318
Stevens, J., dissenting
One ground was § 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment. The other was the right to travel. The Court explained how the petitioners could show a violation of the latter. As with the class-based animus requirement, the Court was less concerned with the specifics of that showing than with the constitutionality of § 1985(3); it emphasized that whatever evidence they presented had to "make it clear that the petitioners had suffered from conduct that Congress may reach under its power to protect the right of interstate travel." Id., at 106.
The concerns that persuaded the Court to adopt a narrow reading of the text of § 1985(3) in Griffin are not presented in this case. Giving effect to the plain language of § 1985(3) to provide a remedy against the violent interference with women exercising their privilege—indeed, their right—to engage in interstate travel to obtain an abortion presents no danger of turning the statute into a general tort law. Nor does anyone suggest that such relief calls into question the constitutional powers of Congress. When the Griffin Court rejected its earlier holding in Collins, it provided both an "authoritative construction" of § 1985(3), see ante, at 289 (Souter, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), and a sufficient reason for rejecting the doctrine of stare decisis whenever it would result in an unnecessarily narrow construction of the statute's plain language. The Court wrote:
"Whether or not Collins v. Hardyman was correctly decided on its own facts is a question with which we need not here be concerned. But it is clear, in the light of the evolution of decisional law in the years that have passed since that case was decided, that many of the constitutional problems there perceived simply do not exist. Little reason remains, therefore, not to accord to the words of the statute their apparent meaning." 403 U. S., at 95-96.
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