 1991-1992).  As the
Court of Appeals ob-served,  [w]hen a state provides money to aprivate
commercial enterprise, there is a legiti-mate public interest in informing
taxpayers whothe funds are benefiting and what services thefunds are
supporting.  947 F. 2d, at 718.  Thesereporting requirements rationally
further thislegitimate state interest.                       E  Finally,
petitioners challenge the medicalemergency exception provided for by the Act. 
Theexistence of a medical emergency exempts compli-ance with the Act's
informed consent, parentalconsent, and spousal notice requirements.  See
18Pa. Cons. Stat. 3205(a), 3206(a), 3209(c) (1990). The Act defines a 
medical emergency as [t]hat condition which, on the basis of thephysician's
good faith clinical judgment, socomplicates the medical condition of a
preg-nant woman as to necessitate the immediateabortion of her pregnancy to
avert her deathor for which a delay will create serious riskof substantial
and irreversible impairment ofmajor bodily function.  3203.Petitioners argued
before the District Courtthat the statutory definition was inadequatebecause
it did not cover three serious conditionsthat pregnant women can
suffer"preeclampsia,inevitable abortion, and prematurely rupturedmembrane. 
The District Court agreed with peti-tioners that the medical emergency
exception wasinadequate, but the Court of Appeals reversedthis holding.  In
construing the medical emergencyprovision, the Court of Appeals first
observedthat all three conditions do indeed present therisk of serious injury
or death when an abortionis not performed, and noted that the
medicalprofession's uniformly prescribed treatment foreach of the three
conditions is an immediateabortion.  See 947 F. 2d, at 700-701.  Finding that
[t]he Pennsylvania legislature did not choosethe wording of its medical
emergency exception ina vacuum, the court read the exception as in-tended  to
assure that compliance with its abor-tion regulations would not in any way
pose asignificant threat to the life or health of awoman.  Id., at 701.  It
thus concluded that theexception encompassed each of the three danger-ous
conditions pointed to by petitioners.  We observe that Pennsylvania's present
defini-tion of medical emergency is almost an exact copyof that State's
definition at the time of thisCourt's ruling in Thornburgh, one which the
Courtmade reference to with apparent approval.  476U. S., at 771 ( It is
clear that the PennsylvaniaLegislature knows how to provide a
medical-emergency exception when it chooses to doso).  We find that the
interpretation of theCourt of Appeals in this case is eminently reason-able,
and that the provision thus should be up-held.  When a woman is faced with
any conditionthat poses a  significant threat to [her] life orhealth, she is
exempted from the Act's consentand notice requirements and may proceed
immedi-ately with her abortion.                      IV  For the reasons
stated, we therefore would holdthat each of the challenged provisions of
thePennsylvania statute is consistent with theConstitution.  It bears
emphasis that our conclu-sion in this regard does not carry with it
anynecessary approval of these regulations.  Ourtask is, as always, to decide
only whether thechallenged provisions of a law comport with theUnited States
Constitution.  If, as we believe,these do, their wisdom as a matter of public
policyis for the people of Pennsylvania to decide.Concur/dissent 4     
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATESÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ       Nos. 91-744 and 91-902     
        ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN       PENNSYLVANIA, et
al., PETITIONERS91-744                v.          ROBERT P. CASEY, et al.,
etc.         ROBERT P. CASEY, et al., etc.,                 
PETITIONERS91-902                v.       PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN 
            PENNSYLVANIA et al.  on writs of certiorari to the united
statescourt of         appeals for the third circuit                        
              [June 29, 1992]   Justice Scalia, with whom the Chief
Justice,Justice White, and Justice Thomas join, concur-ring in the judgment
in part and dissenting in part.  My views on this matter are unchanged
fromthose I set forth in my separate opinions inWebster v. Reproductive
Health Services, 492 U. S.490, 532 (1989) (Scalia, J., concurring in part
andconcurring in judgment), and Ohio v. Akron Centerfor Reproductive Health,
497 U. S. 502, 520 (1990)(Akron II) (Scalia, J., concurring).  The States
may,if they wish, permit abortion-on-demand, but theConstitution does not
require them to do so.  Thepermissibility of abortion, and the
limitationsupon it, are to be resolved like most importantquestions in our
democracy: by citizens trying topersuade one another and then voting.  As
theCourt acknowledges,  where reasonable peopledisagree the government can
adopt one position orthe other.  Ante, at 8.  The Court is correct inadding
the qualification that this  assumes a state of affairs in which thechoice
does not intrude upon a protected liber-ty, ante, at 9"but the crucial part
of thatqualification is the penultimate word.  A State'schoice between two
positions on which reasonablepeople can disagree is constitutional even
when(as is often the case) it intrudes upon a  libertyin the absolute sense. 
Laws against bigamy, forexample"which entire societies of reasonablepeople
disagree with"intrude upon men and women'sliberty to marry and live with one
another.  Butbigamy happens not to be a liberty specially protected by the
Constitution.  That is, quite simply, the issue in this case: notwhether the
power of a woman to abort her unbornchild is a  liberty in the absolute
sense; or evenwhether it is a liberty of great importance tomany women.  Of
course it is both.  The issue iswhether it is a liberty protected by the
Constitu-tion of the United States.  I am sure it is not.  Ireach that
conclusion not because of anything soexalted as my views concerning the 
concept ofexistence, of meaning, of the universe, and of themystery of human
life.  Ibid.  Rather, I reach itfor the same reason I reach the conclusion
thatbigamy is not constitutionally protected"becauseof two simple facts: (1)
the Constitution saysabsolutely nothing about it, and (2) the longstand-ing
traditions of American society have permittedit to be legally proscribed. 
Akron II, supra,at 520 (Scalia, J., concurring).  The Court destroys the
proposition, evidentlymeant to represent my position, that  libertyincludes 
only those practices, defined at themost specific level, that were protected
againstgovernment interference by other rules of lawwhen the Fourteenth
Amendment was ratified,ante, at 5 (citing Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.
S.110, 127, n. 6 (1989) (opinion of Scalia, J.).  That isnot, however, what
Michael H. says; it merelyobserves that, in defining  lib-erty, we may
notdisregard a specific,  relevant tradition pro-tecting, or denying
protection to, the assertedright, 491 U. S., at 127, n. 6.  But the Court
doesnot wish to be fettered by any such limitations onits preferences.  The
Court's statement that it is tempting to acknowledge the authoritativenessof
tradition in order to  cur[b] the discretion offederal judges, ante, at 5, is
of course rhetoricrather than reality; no government official is tempted to
place restraints upon his ownfreedom of action, which is why Lord Acton did
notsay  Power tends to purify.  The Court's tempta-tion is in the quite
opposite and more naturaldirection"towards systematically eliminatingchecks
upon its own power; and it succumbs.  Beyond that brief summary of the
essence of myposition, I will not swell the United States Re-ports with
repetition of what I have said before;and applying the rational basis test,
I woulduphold the Pennsylvania statute in its entirety. I must, however,
respond to a few of the moreoutrageous arguments in today's opinion, which
itis beyond human nature to leave unanswered.  Ishall discuss each of them
under a quotation fromthe Court's opinion to which they pertain.    The
inescapable fact is that adjudication ofsubstantive due process claims may
call upon theCourt in interpreting the Constitution to exer-cise that same
capacity which by tradition courtsalways have exercised: reasoned judgment. 
                                 Ante, at 7.  Assuming that the question
before us is to beresolved at such a level of philosophical abstrac-tion, in
such isolation from the traditions ofAmerican society, as by simply applying 
reasonedjudgment, I do not see how that could possiblyhave produced the
answer the Court arrived at inRoe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973).  Today's
opiniondescribes the methodology of Roe, quite accurate-ly, as weighing
against the woman's interest theState's  `important and legitimate interest
inprotecting the potentiality of human life.'  Ante,at 28-29 (quoting Roe,
supra, at 162).  But  rea-soned judgment does not begin by begging
thequestion, as Roe and subsequent cases unques-tionably did by assuming that
what the State isprotecting is the mere  potentiality of humanlife.  See,
e.g., Roe, supra, at 162; Planned Parent-hood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428
U. S. 52, 61(1976); Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U. S. 379, 386(1979); Akron v.
Akron Center for ReproductiveHealth, Inc., 462 U. S. 416, 428 (1983) (Akron
I);Planned Parenthood Assn. of Kansas City, Mo., Inc.v. Ashcroft, 462 U. S.
476, 482 (1983).  The wholeargument of abortion opponents is that what
theCourt calls the fetus and what others call theunborn child is a human
life.  Thus, whateveranswer Roe came up with after conducting its balancing
is bound to be wrong, unless it iscorrect that the human fetus is in some
criticalsense merely potentially human.  There is ofcourse no way to
determine that as a legal matter;it is in fact a value judgment.  Some
societieshave considered newborn children not yet human,or the incompetent
elderly no longer so.  The authors of the joint opinion, of course, donot
squarely contend that Roe v. Wade was acorrect application of  reasoned
judgment;merely that it must be followed, because of staredecisis.  Ante, at
11, 18-19, 29.  But in their ex-haustive discussion of all the factors that
gointo the determination of when stare decisisshould be observed and when
disregarded, theynever mention  how wrong was the decision on itsface? 
Surely, if  [t]he Court's power lies . . . inits legitimacy, a product of
substance and per-ception, ante, at 23, the  substance part of theequation
demands that plain error be acknowledgedand eliminated.  Roe was plainly
wrong"even on theCourt's methodology of  reasoned judgment, andeven more so
(of course) if the proper criteria oftext and tradition are applied.      The
emptiness of the  reasoned judgment thatproduced Roe is displayed in plain
view by the factthat, after more than 19 years of effort by someof the
brightest (and most determined) legal mindsin the country, after more than 10
cases upholdingabortion rights in this Court, and after dozensupon dozens of
amicus briefs submitted in this andother cases, the best the Court can do to
explainhow it is that the word  liberty must be thoughtto include the right
to destroy human fetuses isto rattle off a collection of adjectives
thatsimply decorate a value judgment and conceal apolitical choice.  The
right to abort, we are told,inheres in  liberty because it is among 
aperson's most basic decisions, ante, at 7; itinvolves a  most intimate and
personal choic[e],ante, at 9; it is  central to personal dignity andautonomy,
ibid.; it  originate[s] within the zoneof conscience and belief, ibid.; it is 
too inti-mate and personal for state interference, ante,at 10; it reflects 
intimate views of a  deep,personal character, ante, at 11; it involves
intimate relationships, and notions of  person-al autonomy and bodily
integrity, ante, at 15; andit concerns a particularly  `important
decisio[n],'ante, at 16 (citation omitted).  But it is obvi-ous to anyone
applying  reasoned judgment thatthe same adjectives can be applied to many
formsof conduct that this Court (including one of theJustices in today's
majority, see Bowers v. Hardw-ick, 478 U. S. 186 (1986)) has held are not
entitledto constitutional protection"because, like abor-tion, they are forms
of conduct that have longbeen criminalized in American society. 
Thoseadjectives might be applied, for example, tohomosexual sodomy, polygamy,
adult incest, andsuicide, all of which are equally  intimate and deep[ly]
personal decisions involving  personalautonomy and bodily integrity, and all
of whichcan constitutionally be proscribed because it isour unquestionable
constitutional tradition thatthey are proscribable.  It is not reasoned
judg-ment that supports the Court's decision; onlypersonal predilection. 
Justice Curtis's warning isas timely today as it was 135 years ago: [W]hen a
strict interpretation of the Consti-tution, according to the fixed rules
whichgovern the interpretation of laws, is aban-doned, and the theoretical
opinions of individ-uals are allowed to control its meaning, wehave no longer
a Constitution; we are underthe government of individual men, who for thetime
being have power to declare what theConstitution is, according to their own
viewsof what it ought to mean.  Dred Scott v. Sand-ford, 19 How. 393, 621
(1857) (Curtis, J., dis-senting). Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence
ofdoubt.                                   Ante, at 1.  One might have feared
to encounter this augustand sonorous phrase in an opinion defending thereal
Roe v. Wade, rather than the revised versionfabricated today by the authors
of the jointopinion.  The shortcomings of Roe did not includelack of clarity:
Virtually all regulation of abor-tion before the third trimester was invalid. 
Butto come across this phrase in the joint opin-ion"which calls upon federal
district judges toapply an  undue burden standard as doubtful inapplication
as it is unprincipled in origin"isreally more than one should have to bear. 
The joint opinion frankly concedes that theamorphous concept of  undue burden
has beeninconsistently applied by the Members of thisCourt in the few brief
years since that  testwas first explicitly propounded by Justice O'Con-nor in
her dissent in Akron I, supra.  See Ante,at 34.  Because the three Justices
now wishto  set forth a standard of general application,the joint opinion
announces that  it is importantto clarify what is meant by an undue burden,
ibid. I certainly agree with that, but I do not agreethat the joint opinion
succeeds in the announcedendeavor.  To the contrary, its efforts at
clari-fication make clear only that the standard isinherently manipulable and
will prove hopelesslyunworkable in practice.  The joint opinion explains that
a state regula-tion imposes an  undue burden if it  has thepurpose or effect
of placing a substantial obsta-cle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion
ofa nonviable fetus.  Ibid.; see also ante, at 35-36. An obstacle is 
substantial, we are told, if it is calculated[,] [not] to inform the woman's
freechoice, [but to] hinder it.  Ante, at 34.  Thislatter statement cannot
possibly mean what itsays.  Any regulation of abortion that is intendedto
advance what the joint opinion concedes is theState's  substantial interest
in protectingunborn life will be  calculated [to] hinder adecision to have an
abortion.  It thus seems moreaccurate to say that the joint opinion
woulduphold abortion regulations only if they do notunduly hinder the woman's
decision.  That, ofcourse, brings us right back to square one: Defin-ing an 
undue burden as an  undue hindrance (ora  substantial obstacle) hardly 
clarifies thetest.  Consciously or not, the joint opinion'sverbal shell game
will conceal raw judicial policychoices concerning what is  appropriate
abortionlegislation.  The ultimately standardless nature of the undue burden
inquiry is a reflection of theunderlying fact that the concept has no
principledor coherent legal basis.  As The Chief Justicepoints out, Roe's
strict-scrutiny standard  atleast had a recognized basis in constitutional
lawat the time Roe was decided, ante, at 22, while [t]he same cannot be said
for the `undue burden'standard, which is created largely out of wholecloth by
the authors of the joint opinion, ibid. The joint opinion is flatly wrong in
asserting that our jurisprudence relating to all liberties saveperhaps
abortion has recognized the permissibil-ity of laws that do not impose an 
undue burden.Ante, at 31.  It argues that the abortion right issimilar to
other rights in that a law  not designedto strike at the right itself, [but
which] has theincidental effect of making it more difficult ormore expensive
to [exercise the right,] is notinvalid.  Ante, at 31-32.  I agree, indeed I
haveforcefully urged, that a law of general applicabil-ity which places only
an incidental burden on afundamental right does not infringe that right,see
R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. ___, ___ (1992)(slip op., at 11); Employment
Division, Dept. of HumanResources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872,
878-882(1990), but that principle does not establish thequite different (and
quite dangerous) propositionthat a law which directly regulates a
fundamentalright will not be found to violate the Constitutionunless it
imposes an  undue burden.  It is that,of course, which is at issue here:
Pennsylvaniahas consciously and directly regulated conductthat our cases have
held is constitutionallyprotected.  The appropriate analogy, therefore,
isthat of a state law requiring purchasers ofreligious books to endure a
24-hour waitingperiod, or to pay a nominal additional tax of 1›. The joint
opinion cannot possibly be correct insuggesting that we would uphold such
legislationon the ground that it does not impose a  substan-tial obstacle to
the exercise of First Amendmentrights.  The  undue burden standard is not at
allthe generally applicable principle the jointopinion pretends it to be;
rather, it is a uniqueconcept created specially for this case, topreserve
some judicial foothold in this ill-gottenterritory.  In claiming otherwise,
the threeJustices show their willingness to place allconstitutional rights at
risk in an effort topreserve what they deem the  central holding inRoe, ante,
at 31.    The rootless nature of the  undue burdenstandard, a phrase plucked
out of context fromour earlier abortion decisions, see n. 3, supra, isfurther
reflected in the fact that the jointopinion finds it necessary expressly to
repudiatethe more narrow formulations used in JusticeO'Connor's earlier
opinions.  Ante, at 35.  Thoseopinions stated that a statute imposes an 
undueburden if it imposes  absolute obstacles orsevere limitations on the
abortion decision,Akron I, 462 U. S., at 464 (O'Connor, J.,
dissenting)(emphasis added); see also Thornburgh v. AmericanCollege of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476U. S. 747, 828 (1986) (O'Connor, J.,
dissenting). Those strong adjectives are conspicuouslymissing from the joint
opinion, whose authors havefor some unexplained reason now determined thata
burden is  undue if it merely imposes a  sub-stantial obstacle to abortion
decisions.  See,e.g., ante, at 53, 59.  Justice O'Connor has alsoabandoned
(again without explanation) the view sheexpressed in Planned Parenthood Assn.
of KansasCity, Mo., Inc. v. Ashcroft, 462 U. S. 476 (1983)(dissenting
opinion), that a medical regulationwhich imposes an  undue burden could
neverthe-less be upheld if it  reasonably relate[s] to thepreservation and
protection of maternal health,id., at 505 (citation and internal quotation
marksomitted).  In today's version, even health mea-sures will be upheld only 
if they do not consti-tute an undue burden, ante, at 35 (emphasis added).
Gone too is Justice O'Connor's statement that the State possesses compelling
interests in theprotection of potential human life . . . throughoutpregnancy,
Akron I, supra, at 461 (emphasisadded); see also Ashcroft, supra, at 505
(O'Connor,J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting inpart);
Thornburgh, supra, at 828 (O'Connor, J.,dissenting); instead, the State's
interest inunborn human life is stealthily downgraded to amerely  substantial
or  profound interest,ante, at 34, 36.  (That had to be done, of course,since
designating the interest as  compellingthroughout pregnancy would have been,
shall wesay, a  substantial obstacle to the joint opinio-n's determined
effort to reaffirm what it views asthe  central holding of Roe.  See Akron I,
462U. S., at 420, n. 1.)  And  viability is no longer the arbitrary dividing
line previously decried byJustice O'Connor in Akron I, id., at 461; the
Courtnow announces that  the attainment of viabilitymay continue to serve as
the critical fact, ante,at 18.  It is difficult to maintain the illusionthat
we are interpreting a Constitution ratherthan inventing one, when we amend
its provisionsso breezily.       Because the portion of the joint opinion
adopt-ing and describing the undue-burden test providesno more useful
guidance than the empty phrasesdiscussed above, one must turn to the 23
pagesapplying that standard to the present facts forfurther guidance.  In
evaluating Pennsylvania'sabortion law, the joint opinion relies extensivelyon
the factual findings of the District Court, andrepeatedly qualifies its
conclusions by notingthat they are contingent upon the record devel-oped in
this case.  Thus, the joint opinion woulduphold the 24-hour waiting period
contained in thePennsylvania statute's informed consent provi-sion, 18 Pa.
Cons. Stat. 3205 (1990), because  therecord evidence shows that in the vast
majorityof cases, a 24-hour delay does not create anyappreciable health risk,
ante, at 43.  The threeJustices therefore conclude that  on the recordbefore
us, . . . we are not convinced that the24-hour waiting period constitutes an
undueburden.  Ante, at 44-45.  The requirement that adoctor provide the
information pertinent toinformed consent would also be upheld because there
is no evidence on this record that [thisrequirement] would amount in
practical terms to asubstantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abor-tion,
ante, at 42.  Similarly, the joint opinionwould uphold the reporting
requirements of theAct, 3207, 3214, because  there is no . . .showing on the
record before us that theserequirements constitute a  substantial obstacleto
abortion decisions.  Ante, at 59.  But at thesame time the opinion pointedly
observes thatthese reporting requirements may increase thecosts of abortions
and that  at some point [thatfact] could become a substantial obstacle, ibid.
Most significantly, the joint opinion's conclusionthat the spousal notice
requirement of the Act,see 3209, imposes an  undue burden is based inlarge
measure on the District Court's  detailedfindings of fact, which the joint
opinion sets outat great length.  Ante, at 45-49.    I do not, of course,
have any objection to thenotion that, in applying legal principles, oneshould
rely only upon the facts that are con-tained in the record or that are
properly subjectto judicial notice.  But what is remarkableabout the joint
opinion's fact-intensive analysisis that it does not result in any
measurableclarification of the  undue burden standard. Rather, the approach
of the joint opinion is, forthe most part, simply to highlight certain facts
inthe record that apparently strike the threeJustices as particularly
significant in establish-ing (or refuting) the existence of an undue
burden;after describing these facts, the opinion thensimply announces that
the provision either doesor does not impose a  substantial obstacle or an
undue burden.  See, e.g., ante, at 38, 42, 44-45,45, 52, 53, 59.  We do not
know whether the sameconclusions could have been reached on a differ-ent
record, or in what respects the record wouldhave had to differ before an
opposite conclusionwould have been appropriate.  The inherentlystandardless
nature of this inquiry invites thedistrict judge to give effect to his
personalpreferences about abortion.  By finding andrelying upon the right
facts, he can invalidate, itwould seem, almost any abortion restriction
thatstrikes him as  undue"subject, of course, to thepossibility of being
reversed by a Circuit Courtor Supreme Court that is as unconstrained
inreviewing his decision as he was in making it.  To the extent I can discern
any meaningfulcontent in the  undue burden standard as appliedin the joint
opinion, it appears to be that a Statemay not regulate abortion in such a way
as toreduce significantly its incidence.  The jointopinion repeatedly
emphasizes that an importantfactor in the  undue burden analysis is
whetherthe regulation  prevent[s] a significant number ofwomen from obtaining
an abortion, ante, at 52;whether a  significant number of women . . .
arelikely to be deterred from procuring an abortion,ibid.; and whether the
regulation often  deterswomen from seeking abortions, ante, at 55-56.  Weare
not told, however, what forms of  deterrenceare impermissible or what degree
of success indeterrence is too much to be tolerated.  If, forexample, a State
required a woman to read apamphlet describing, with illustrations, the
factsof fetal development before she could obtain anabortion, the effect of
such legislation might beto  deter a  significant number of women
fromprocuring abortions, thereby seemingly allowing adistrict judge to
invalidate it as an undue burden. Thus, despite flowery rhetoric about the
State's substantial and  profound interest in  poten-tial human life, and
criticism of Roe for under-valuing that interest, the joint opinion
permitsthe State to pursue that interest only so long asit is not too
successful.  As Justice Blackmunrecognizes (with evident hope), ante, at 5,
the undue burden standard may ultimately requirethe invalidation of each
provision upheld today ifit can be shown, on a better record, that theState
is too effectively  express[ing] a prefer-ence for childbirth over abortion,
ante, at 41. Reason finds no refuge in this jurisprudence ofconfusion.   
While we appreciate the weight of the argu-ments . . . that Roe should be
overruled, thereservations any of us may have in reaffirmingthe central
holding of Roe are outweighed by theexplication of individual liberty we have
givencombined with the force of stare decisis.                              
   Ante, at 11.  The Court's reliance upon stare decisis can bestbe described
as contrived.  It insists upon thenecessity of adhering not to all of Roe,
but onlyto what it calls the  central holding.  It seemsto me that stare
decisis ought to be applied evento the doctrine of stare decisis, and I
confessnever to have heard of this new,
keep-what-you-want-and-throw-away-the-rest version.  I wonderwhether, as
applied to Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch137 (1803), for example, the new
version of staredecisis would be satisfied if we allowed courts toreview the
constitutionality of only those stat-utes that (like the one in Marbury)
pertain to thejurisdiction of the courts.  I am certainly not in a good
position to disputethat the Court has saved the  central holding ofRoe, since
to do that effectively I would have toknow what the Court has saved, which in
turn wouldrequire me to understand (as I do not) what the undue burden test
means.  I must confess,however, that I have always thought, and I think alot
of other people have always thought, that thearbitrary trimester framework,
which the Courttoday discards, was quite as central to Roe as thearbitrary
viability test, which the Court todayretains.  It seems particularly
ungrateful tocarve the trimester framework out of the core ofRoe, since its
very rigidity (in sharp contrast tothe utter indeterminability of the  undue
burdentest) is probably the only reason the Court isable to say, in urging
stare decisis, that Roe  hasin no sense proven `unworkable,' ante, at 13. 
Isuppose the Court is entitled to call a  cen-tralholding whatever it wants
to call a  centralholding"which is, come to think of it, perhaps oneof the
difficulties with this modified version ofstare decisis.  I thought I might
note, however,that the following portions of Roe have not beensaved:  ùUnder
Roe, requiring that a woman seeking anabortion be provided truthful
information aboutabortion before giving informed written consentis
unconstitutional, if the information is designedto influence her choice,
Thornburgh, 476 U. S., at759-765; Akron I, 462 U. S., at 442-445.  Under
thejoint opinion's  undue burden regime (as appliedtoday, at least) such a
requirement is constitu-tional, ante, at 38-42.  ùUnder Roe, requiring that
information beprovided by a doctor, rather than by nonphysiciancounselors, is
unconstitutional, Akron I, supra, at446-449.  Under the  undue burden regime
(asapplied today, at least) it is not, ante, at 42.  ùUnder Roe, requiring a
24-hour waiting periodbetween the time the woman gives her informedconsent
and the time of the abortion is unconsti-tutional, Akron I, supra, at
449-451.  Under the undue burden regime (as applied today, at least)it is
not, ante, at 43-45.  ùUnder Roe, requiring detailed reports thatinclude
demographic data about each woman whoseeks an abortion and various
information abouteach abortion is unconstitutional, Thornburgh,supra, at
765-768.  Under the  undue burdenregime (as applied today, at least) it
generally isnot, ante, at 58-59.    Where, in the performance of its
judicialduties, the Court decides a case in such a way asto resolve the sort
of intensely divisive contro-versy reflected in Roe . . . , its decision has
adimension that the resolution of the normal casedoes not carry.  It is the
dimension presentwhenever the Court's interpretation of theConstitution calls
the contending sides of anational controversy to end their national divi-sion
by accepting a common mandate rooted in theConstitution.                    
             Ante, at 24.  The Court's description of the place of Roe inthe
social history of the United States is unrec-ognizable.  Not only did Roe
not, as the Courtsuggests, resolve the deeply divisive issue ofabortion; it
did more than anything else to nour-ish it, by elevating it to the national
level whereit is infinitely more difficult to resolve.  Nation-al politics
were not plagued by abortion protests,national abortion lobbying, or abortion
marches onCongress, before Roe v. Wade was decided.  Pro-found disagreement
existed among our citizensover the issue"as it does over other issues, suchas
the death penalty"but that disagreement wasbeing worked out at the state
level.  As with manyother issues, the division of sentiment withineach State
was not as closely balanced as it wasamong the population of the Nation as a
whole,meaning not only that more people would be satis-fied with the results
of state-by-state resolu-tion, but also that those results would be
morestable.  Pre-Roe, moreover, political compromisewas possible.  Roe's
mandate for abortion-on-demand destroyedthe compromises of the past, rendered
compromiseimpossible for the future, and required the entireissue to be
resolved uniformly, at the nationallevel.  At the same time, Roe created a
vast newclass of abortion consumers and abortion propo-nents by eliminating
the moral opprobrium that hadattached to the act.  ( If the Constitution
guaran-tees abor-tion, how can it be bad?"not an accu-rate line of thought,
but a natural one.)  Manyfavor all of those developments, and it is not forme
to say that they are wrong.  But to portray Roeas the statesmanlike 
settlement of a divisiveissue, a jurisprudential Peace of Westphalia thatis
worth preserving, is nothing less than Orwell-ian.  Roe fanned into life an
issue that has in-flamed our national politics in general, and hasobscured
with its smoke the selection of Justicesto this Court in particular, ever
since.  And bykeeping us in the abortion-umpiring business, it isthe
perpetuation of that disruption, rather thanof any pax Roeana, that the
Court's new majoritydecrees.    [T]o overrule under fire . . . would subvert
theCourt's legitimacy . . . .   To all those who will be . . . tested by
following,the Court implicitly undertakes to remain stead-fast . . . .  The
promise of constancy, once given,binds its maker for as long as the power to
standby the decision survives and . . . the commitment[is not] obsolete. . .
.   [The American people's] belief in themselves as. . . a people [who aspire
to live according to therule of law] is not readily separable from
theirunderstanding of the Court invested with theauthority to decide their
constitutional casesand speak before all others for their constitu-tional
ideals.  If the Court's legitimacy should beundermined, then, so would the
country be in itsvery ability to see itself through its constitu-tional
ideals.                               Ante, at 25-26.  The Imperial Judiciary
lives.  It is instructiveto compare this Nietzschean vision of us unelect-ed,
life-tenured judges"leading a Volk who will be tested by following, and whose
very  belief inthemselves is mystically bound up in their understanding of a
Court that  speak[s] beforeall others for their constitutional ideals"withthe
somewhat more modest role envisioned forthese lawyers by the Founders. The
judiciary . . . has . . . no direction eitherof the strength or of the wealth
of the soci-ety, and can take no active resolution what-ever.  It may truly
be said to have neitherForce nor Will but merely judgment . . . . 
TheFederalist No. 78, pp. 393-394 (G. Wills ed.1982).Or, again, to compare
this ecstasy of a SupremeCourt in which there is, especially on
controver-sial matters, no shadow of change or hint ofalteration ( There is
a limit to the amount oferror that can plausibly be imputed to priorcourts,
ante, at 24), with the more democraticviews of a more humble man: [T]he
candid citizen must confess that if thepolicy of the Government upon vital
questionsaffecting the whole people is to be irrevoca-bly fixed by decisions
of the Supreme Court,. . . the people will have ceased to be their ownrulers,
having to that extent practicallyresigned their Government into the hands
ofthat eminent tribunal.  A. Lincoln, FirstInaugural Address (Mar. 4, 1861),
reprinted inInaugural Addresses of the Presidents of theUnited States, S.
Doc. No. 101-10, p. 139 (1989).It is particularly difficult, in the
circumstancesof the present decision, to sit still for theCourt's lengthy
lecture upon the virtues of constancy, ante, at 26, of  remain[ing]
stead-fast, id., at 25, of adhering to  principle, id.,passim.  Among the
five Justices who purportedlyadhere to Roe, at most three agree upon
theprinciple that constitutes adherence (the jointopinion's  undue burden
standard)"and thatprinciple is inconsistent with Roe, see 410 U. S.,
at154-156.  To make matters worse, two of thethree, in order thus to remain
steadfast, had toabandon previously stated positions.  See n. 4supra; see
supra, at 11-12.  It is beyond me how theCourt expects these accommodations
to be ac-cepted  as grounded truly in principle, not ascompromises with
social and political pressureshaving, as such, no bearing on the
principledchoices that the Court is obliged to make.  Ante,at 23.  The only
principle the Court  adheres to,it seems to me, is the principle that the
Courtmust be seen as standing by Roe.  That is not aprinciple of law (which
is what I thought the Courtwas talking about), but a principle of
Realpoli-tik"and a wrong one at that.  I cannot agree with, indeed I am
appalled by, theCourt's suggestion that the decision whether tostand by an
erroneous constitutional decisionmust be strongly influenced"against
overruling,no less"by the substantial and continuing publicopposition the
decision has generated.  TheCourt's judgment that any other course would
subvert the Court's legitimacy must be anotherconsequence of reading the
error-filled historybook that described the deeply divided countrybrought
together by Roe.  In my history-book, theCourt was covered with dishonor and
deprived oflegitimacy by Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393(1857), an
erroneous (and widely opposed) opinionthat it did not abandon, rather than by
West CoastHotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379 (1937), whichproduced the
famous  switch in time from theCourt's erroneous (and widely opposed)
constitu-tional opposition to the social measures of theNew Deal.  (Both Dred
Scott and one line of thecases resisting the New Deal rested upon theconcept
of  substantive due process that theCourt praises and employs today.  Indeed,
DredScott was  very possibly the first application ofsubstantive due process
in the Supreme Court,the original precedent for Lochner v. New York andRoe v.
Wade.  D. Currie, The Constitution in theSupreme Court 271 (1985) (footnotes
omitted).)  But whether it would  subvert the Court'slegitimacy or not, the
notion that we woulddecide a case differently from the way we other-wise
would have in order to show that we can standfirm against public disapproval
is frightening.  Itis a bad enough idea, even in the head of someonelike me,
who believes that the text of the Consti-tution, and our traditions, say what
they say andthere is no fiddling with them.  But when it is inthe mind of a
Court that believes the Constitutionhas an evolving meaning, see ante, at 6;
that theNinth Amendment's reference to  othe[r] rightsis not a disclaimer,
but a charter for action,ibid.; and that the function of this Court is to
speak before all others for [the people's] con-stitutional ideals
unrestrained by meaningfultext or tradition"then the notion that the
Courtmust adhere to a decision for as long as thedecision faces  great
opposition and the Courtis  under fire acquires a character of almostczarist
arrogance.  We are offended by thesemarchers who descend upon us, every year
on theanniversary of Roe, to protest our saying thatthe Constitution requires
what our society hasnever thought the Constitution requires.  Thesepeople who
refuse to be  tested by followingmust be taught a lesson.  We have no
Cossacks, butat least we can stubbornly refuse to abandon anerroneous opinion
that we might otherwisechange"to show how little they intimidate us.    Of
course, as the Chief Justice points out, wehave been subjected to what the
Court calls political pressure by both sides of this issue. Ante, at 21. 
Maybe today's decision not to over-rule Roe will be seen as buckling to
pressure fromthat direction.  Instead of engaging in the hope-less task of
predicting public perception"a jobnot for lawyers but for political campaign
manag-ers"the Justices should do what is legally rightby asking two
questions: (1) Was Roe correctlydecided?  (2) Has Roe succeeded in producing
asettled body of law?  If the answer to both ques-tions is no, Roe should
undoubtedly be overruled.  In truth, I am as distressed as the Court
is"andexpressed my distress several years ago, seeWebster, 492 U. S., at
535"about the  politicalpressure directed to the Court: the marches, themail,
the protests aimed at inducing us to changeour opinions.  How upsetting it
is, that so many ofour citizens (good people, not lawless ones, onboth sides
of this abortion issue, and on varioussides of other issues as well) think
that weJustices should properly take into account theirviews, as though we
were engaged not in ascer-taining an objective law but in determining
somekind of social consensus.  The Court would profit,I think, from giving
less attention to the fact ofthis distressing phenomenon, and more
attentionto the cause of it.  That cause permeates today'sopinion: a new mode
of constitutional adjudicationthat relies not upon text and traditional
practiceto determine the law, but upon what the Courtcalls  reasoned
judgment, ante, at 7, which turnsout to be nothing but philosophical
predilectionand moral intuition.  All manner of  liberties, theCourt tells
us, inhere in the Constitution and areenforceable by this Court"not just
those men-tioned in the text or established in the traditionsof our society. 
Ante, at 5-6.  Why even the NinthAmendment"which says only that  [t]he
enumera-tion in the Constitution of certain rights shallnot be construed to
deny or disparage othersretained by the people"is, despite our
contraryunderstanding for almost 200 years, a literallyboundless source of
additional, unnamed, unhint-ed-at  rights, definable and enforceable by
us,through  reasoned judgment.  Ante, at 6-7.    What makes all this relevant
to the bothersomeapplication of  political pressure against theCourt are the
twin facts that the American peoplelove democracy and the American people are
notfools.  As long as this Court thought (and thepeople thought) that we
Justices were doingessentially lawyers' work up here"reading textand
discerning our society's traditional under-standing of that text"the public
pretty much leftus alone.  Texts and traditions are facts tostudy, not
convictions to demonstrate about.  Butif in reality our process of
constitutional adju-dication consists primarily of making value judg-ments;
if we can ignore a long and clear traditionclarifying an ambiguous text, as
we did, forexample, five days ago in declaring unconstitu-tional invocations
and benedictions at public-high-school graduation ceremonies, Lee v.
Weisman,505 U. S. ___ (1992); if, as I say, our pronounce-ment of
constitutional law rests primarily onvalue judgments, then a free and
intelligentpeople's attitude towards us can be expected tobe (ought to be)
quite different.  The people knowthat their value judgments are quite as good
asthose taught in any law school"maybe better.  If,indeed, the  liberties
protected by the Consti-tution are, as the Court says, undefined
andunbounded, then the people should demonstrate, toprotest that we do not
implement their valuesinstead of ours.  Not only that, but
confirmationhearings for new Justices should deteriorate
intoquestion-and-answer sessions in which Senatorsgo through a list of their
constituents' mostfavored and most disfavored alleged constitu-tional rights,
and seek the nominee's commitmentto support or oppose them.  Value
judgments,after all, should be voted on, not dictated; and ifour Constitution
has somehow accidently commit-ted them to the Supreme Court, at least we
canhave a sort of plebiscite each time a new nomineeto that body is put
forward.  Justice Blackmun not only regards this prospect with equanimity,
hesolicits it, ante, at 22-23.                   *     *     *  There is a
poignant aspect to today's opinion. Its length, and what might be called its
epic tone,suggest that its authors believe they are bring-ing to an end a
troublesome era in the history ofour Nation and of our Court.   It is the
dimensionof authority, they say, to  cal[l] the contendingsides of national
controversy to end their na-tional division by accepting a common
mandaterooted in the Constitution.  Ante, at 24.  There comes vividly to mind
a portrait by Eman-uel Leutze that hangs in the Harvard Law School:Roger
Brooke Taney, painted in 1859, the 82d yearof his life, the 24th of his Chief
Justiceship, thesecond after his opinion in Dred Scott.  He is all inblack,
sitting in a shadowed red armchair, lefthand resting upon a pad of paper in
his lap, righthand hanging limply, almost lifelessly, beside theinner arm of
the chair.  He sits facing the viewer,and staring straight out.  There seems
to be onhis face, and in his deep-set eyes, an expressionof profound sadness
and disillusionment.  Perhapshe always looked that way, even when dwelling
uponthe happiest of thoughts.  But those of us whoknow how the lustre of his
great Chief Justiceshipcame to be eclipsed by Dred Scott cannot helpbelieving
that he had that case"its alreadyapparent consequences for the Court, and
itssoon-to-be-played-out consequences for theNation"burning on his mind.  I
expect that twoyears earlier he, too, had thought himself call[ing] the
contending sides of national con-troversy to end their national division by
ac-cepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitu-tion.  It is no more
realistic for us in this case, thanit was for him in that, to think that an
issue ofthe sort they both involved"an issue involvinglife and death, freedom
and subjugation"can be speedily and finally settled by the SupremeCourt, as
President James Buchanan in his inaugu-ral address said the issue of slavery
in theterritories would be.  See Inaugural Addresses ofthe Presidents of the
United States, S. Doc. No.101-10, p. 126 (1989).  Quite to the contrary,
byforeclosing all democratic outlet for the deeppassions this issue arouses,
by banishing theissue from the political forum that gives allparticipants,
even the losers, the satisfaction ofa fair hearing and an honest fight, by
continuingthe imposition of a rigid national rule instead ofallowing for
regional differences, the Courtmerely prolongs and intensifies the anguish. 
We should get out of this area, where we have noright to be, and where we do
neither ourselves northe country any good by remaining.