Cite as: 505 U. S. 833 (1992)
Opinion of Scalia, J.
nation of when stare decisis should be observed and when disregarded, they never mention "how wrong was the decision on its face?" Surely, if "[t]he Court's power lies . . . in its legitimacy, a product of substance and perception," ante, at 865, the "substance" part of the equation demands that plain error be acknowledged and eliminated. Roe was plainly wrong—even on the Court's methodology of "reasoned judgment," and even more so (of course) if the proper criteria of text and tradition are applied.
The emptiness of the "reasoned judgment" that produced Roe is displayed in plain view by the fact that, after more than 19 years of effort by some of the brightest (and most determined) legal minds in the country, after more than 10 cases upholding abortion rights in this Court, and after dozens upon dozens of amicus briefs submitted in these and other cases, the best the Court can do to explain how it is that the word "liberty" must be thought to include the right to destroy human fetuses is to rattle off a collection of adjectives that simply decorate a value judgment and conceal a political choice. The right to abort, we are told, inheres in "liberty" because it is among "a person's most basic decisions," ante, at 849; it involves a "most intimate and personal choic[e]," ante, at 851; it is "central to personal dignity and autonomy," ibid.; it "originate[s] within the zone of conscience and belief," ante, at 852; it is "too intimate and personal" for state interference, ibid.; it reflects "intimate views" of a "deep, personal character," ante, at 853; it involves "intimate relationships" and notions of "personal autonomy and bodily integrity," ante, at 857; and it concerns a particularly " 'important decisio[n],' " ante, at 859 (citation omitted).2 But it is
2 Justice Blackmun's parade of adjectives is similarly empty: Abortion is among " 'the most intimate and personal choices,' " ante, at 923; it is a matter "central to personal dignity and autonomy," ibid.; and it involves "personal decisions that profoundly affect bodily integrity, identity, and destiny," ante, at 927. Justice Stevens is not much less conclusory: The decision to choose abortion is a matter of "the highest privacy and the
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