924
Opinion of Blackmun, J.
liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment." Ante, at 851 (emphasis added). Finally, the Court today recognizes that in the case of abortion, "the liberty of the woman is at stake in a sense unique to the human condition and so unique to the law. The mother who carries a child to full term is subject to anxieties, to physical constraints, to pain that only she must bear." Ante, at 852.
The Court's reaffirmation of Roe's central holding is also based on the force of stare decisis. "[N]o erosion of principle going to liberty or personal autonomy has left Roe's central holding a doctrinal remnant; Roe portends no developments at odds with other precedent for the analysis of personal liberty; and no changes of fact have rendered viability more or less appropriate as the point at which the balance of interests tips." Ante, at 860-861. Indeed, the Court acknowledges that Roe's limitation on state power could not be removed "without serious inequity to those who have relied upon it or significant damage to the stability of the society governed by it." Ante, at 855. In the 19 years since Roe was decided, that case has shaped more than reproductive planning—"[a]n entire generation has come of age free to assume Roe's concept of liberty in defining the capacity of women to act in society, and to make reproductive decisions." Ante, at 860. The Court understands that, having "call[ed] the contending sides . . . to end their national division by accepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitution," ante, at 867, a decision to overrule Roe "would seriously weaken the Court's capacity to exercise the judicial power and to function as the Supreme Court of a Nation dedicated to the rule of law." Ante, at 865. What has happened today should serve as a model for future Justices and a warning to all who have tried to turn this Court into yet another political branch.
In striking down the Pennsylvania statute's spousal notification requirement, the Court has established a framework
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