guarantee of liberty. the court has interpr eted that liberty to include the ability to make decisions related to childbearing, marriage and family. women have an equal right to liberty under the constitution, and if they aren t able to make this decision, if states can take control of women s bodies and force them to endure months of pregnancy and childbirth then they will never have equal status under the constitution. and i want to ask a question about stare decisis and to think about how to approach that here because there have been lots of questions picking up on justice barrett s questions and others. history helps think about stare decisis as i ve looked at it. and the history of how the courts applied stare decisis. when you dig into it history tells a somewhat different story than is sometimes assumed. think about some of the most important cases, the most than
constitutional contexts like the fourth and fifth amendment. the viability line makes sense because it focuses on the fetus s ability to survive separately. an appropriate legal line and doesn t delve into philosophical questions about when life begins. thank you, counsel. general. mr. chief justice and may it please the court. for a half century this court has correctly recognized the constitution protects a woman s right to decide whether to end a pregnancy before viability. that guarantee the state cannot force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth has societal reliance. the real world effects of overrule roe and casey would be
into this world is not part of their protected liberty. i think that would come at tremendous cost to the reliance women have placed on this right and on societal reliance and what it meant. that is a good point and it may be my fault. i m talking about pages 854 to 863 in the casey case and i have already used up too much time. i can t read those pages out loud but they do not include the list that justice kavanaugh had. they do include two. one is brown and the second one is west coast hotel versus parish and you could add the gay rights cases as a third which would fit the criteria. there are complex criteria that she is talking about that link to the position in the rule of law of this court. so all i would say is you have to read them before beginning
reliance on a very wrong understanding of what equal protection. i still don t have your answer clearly. can a decision be overruled simply because it was erroneously wrong even if nothing has changed between the time of that decision and the time when the court is called upon to consider whether it should be overruled, yes or no, can you give me a yes or no answer on that. this court no has never overruled in that situation just based ton conclusion the decision was wrong. it always applied stare decisis and they warrant overruling. casey applied the stare decisis factors. if stare decisis is to mean anything it has to mean that kind of extensive consideration of all of the same arguments for whether to retain or discard a precedent itself is an additional layer of precedent that needs to be relied on and conform a stable foundation of the rule of law. you ve talked a number of times about the reliance interests here and i would like
0 decisis analysis and i want to give you an opportunity to respond. the undue burden test is not at issue. that applies to regulations, not prohibitions. the state has conceded this is a prohibition. thats the title of this law is an act to prohibit abortion after 15 weeks and the only thing that is at issue in this case is the viability line. the viability line has been workable. the lower federal courts have applied it uniformly for 50 years, the fifth circuit had no difficulty striking down this law unanimously 3-0. it has been an exceedingly workable standard. if i may return to your question, a reasonable possibility standard would not be workable. it would boil down to an argument that states can prohibit a category of women from exercising their constitutional right merely because of the number of people in the category and that is not how constitutional rights work. a state would never say it could ban religious services on a wednesday evening for example because most people