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6 of contraceptives to unmarried persons). Statutory classifications implicating certain “nonfundamental” rights, meanwhile, receive only cursory review. See, e.g., Armour v. Indianapolis, 566 U. S. 673, 680 (2012). Similarly, this Court deems unconstitutionally “vague” or “overbroad” those laws that impinge on its preferred rights, while letting slide those laws that implicate supposedly lesser values. See, e.g., Johnson, 576 U. S., at 618–621 (opinion of ); United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 590 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2020) (, concurring) (slip op., at 3–5). “In fact, our vagueness doctrine served as the basis for the first draft of the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade,” and it since has been “deployed … to nullify even mild regulations of the abortion industry.” Johnson, 576 U. S., at 620–621 (opinion of ). Therefore, regardless of the doctrinal context, the Court often “demand[s] extra justifications for encroachments” on “preferred rights” while “relax[ing] purportedly higher standards of review for less-preferred rights.” Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 579 U. S. 582, 640–642 (2016) (, dissenting). Substantive due process is the core inspiration for many of the Court’s constitutionally unmoored policy judgments.

Third, substantive due process is often wielded to “disastrous ends.” Gamble, 587 U. S., at ___ (, concurring) (slip op., at 16). For instance, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857), the Court invoked a species of substantive due process to announce that Congress was powerless to emancipate slaves brought into the federal territories. See id., at 452. While Dred Scott “was overruled on the battlefields of the Civil War and by constitutional amendment after Appomattox,” Obergefell, 576 U. S., at 696 (, dissenting), that overruling was “[p]urchased at the price of immeasurable human suffering,” Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S. 200, 240 (1995) (, concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Now today, the Court rightly overrules Roe and