Page:Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization - Court opinion draft, February 2022.pdf/39

Rh American constitutional law as we know it would be unrecognizable, and this would be a different country.

No Justice of this Court has ever argued that the Court should never overrule a constitutional decision, but overruling a precedent is a serious matter. It is not a step that should be taken lightly. Our cases have attempted to provide a framework for deciding when a precedent should be overruled, and they have identified factors that should be considered in making such a decision. Janus v. State, County, and Municipal Employees, 585 U. S. __, __ (2018) (slip op., at 34–35); Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U. S. ___ (2020) (, J., concurring in part) (slip op., at 7-9).

In this case, five factors weigh strongly in favor of overruling Roe and Casey: the nature of their error, the quality of their reasoning, the "workability" of the rules they imposed on the country, their disruptive effect on other areas of the law, and the absence of concrete reliance.

The nature of the Court's error. An erroneous interpretation of the Constitution is always important, but some are more damaging than others.

The infamous decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, supra, was one such decision. It betrayed our commitment to "equality