Portion of the Opinion

Below (overleaf), that is, the bordered/boxed text, is an extract from Justice Alito’s Opinion in Thomas E. Dobbs, et al. v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization et al. (United States Supreme Court) [on writ of certiorari to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit], June 24, 2022
Discuss this portion of the Opinion, focusing on what you consider to be the merits and demerits of Justice Alito’s arguments as regards autonomy and women’s human rights.
Justice Alito Opinion:
C . 1. Instead of seriously pressing the argument that the abortion right itself has
deep roots, supporters of Roe and Casey contend that the abortion right is an integral
part of a broader entrenched right. Roe termed this a right to privacy, 410 U. S., at 154,
and Casey described it as the freedom to make “intimate and personal choices” that are
“central to personal dignity and autonomy,” 505 U. S., at 851. Casey elaborated: “At the
heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the
universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Ibid. The Court did not claim that this
broadly framed right is absolute, and no such claim would be plausible. While
individuals are certainly free to think and to say what they wish about “existence,”
“meaning,” the “universe,” and “the mystery of human life,” they are not always free
to act in accordance with those thoughts. License to act on the basis of such beliefs
may correspond to one of the many understandings of “liberty,” but it is certainly not “ordered liberty.”
Ordered liberty sets limits and defines the boundary between competing interests. Roe and Casey each struck a particular balance between the interests of a woman who wants an abortion and the interests of what they termed “potential life.” Roe, 410 U. S., at 150 (emphasis deleted); Casey, 505 U. S., at 852. But the people of the various States may evaluate those interests differently. In some States, voters may believe that the abortion right should be even more extensive than the right that Roe and Casey recognized. Voters in other States may wish to impose tight restrictions based on their belief that abortion destroys an “unborn human being.” Miss. Code Ann. §41–41–191(4)(b). Our Nation’s historical understanding of ordered liberty does not prevent the people’s elected representatives from deciding how abortion should be regulated.