276
Opinion of the Court
upon an identifiable group," Feeney, 442 U. S., at 279, so also the "intent to deprive of a right" requirement demands that the defendant do more than merely be aware of a deprivation of right that he causes, and more than merely accept it; he must act at least in part for the very purpose of producing it.6 That was not shown to be the case here, and is on its face implausible. Petitioners oppose abortion, and it is irrelevant to their opposition whether the abortion is performed after interstate travel.
Respondents have failed to show a conspiracy to violate the right of interstate travel for yet another reason: Petitioners' proposed demonstrations would not implicate that right. The federal guarantee of interstate travel does not transform state-law torts into federal offenses when they are intention-6 To contradict the plain import of our cases on this point, Justice Stevens presses into service a footnote in Griffin. Post, at 335-336, n. 33. In addressing "[t]he motivation requirement introduced by the word 'equal' into . . . § 1985(3)," Griffin said that this was not to be confused with a test of "specific intent to deprive a person of a federal right made definite by decision or other rule of law"; § 1985(3) "contains no specific requirement of 'wilfulness,' " and its "motivation aspect . . . focuses not on scienter in relation to deprivation of rights but on invidiously discriminatory animus." Griffin, 403 U. S., at 102, n. 10. This is supremely irrelevant to the present discussion, since (1) we are not considering "the motivation requirement introduced by the word 'equal,' " but rather the intent requirement introduced by the word "purpose," and (2) we are not asserting that the right in question must have been "made definite by decision or other rule of law," but only that it must have been "aimed at," with or without knowledge that it is a federally protected right, cf. Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 103-107 (1945)—a requirement not of "wilfulness," in other words, but only of "purpose." The requisite "purpose" was of course pleaded in Griffin, as we specifically noted. See 403 U. S., at 103. Justice Stevens makes no response whatever to the plain language of Carpenters, except to contend that the same irrelevant footnote 10 reaches forward 12 years in time, to prevent Carpenters from meaning what it obviously says ("aimed at"). Although a few lower courts at one time read the Griffin footnote as Justice Stevens does, see post, at 336- 337, those cases were all decided years before this Court's opinion in Carpenters, which we follow.
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