Page:Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.pdf/157

10 important in this web of precedents protecting an individual's most "personal choices" were those guaranteeing the right to contraception. Ibid.; see id., at 852–853. In those cases, the Court had recognized "the right of the individual" to make the vastly consequential "decision whether to bear" a child. Id., at 851 (emphasis deleted). So too, Casey reasoned, the liberty clause protects the decision of a woman confronting an unplanned pregnancy. Her decision about abortion was central, in the same way, to her capacity to chart her life's course. See id., at 853.

In reaffirming the right Roe recognized, the Court took full account of the diversity of views on abortion, and the importance of various competing state interests. Some Americans, the Court stated, "deem [abortion] nothing short of an act of violence against innocent human life." 505 U. S., at 852. And each State has an interest in "the protection of potential life"—as Roe itself had recognized. 505 U. S., at 871 (plurality opinion). On the one hand, that interest was not conclusive. The State could not "resolve" the "moral and spiritual" questions raised by abortion in "such a definitive way that a woman lacks all choice in the matter." Id., at 850 (majority opinion). It could not force her to bear the "pain" and "physical constraints" of "carr[ying] a child to full term" when she would have chosen an early abortion. Id., at 852. But on the other hand, the State had, as Roe had held, an exceptionally significant interest in disallowing abortions in the later phase of a pregnancy. And it had an ever-present interest in "ensur[ing] that the woman"s choice is informed" and in presenting the case for "choos[ing] childbirth over abortion." 505 U. S., at 878 (plurality opinion).

So Casey again struck a balance, differing from Roe ' s in only incremental ways. It retained Roe ' s "central holding" that the State could bar abortion only after viability. 505 U. S., at 860 (majority opinion). The viability line, Casey thought, was "more workable" than any other in marking