*480Mr. Justice Douglas

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Appellant Griswold is Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Appellant Buxton is a licensed physician and a professor at the Yale Medical School who served as Medical Director for the League at its Center in New Haven — a center open and operating from November 1 to November 10, 1961, when appellants were arrested.

They gave information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. They examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use. Fees were usually charged, although some couples were serviced free.

The statutes whose constitutionality is involved in this appeal are §§ 53-32 and 54 — 196 of the General Statutes of Connecticut (1958 rev.). The former provides:

“Any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception shall be fined not less than fifty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned.”

Section 54-196 provides:

“Any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender.”

The appellants were found guilty as accessories and fined .$100 each, against the claim that the accessory statute as so applied violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Appellate Division of the Circuit Court affirmed. The Supreme Court of' Errors affirmed that judgment. 151 Conn. 544, 200 A. 2d 479. We noted probable jurisdiction. 379 U. S. 926.

*481We think that appellants have standing to raise the constitutional rights of the married people with whom they had a professional relationship. Tileston v. Ullman, 318 U. S. 44, is different, for there the plaintiff seeking to represent others asked for a declaratory judgment. In that situation we thought that the requirements of standing should be strict, lest the standards of “case or controversy” in Article III of the Constitution become blurred. Here those doubts are removed-by reason of a criminal conviction for serving married couples in violation of an aiding-and-abetting statute. Certainly the accessory should have standing to assert that the pífense which he is charged with assisting is not, or cannot constitutionally be, a crime.

This case is more akin to Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33, where an employee was permitted to assert the rights of his employer; to Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 610, where the owners of private schools were entitled to assert the rights of potential pupils and their parents; and to Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U. S. 249, where a white defendant, party to a racially restrictive covenant, who was being sued for damages by the covenantors because she had conveyed her property to Negroes, was allowed to raise the issue that enforcement of the covenant violated the rights of prospective Negro purchasers to equal protection, although no Negro was a party to the suit. And see Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390; Adler v. Board of Education, 342 U. S. 485; NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449; NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415. The rights of husband and wife, pressed here, are likely to be diluted or adversely affected unless those rights are considered in a suit involving those who have this kind of confidential relation to them.

Coming to the merits, we are met with a wide range of questions that implicate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Overtones of some arguments *482suggest that Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, should be our guide. But we decline that invitation as we did in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379; Olsen v. Nebraska, 313 U. S. 236; Lincoln Union v. Northwestern Co., 335 U. S. 525; Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483; Giboney v. Empire Storage Co., 336 U. S. 490. We do not sit as a super-legislature to determine the wisdom, need, and propriety of laws that touch economic problems, business affairs, or social conditions. This law, however, operates directly on an intimate relation of husband and wife and their physician's role in one aspect of that relation.

The association of people is not mentioned in the Constitution nor in the Bill of Rights. The right to educate a child in a school of the parents’ choice — whether public or private or parochial — is also not mentioned. Nor is the right to study any particular subject or any foreign language. Yet the First Amendment has been construed to include certain of those rights.

By Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra, the right to educate one’s children as one chooses is made applicable to the States by the force of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. By Meyer v. Nebraska, supra, the same dignity is given the right to study the German language in a private school. In other words, the State may not, consistently with the spirit of the First Amendment, contract the spectrum of available knowledge. The right of freedom of speech and press includes not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read (Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141, 143) and freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and freedom to teach (see Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183, 195) — indeed the freedom of the entire university community. Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S. 234, 249-250, 261-263; Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U. S. 109, 112; Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U. S. 360, 369. Without *483those peripheral rights the specific rights would be less secure. And so we reaffirm the principle of the Pierce and the Meyer cases.

In NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, 462, we protected the “freedom to associate and privacy in one’s associations,” noting that freedom of association was a peripheral First Amendment right. Disclosure of membership lists of a constitutionally valid association, we held, was invalid “as entailing the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner’s members of their right to freedom of association.” Ibid. In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion. In like context, we have protected forms of “association” that are not political in the customary sense but pertain to the social, legal, and economic benefit of the members. NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 430-431. In Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U. S. 232, we held'it not permissible to bar a lawyer from practice, because he had once been a member of the Communist Party. The man’s “association with that Party” was not shown to be “anything more than a political faith in a political party” (id., at 244) and was not action of a kind proving bad moral character. Id., at 245-246.

Those cases involved more than the “right of assembly” — a right that extends to all irrespective of their race or ideology. De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353. The right of “association,” like the right of belief (Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624), is more than the right to attend a meeting; it includes the right to express one’s attitudes or philosophies by membership in a group or by affiliation with it or by other lawful means. Association in that context is a form of expression of opinion; and while it is not expressly included in the First Amendment its existence is necessary in making the express guarantees fully meaningful.

*484The foregoing cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. See Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 516-622 (dissenting opinion). Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers “in any house” in time of peace without the consent of the owner is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The Fifth Amendment in its Self-Incrimination Clause enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The Fourth and Fifth Amendments were described in Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 630, as protection against all governmental invasions “of the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life.”* We recently re*485ferred in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, 656, to the Fourth Amendment as creating a “right to privacy, no less important than any other right carefully and particularly reserved to the people.” See Beaney, The Constitutional Right to Privacy, 1962 Sup. Ct. Rev. 212; Griswold, The Right to be Let Alone, 55 Nw. U. L. Rev.- 216 (1960).

We have had many controversies over these penumbral rights of “privacy and repose.” See, e. g., Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U. S. 622, 626, 644; Public Utilities Comm’n v. Pollak, 343 U. S. 451; Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167; Lanza v. New York, 370 U. S. 139; Frank v. Maryland, 359 U. S. 360; Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535, 541. These cases bear witness that the right of privacy which presses for recognition here is a legitimate one.

The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. And it concerns a law which, in forbidding the use of contraceptives rather than regulating their manufacture or sale, seeks to achieve its goals by means having a maximum destructive impact upon that relationship. Such a law cannot stand in light of the familiar principle, so often applied by this Court, that a “governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms.” NAACP v. Alabama, 377 U. S. 288, 307. Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The’ *486very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship.

We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights — older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.

Reversed.

MR. Justice Goldberg,

whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Brennan join,

concurring.

I agree with the Court that Connecticut’s birth-control law unconstitutionally intrudes upon the right of marital privacy, and I join in its opinion and judgment. Although I have not accepted the view that “due process” as used in the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates all of the first eight Amendments (see my concurring opinion in Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400, 410, and the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Brennan in Cohen v. Hurley, 366 U. S. 117, 154), I do agree that the. concept of liberty protects those personal rights that are fundamental, and is not confined to the specific terms of the Bill of Rights. My conclusion that the concept of liberty is not so restricted and that it embraces the right of marital privacy though that right is not mentioned explicitly in the Constitution1 is supported both by numer*487ous decisions of this Court, referred to in the Court’s opinion, and by the language and history of the Ninth Amendment. In reaching the conclusion that the right of marital privacy is protected, as being within the protected penumbra of specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights, the Court refers to the Ninth Amendment, ante, at 484. I add these words to emphasize the relevance of that Amendment to the Court’s holding.

The Court stated many years ago that the Due Process Clause protects those liberties that are “so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.” Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 105. In Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 666, the Court said:

“For present purposes we may and do assume that freedom of speech and of the press — which are protected by the First Amendment from abridgment by Congress — are among the fundamental personal rights and 'liberties’ protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States.” (Emphasis added.)

*488And, in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 399, the Court, referring to the Fourteenth Amendment, stated:

“While this Court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty thus guaranteed, the term has received much consideration and some of the included things have been definitely stated. Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also [for example,] the right ... to marry, establish a home and bring up children . . . .”

This Court, in a series of decisions, has held that the Fourteenth Amendment absorbs and applies to the States those specifics of the first eight amendments which express fundamental personal rights.2 The language and history of the Ninth Amendment reveal that the Framers of the Constitution believed that there are additional fundamental rights, protected from governmental infringement, which exist alongside those fundamental rights specifically mentioned in the first eight constitutional amendments.

The Ninth Amendment reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The Amendment is almost entirely the work of James Madison. It was introduced in Congress by him and passed the House and Senate with little or no debate and virtually no change in language. It was proffered to quiet expressed fears that a bill of specifically enumerated rights 3 could not be sufficiently broad to cover all es*489sential rights and that the specific mention of certain rights would be interpreted as a denial that others were protected.4

In presenting the proposed Amendment, Madison said:

“It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard urged against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the *490last clause of the fourth resolution [the Ninth Amendment].” I Annals of Congress 439 (Gales and Seaton ed. 1834).

Mr. Justice Story wrote of this argument against a bill of rights and the meaning of the Ninth Amendment:

“In regard to . . . [a] suggestion, that the affirmance of certain rights might disparage others, or might lead to argumentative implications in favor of other powers, it might be sufficient to say that such a course of reasoning could never be sustained upon any solid basis .... But a conclusive answer is, that such an attempt may be interdicted (as it has been) by a positive declaration in such a bill of rights that the enumeration, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” II Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 626-627 (5th ed. 1891).

He further stated, referring to the Ninth Amendment:

“This clause was manifestly introduced to prevent any perverse or ingenious misapplication of the well-known maxim, that an affirmation in particular cases implies a negation in all others; and, e converso, that a negation in particular cases implies an affirmation in all others.” Id., at 651.

These statements of Madison and Story 'make clear that the Framers did not intend that the first eight amendments be construed to exhaust the basic and fundamental rights which the Constitution guaranteed to the people.5

While this Court has had little occasion to interpret the Ninth Amendment,6 “[i]t cannot be presumed that any *491clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 174. In interpreting the Constitution, “real effect should be given to all the words it uses.” Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 151. The Ninth Amendment to the Constitution may be regarded by some as a recent discovery and may be forgotten by others, but since 1791 it has been a basic part of the Constitution which we are sworn to uphold. To hold that a right so basic and fundamental and so deep-rooted in our society as the right of privacy in marriage may be infringed because that right is not guaranteed in so many words by the first eight amendments to the Constitution is to ignore the Ninth Amendment and to give it no effect whatsoever. Moreover, a judicial construction that this fundamental right is not protected by the Constitution because it is not mentioned in explicit terms by one of the first eight amendments or elsewhere in the Constitution would violate the Ninth Amendment, which specifically states that *492“[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” (Emphasis added.)

A dissenting opinion suggests that my interpretation of the Ninth Amendment somehow “broaden [s] the powers of this Court.” Post, at 520. With all due respect, I believe that it misses the import of what I am saying. I do not take the position of my Brother Black in his dissent in Adamson v. California,, 332 Ü. S.' 46,~68, that the entire Bill of Rights is incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment, and I do not mean to imply that the Ninth Amendment is applied against the States by the Fourteenth. Nor do I mean to state that the Ninth Amendment constitutes an independent source of rights protected from infringement by either the States or the Federal Government. Rather, the Ninth Amendment shows a belief of the Constitution’s authors that fundamental rights exist that are not expressly enumerated in the first eight amendments and an intent that the list of rights included there not be deemed exhaustive. As any student of this Court’s opinions knows, this Court has held, often unanimously, that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments protect certain fundamental personal liberties from abridgment by the Federal Government or the States. See, e. g., Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497; Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500; Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S. 116; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449; Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335; New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254. The Ninth Amendment simply shows the intent of the Constitution’s authors that other fundamental personal rights should not be denied such protection or disparaged in any other way simply because they are not specifically listed in the first eight constitutional amendments. I do not see how this broadens the author*493ity of the Court; rather it serves to support what this Court has been doing in protecting fundamental rights.

Nor am I turning somersaults with history in arguing that the Ninth Amendment is relevant in a case dealing with a State’s infringement of a fundamental right. While the Ninth Amendment — and indeed the entire Bill of Rights — originally concerned restrictions upon federal power, the subsequently enacted Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the States as well from abridging fundamental personal liberties. And, the Ninth Amendment, in indicating that not all such liberties are specifically mentioned in the first eight amendments, is surely relevant in showing the existence of other fundamental personal rights, now protected from state, as well as federal, infringement. In sum, the Ninth Amendment simply lends strong support to the view that the “liberty” protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments from infringement by the Federal Government or the States is not restricted to rights specifically mentioned in the first eight amendments. Cf. United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 94-95.

In determining which rights are fundamental, judges are not left at large to decide cases in light of their personal and private notions. Rather, they must look to the “traditions and [collective] conscience of our people” to determine whether a principle is “so rooted [there] ... as to be ranked as fundamental.” Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 105. The inquiry is whether a right involved “is of such a character that it cannot be denied without violating those ‘fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions’. . . .” Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 67. “Liberty” also “gains content from the emanations of . . . specific [constitutional] guarantees” and “from experience with the requirements of a free society.” Poe *494v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 517 (dissenting opinion of MR. Justice Douglas).7

I agree fully with the Court that, applying these tests, the right of privacy is a fundamental personal right, emanating “from the totality of the constitutional scheme under which we live.” Id., at 521. Mr. Justice Brandéis, dissenting in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 478, comprehensively summarized the principles underlying the Constitution’s guarantees of privacy:

“The protection guaranteed by the [Fourth and Fifth] Amendments is much broader in scope. The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure con- ■ ditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone— the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.”

*495The Connecticut statutes here involved deal with a particularly important and sensitive area of privacy — that of the marital relation and the marital home. This Court recognized in Meyer v. Nebraska, supra, that the right “to marry, establish a home and bring up children” was an essential part of the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. 262 U. S., at 399. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, the Court held unconstitutional an Oregon Act which forbade parents from sending their children to private schools because such an act “unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.” 268 U. S., at 534-535. As this Court said in Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, at 166, the Meyer and Pierce decisions “have respected the private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.”

I agree with Mr. Justice Harlan's statement in his dissenting opinion in Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 551-552: “Certainly the safeguarding of the home does not follow merely from the sanctity of property rights. The home derives its pre-eminence as the seat of family life. And the integrity of that life is something so fundamental that it has been found to draw to its protection the principles of more than one explicitly granted Constitutional right. ... Of this whole 'private realm of family life’ it is difficult to imagine what is more private or more intimate than a husband and wife’s marital relations.”

The entire fabric of the Constitution and the purposes that clearly underlie its specific guarantees demonstrate that the rights to marital privacy and to marry and raise a family are of similar order and magnitude as the fundamental rights specifically protected.

Although the Constitution does not speak in so many words of the right of privacy in marriage, I cannot believe that it offers these fundamental rights no protection. The fact that no particular provision of the Con*496stitution explicitly forbids the State from disrupting the traditional relation of the family — a relation as old and as fundamental as our entire civilization — surely does not show that the Government was meant to have the power to do so. Rather, as the Ninth Amendment expressly recognizes, there are fundamental personal rights such as this one, which are protected from abridgment by the Government though not specifically mentioned in the Constitution.

My Brother Stewart, while characterizing the Connecticut birth control law as “an uncommonly silly law,” post, at-527, would nevertheless let it stand on the ground that it is not for the courts to “ ‘substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws.’ ” Post, at 528. Elsewhere, I have stated that “[w]hile I quite agree with Mr. Justice Brandéis that . . . ‘a . . . State may . . . serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments,’ New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262, 280, 311 (dissenting opinion), I do not believe that this includes the power to experiment with the fundamental liberties of citizens . ...”8 The vice of the dissenters’ views is that it would permit such experimentation by the States in the area of the fundamental personal rights of its citizens. I cannot agree that the Constitution grants such power either to the States or to the Federal Government.

The logic of the dissents would sanction federal or state legislation that seems to me even more plainly unconstitutional than the statute before us. Surely the Government, absent a showing of a compelling subordinating state interest, could not decree that all husbands and wives must be sterilized after two children have been born *497to them. Yet by their reasoning such an invasion of marital privacy would not be subject to constitutional challenge because, while it might be “silly,” no provision of the Constitution specifically prevents the Government from curtailing the marital right to bear children and raise a family. While it may shock some of my Brethren that the Court today holds that the Constitution protects the right of marital privacy, in my view it is far more shocking to believe that the personal liberty guaranteed by the Constitution does not include protection against such totalitarian limitation of family size, which is at complete variance with our constitutional concepts. Yet, if upon a showing of a slender basis of rationality, a law outlawing voluntary birth control by married persons is valid, then, by the same reasoning, a law requiring compulsory birth control also would seem to be valid. In my view, however, both types of law would unjustifiably intrude upon rights of marital privacy which are constitutionally protected.

In a long series of cases this Court has held that where fundamental personal liberties are involved, they may not be abridged by the States simply on a showing that a regulatory statute has some rational relationship to the effectuation of a proper state purpose. “Where there is a significant encroachment upon personal liberty, the State may prevail only upon showing a subordinating interest which is compelling,” Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, 524. The law must be shown “necessary, and not merely rationally related, to the accomplishment of a permissible state policy.” McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184, 196. See Schneider v. Irvington, 308 U. S. 147, 161.

Although the Connecticut birth-control law obviously encroaches upon a fundamental personal liberty, the State does not show that the law serves any “subordinating [state] interest which is compelling” or that it is “neces*498sary ... to the accomplishment of a permissible state policy.” The State, at most, argues that there is some rational relation between this statute and what is admittedly a legitimate subject of state concern — the discouraging of extra-marital relations. It says that preventing the use of birth-control devices by married persons helps prevent the indulgence by some in such extramarital relations. The rationality of this justification is dubious, particularly in light of the admitted widespread availability to all persons in the State of Connecticut, unmarried as well as married, of birth-control devices for the prevention of disease, as distinguished from the prevention of conception, see Tileston v. Ullman, 129 Conn. 84, 26 A. 2d 582. But, in any event, it is clear that the state interest in safeguarding marital fidelity can be served by a more discriminately tailored statute, which does not, like the present one, sweep unnecessarily broadly, reaching far beyond the evil sought to be dealt with and intruding upon the privacy of all married couples. See Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500, 514; NAACP v. Alabama, 377 U. S. 288, 307-308; McLaughlin v. Florida, supra, at 196. Here, as elsewhere, “[precision of regulation must be the touchstone in an area so closely touching our most precious freedoms.” NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 438. The State of Connecticut does have statutes, the constitutionality of which is beyond doubt, which prohibit adultery and fornication. See Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 53-218, 53-219 et seg. These statutes demonstrate that means for achieving the same basic purpose of protecting marital fidelity are available to Connecticut without the need to “invade the area of protected freedoms.” NAACP v. Alabama, supra, at 307. See McLaughlin v. Florida, supra, at 196.

Finally, it should be said of the Court’s holding today that it in no way interferes with a State’s proper regula*499tion of sexual promiscuity or misconduct. As my Brother Harlan so well stated in his dissenting opinion in Poe v. Ullman, supra, at 553.

“Adultery, homosexuality and the like are sexual intimacies which the State forbids . . . but the intimacy of husband and wife is necessarily an essential and .accepted feature of the institution of marriage, an institution which the State not only must allow, but which always and in every age it has fostered and protected. It is one thing when the State exerts its power either to forbid extra-marital sexuality ... or to say who may marry, but it is quite another when, having acknowledged a marriage and the intimacies inherent in it, it undertakes to regulate by means of the criminal law the details of that intimacy.”

In sum, I believe that the right of privacy in the marital relation is fundamental and basic — a personal right “retained by the people” within the meaning of the Ninth Amendment. Connecticut cannot constitutionally abridge this fundamental right, which is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from infringement by the States. I agree with the Court that petitioners’ convictions must therefore be reversed.

Mr. Justice Harlan,

concurring in the judgment.

I fully agree with the judgment of reversal, bqt find myself unable to join the Court’s opinion. The reason is that it seems to me to evince an approach to this case very much like that taken by my Brothers Black and Stewart in dissent, namely: the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not touch this Connecticut statute unless the enactment is found to violate some right assured by the letter or penumbra of the Bill of Rights.

*500In other words, what I find implicit in the Court’s opinion is that the “incorporation” doctrine may be used to restrict the reach of Fourteenth Amendment Due Process. For me this is j ust~as..unacceptable constitutional doctrine as is the use of the “incorporation”^approach to impose upon the States all the requirements of the Bill of Rights as found in the provisions of the first eight amendments and in the decisions of this Court interpreting them. See, e. g., my concurring opinions in Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400, 408, and Griffin v. California, 380 U. S. 609, 615, and my dissenting opinion in Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 522, at pp. 539-545.

In my view, the proper constitutional inquiry in this case is whether this Connecticut statute infringes the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the enactment violates basic values “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 325. For reasons stated at length in my dissenting opinion in Poe v. Ullman, supra, I believe that it does. While the relevant inquiry may be aided by resort to one or more of the provisions of the Bill of Rights, it is not dependent on them or any of their radiations. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment stands, in my opinion, on its own bottom.

A further observation seems in order respecting the justification of my Brothers Black and Stewart for their “incorporation” approach to this case. Their approach does not rest on historical reasons, which are of course wholly lacking (see Fairman, Does the Fourteenth Amendment Incorporate the Bill of Rights? The Original Understanding, 2 Stan. L. Rev. 5 (1949)), but on the thesis that by limiting the content of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the protection of rights which can be found elsewhere in the Constitution, in this instance in the Bill of Rights, judges will thus be confined to “interpretation” of specific constitutional *501provisions, and will thereby be restrained from introducing their own notions of constitutional right and wrong into the “vague contours of the Due Process Clause.” Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 170.

While I could not more heartily agree that judicial “self restraint” is an indispensable ingredient of sound constitutional adjudication, I do submit that the formula suggested for achieving it is more hollow than real. “Specific” provisions of the Constitution, no less than “due process,” lend themselves as readily to “personal” interpretations by judges whose constitutional outlook is simply to keep the Constitution in supposed “tune with the times” (post, p. 522). Need one go further than to recall last Term’s reapportionment cases, Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U. S. 1, and Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, where a majority of the Court “interpreted” “by the People” (Art. I, § 2) and “equal protection” (Arndt. 14) to command “one person, one vote”’ an interpretation that was made in the face of irrefutable and still unanswered history to the contrary? See my dissenting opinions in those cases, 376 U. S., at 20; 377 U. S., at 589.

Judicial self-restraint will not, I suggest, be brought about in the “due process” area by the historically unfounded incorporation formula long advanced by my Brother Black, and now in part espoused by my Brother Stewart. It will be achieved in this area, as in other constitutional areas, only by continual insistence upon respect for the teachings of history, solid recognition of the basic values that underlie our society, and wise appreciation of the great roles that the doctrines of federalism and separation of powers have played in establishing and preserving American freedoms. See Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 59 (Mr. Justice Frankfurter, concurring). Adherence to these principles will not, of course, obviate all constitutional differences of opinion among judges, nor should it. Their continued recogni*502tion will, however, go farther toward keeping most judges from roaming at large in the constitutional field than will the interpolation into the Constitution of an artificial and largely illusory restriction on the content of the Due Process Clause.*

Mr. Justice White,

concurring in the judgment.

In my view this Connecticut law as applied to married couples deprives them of “liberty” without due process of law, as that concept is used in the Fourteenth Amendment. I therefore concur in the judgment of the Court reversing these convictions under Connecticut’s aiding and abetting statute.

It would be unduly repetitious, and belaboring the obvious, to expound on the impact of this statute on the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment against arbitrary or capricious denials or on the nature of this liberty. Suffice it to say that this is not the first time this Court has had occasion to articulate that the liberty entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment includes the right “to marry, establish a home and bring up children,” Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 399, and “the liberty ... to direct the upbringing and education of children,” Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 534-535, and that these are among “the basic civil rights of man.” Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535, 541. These decisions affirm that there is a “realm of family life which the state cannot enter” without substantial justification. Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 166. Surely the right invoked in this case, to be free of regulation of the intimacies of *503the marriage relationship, “come[s] to this Court with a momentum for respect lacking when appeal is made to liberties which derive merely from shifting economic arrangements.” Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77, 95 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.).

The Connecticut anti-contraceptive statute deals rather substantially with this relationship. For it forbids all married persons the right to use birth-control devices, regardless of whether their use is dictated by considerations of family planning, Trubek v. Ullman, 147 Conn. 633, 165 A. 2d 158, health, or indeed even of life itself. Buxton v. Ullman, 147 Conn. 48, 156 A. 2d 508. The anti-use statute, together with the general aiding and abetting statute, prohibits doctors from affording advice to married persons on proper and effective methods of birth control. Tileston v. Ullman, 129 Conn. 84, 26 A. 2d 582. And the clear effect of these statutes, as enforced, is to deny disadvantaged citizens of Connecticut, those without either adequate knowledge or resources to obtain private counseling, access to medical assistance and up-to-date information in respect to proper methods of birth control. State v. Nelson, 126 Conn. 412, 11 A. 2d 856; State v. Griswold, 151 Conn. 544, 200 A. 2d 479. In my view, a statute with these effects bears a substantial burden of justification when attacked under the Fourteenth Amendment. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356; Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535; Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U. S. 232; McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184, 192.

An examination of the justification offered, however, cannot be avoided by saying that the Connecticut anti-use statute invades a protected area of privacy and association or that it demeans the marriage relationship. The nature of the right invaded is pertinent, to be sure, for statutes regulating sensitive areas of liberty do, under *504the cases of this Court, require “strict scrutiny,” Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535, 541, and “must be viewed in the light of less drastic means for achieving the same basic purpose.” Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 488. “Where there is a significant encroachment upon personal liberty, the State may prevail only upon showing a subordinating interest which is compelling.” Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, 524. See also McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184. But such statutes, if reasonably necessary for the effectuation of a legitimate and substantial state interest, and not arbitrary or capricious in application, are not invalid under the Due Process Clause. Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1.*

*505As I read the opinions of the Connecticut courts and the argument of Connecticut in this Court, the State claims but one justification for its anti-use statute. Cf. Allied Stores of Ohio v. Bowers, 358 U. S. 522, 530; Martin v. Walton, 368 U. S. 25, 28 (Douglas, J., dissenting). There is no serious contention that Connecticut thinks the use of artificial or external methods of contraception immoral or unwise in itself, or that the anti-use statute is founded upon any policy of promoting population expansion. Rather, the statute is said to serve the State’s policy against all forms of promiscuous or illicit sexual relationships, be they premarital or extramarital, con-cededly a permissible and legitimate legislative goal.

Without taking issue with the premise that the fear of conception operates as a deterrent to such relationships in addition to the criminal proscriptions Connecticut has against such conduct, I wholly fail to see how the ban on the use of contraceptives by married couples in any way reinforces the State’s ban on illicit sexual relationships. See Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U. S. 232,239. Connecticut does not bar the importation or possession of contraceptive devices; they are not considered contraband material under state law, State v. Certain Contraceptive Materials, 126 Conn. 428, 11 A. 2d 863, and their availability in that State is not seriously disputed. The only way Connecticut seeks to limit or control the availability of such devices is through its general aiding and abetting statute whose operation in this context has *506been quite obviously ineffective and whose most serious use has been against birth-control clinics rendering advice to married, rather than unmarried, persons. Cf. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356. Indeed, after over 80 years of the State’s proscription of use, the legality of the sale of such devices to prevent disease has never been expressly passed upon, although it appears that sales have long occurred and have only infrequently been challenged. This “undeviating policy . . . throughout all the long years . . . bespeaks more than prosecutorial paralysis.” Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 502. Moreover, it would appear that the sale of contraceptives to prevent disease is plainly legal under Connecticut law.

In these circumstances one is rather hard pressed to explain how the ban on use by married persons in any way prevents use of such devices by persons engaging in illicit sexual relations and thereby contributes to the State’s policy against such relationships. Neither the state courts nor the State before the bar of this Court has tendered such an explanation. It is purely fanciful to believe that the broad proscription on use facilitates discovery of use by persons engaging in a prohibited relationship or for some other reason makes such use more unlikely and thus can be supported by any sort of administrative consideration. Perhaps the theory is that the flat ban on use prevents married people from possessing contraceptives and without the ready availability of such devices for use in the marital relationship, there will be no or less temptation to use them in extramarital ones. This reasoning rests on the premise that married people will comply with the ban in regard to their marital relationship, notwithstanding total nonenforcement in this context and apparent nonenforcibility, but will not comply with criminal statutes prohibiting extramarital affairs and the anti-use statute in respect to illicit sexual relationships, a premise whose validity has not been *507demonstrated and whose intrinsic validity is not very evident. At most the broad ban is of marginal utility to the declared objective. A statute limiting its prohibition on use to persons engaging in the prohibited relationship would serve the end posited by Connecticut in the same way, and with the same effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, as the broad anti-use statute under attack in this case. I find nothing in this record justifying the sweeping scope of this statute, with its telling effect on the freedoms of married persons, and therefore conclude that it deprives such persons of liberty without due process of law.

Mr. Justice Black,

with whom Mr. Justice Stewart joins,

dissenting.

I agree with my Brother Stewart’s dissenting opinion. And like him I do not to any extent whatever base my view that this Connecticut law is constitutional on a belief that the law is wise or that its policy is a good one. In order that there may be no room at all to doubt why I vote as I do, I feel constrained to add that the law is every bit as offensive to me as it is to my Brethren of the majority and my Brothers Harlan, White and Goldberg who, reciting reasons why it is offensive to them, hold it unconstitutional. There is no single one of the graphic and eloquent strictures and criticisms fired at the policy of this Connecticut law either by the Court’s opinion or by those of my concurring Brethren to which I cannot subscribe — except their conclusion that the evil qualities they see in the law make it unconstitutional.

Had the doctor defendant here, or even the nondoctor defendant, been convicted for doing nothing more than expressing opinions to persons coming to the clinic that certain contraceptive devices, medicines or practices would do them good and would be desirable, or for telling people how devices could be used, I can think of no reasons at this time why their expressions of views would not be *508protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, which guarantee freedom of speech. Cf. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Virginia ex rel. Virginia State Bar, 377 U. S. 1; NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415. But speech is one thing; conduct and physical activities are quite another. See, e. g., Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 55-A-555; Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 559, 563-564; id., 575-584 (concurring opinion); Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U. S. 490; cf. Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 163-164. The two defendants here were active participants in an organization which gave physical examinations to women, advised them what kind of contraceptive devices or medicines would most likely be satisfactory for them, and then supplied the devices themselves, all for a graduated scale of fees, based on the family income. Thus these defendants admittedly engaged with others in a planned course of conduct to help people violate the Connecticut law. Merely because some speech was used in carrying on that conduct — just as in ordinary life some speech accompanies most kinds of conduct — we are not in my view justified in holding that the First Amendment forbids the State to punish their conduct. Strongly as I desire to protect all First Amendment freedoms, I am unable to stretch the Amendment so as to afford protection to the conduct of these defendants in violating the Connecticut law. What would be the constitutional fate of the law if hereafter applied to punish nothing but speech is, as I have said, quite another matter.

The Court talks about a constitutional “right of privacy” as though there is some constitutional provision or provisions forbidding any law ever to be passed which might abridge the “privacy” of individuals. But there is not. There are, of course, guarantees in certain specific constitutional provisions which are designed in part to protect privacy at certain times and places with respect to certain activities. Such, for example, is the Fourth *509Amendment’s guarantee against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” But I think it belittles that Amendment to talk about it as though it protects nothing but “privacy.” To treat it that way is to give it a niggardly interpretation, not the kind of liberal reading I think any Bill of Rights provision should be given. The average man would very likely not have his feelings soothed any more by having his property seized openly than by having it seized privately and by stealth. He simply wants his property left alone. And a person can be just as much, if not more, irritated, annoyed and injured by an unceremonious public arrest by a policeman as he is by a seizure in the privacy of his office or home.

One of the most effective ways of diluting or expanding a constitutionally guaranteed right is to substitute for the crucial word or words of a constitutional guarantee another word or words, more or less flexible and more or less restricted in meaning. This fact is well illustrated by the use of the term “right of privacy” as a comprehensive substitute for the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” “Privacy” is a broad, abstract and ambiguous concept which can easily be shrunken in meaning but which can also, on the other hand, easily be interpreted as a constitutional ban against many things other than searches and seizures. I have expressed the view many times that First Amendment freedoms, for example, have suffered from a failure of the courts to stick to the simple language of the First Amend-' ment in construing it, instead of invoking multitudes of words substituted for those the Framers used. See, e. g., New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 293 (concurring opinion); cases collected in City of El Paso v. Simmons, 379 U. S. 497, 517, n. 1 (dissenting opinion); Black, The Bill of Rights, 35 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 865. For these reasons I get nowhere in this case by talk about a constitutional “right of privacy” as an emanation from *510one or more constitutional provisions.1 I like my privacy as well as the next one, but I am nevertheless compelled to admit that government has a right to invade it unless prohibited by some specific constitutional provision. For these reasons I cannot agree with the Court’s judgment and the reasons it gives for holding this Connecticut law unconstitutional.

This brings me to the arguments made by my Brothers Harlan, White and Goldberg for invalidating the Connecticut law. Brothers Harlan 2 and White would invalidate it by reliance on the. Due Process Clause of. the Fourteenth Amendment, but Brother Goldberg, while agreeing with Brother Harlan, relies also on The Ninth Amendment. I have no doubt that the Connecticut-law could be applied in such a way as to abridge freedom of *511speech and press and therefore violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments. My disagreement with the Court’s opinion holding that there is such a violation here is a narrow one, relating to the application of the First Amendment to the facts and circumstances of this particular case. But my disagreement with Brothers Harlan, White and Goldberg is more basic. I think that if properly construed neither the Due Process Clause nor the Ninth Amendment, nor both together, could under any circumstances be a proper basis for invalidating the Connecticut law. I discuss the due process and Ninth Amendment arguments together because on analysis they turn out to be the same thing — merely using different words to claim for this Court and the federal judiciary power to invalidate any legislative act which the judges find irrational, unreasonable or offensive.

The due process argument which my Brothers Harlan and White adopt here is based, as their opinions indicate, on the premise that this Court is vested with power to invalidate all state laws that it considers to be arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, or oppressive, or on this Court’s belief that a particular state law under scrutiny has no “rational or justifying” purpose, or is offensive to a “sense of fairness • and justice.” 3 If these formulas based on “natural justice,” or others which mean the same thing,4 are to prevail, they require judges to determine *512what is or is not constitutional on the basis of their own appraisal of what laws are unwise or unnecessary. The power to make such decisions is of course that of a legislative body. Surely it has to be admitted that no provision of the Constitution specifically gives such blanket power to courts to exercise such a supervisory veto over the wisdom and value of legislative policies and to hold unconstitutional those laws which they believe unwise or dangerous. I readily admit that no legislative body, state or national, should pass laws that can justly be given any *513of the invidious labels invoked as constitutional excuses to strike down state laws. But perhaps it is not too much to say that no legislative body ever does pass laws without believing that they will accomplish a sane, rational, wise and justifiable purpose. While I completely subscribe to the holding of Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, and subsequent cases, that our Court has constitutional power to strike down statutes, state or federal, that violate commands of the Federal Constitution, I do not believe that we are granted power by the Due Process Clause or any other constitutional provision or provisions to measure constitutionality by our belief that legislation is arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable, or accomplishes no justifiable purpose, or is offensive to our own notions of “civilized standards of conduct.” 5 Such an appraisal of the wisdom of legislation is an attribute of the power to make laws, not of the power to interpret them. The use by federal courts of such a formula or doctrine or whatnot to veto federal or state laws simply takes away from Congress and States the power to make laws based on their own judgment of fairness and wisdom and transfers that power to this Court for ultimate determination — a power which was specifically denied to federal courts by the convention that framed the Constitution.6

*514Of the cases on which my Brothers White and Goldberg rely so heavily, undoubtedly the reasoning of two of them supports their result here — as would that of a number of others which they do not bother to name, e. g., *515Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 1, Jay Burns Baking Co. v. Bryan, 264 U. S. 504, and Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, 261 U. S. 525. The two they do cite and quote from, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, were both decided in opinions by Mr. Justice McReynolds which elaborated the same natural law due process philosopy found in Lochner v. New York, supra, one of the cases on which he relied in Meyer, along with such other long-discredited decisions as, e. g., Adams v. Tanner, 244 U. S. 590, and Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, supra. Meyer held unconstitutional, as an “arbitrary” and unreasonable interference with the right of a teacher to carry on his occupation and of parents to hire him, a *516state law forbidding the teaching of modern foreign languages to young children in the schools.7 And in Pierce, relying principally on Meyer, Mr. Justice McReynolds said that a state law requiring that all children attend public schools interfered unconstitutionally with the property rights of private school corporations because it was an “arbitrary, unreasonable and unlawful interference” which threatened “destruction of their business and property.” 268 U. S., at 536. Without, expressing an opinion as to whether either of those cases reached a correct result in light of our later decisions applying the First Amendment to the States through the Fourteenth,81 merely point out that the reasoning stated in Meyer and Pierce was the same natural law due process philosophy which many later opinions repudiated, and which I cannot accept. Brothers White and Goldberg also cite other cases, such as NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, and Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, which held that States in regulating conduct could not, consistently with the First Amendment as applied to them by the Fourteenth, pass unnecessarily broad laws which might indirectly infringe on First Amendment freedoms.9 See Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Virginia ex rel. *517Virginia State Bar, 377 U. S. 1, 7-8.10 Brothers White and Goldberg now apparently would start from this requirement that laws be narrowly drafted so as not to curtail free speech and assembly, and extend it limitlessly to require States to justify any law restricting “liberty” as my Brethren define “liberty.” This would mean at the *518very least, I suppose, that every state criminal statute— since it must inevitably curtail “liberty” to some extent— would be suspect, and would have to be justified to this Court.11

My Brother Goldberg has adopted the recent discovery 12 that the Ninth Amendment as well as the Due Process Clause can be used by this Court as authority to strike down all state legislation which this Court thinks *519violates “fundamental principles of liberty and justice,” or is contrary to the “traditions and [collective] conscience of our people.” He also states, without proof satisfactory to me, that in making decisions on this basis judges will not consider “their personal and private notions.” One may ask how they can avoid considering them. Our Court certainly has no machinery with which to take a Gallup Poll.13 And the scientific miracles of this age have not yet produced a gadget which the Court can use to determine what traditions are rooted in the “[collective] conscience of our people.” Moreover, one would certainly have to look far beyond the language of the Ninth Amendment14 to find that the Framers vested in this Court any such awesome veto powers over lawmaking, either by the States or by the Congress. Nor does anything in the history of the Amendment offer any support for such a shocking doctrine. The whole history of the adoption of the Constitution and Bill of Rights points the other way, and the very material quoted by my Brother Goldberg shows that the Ninth Amendment was intended to protect against the idea that “by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power” to the Federal Government, “those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government [the United States], and were con*520sequently insecure.”15 That Amendment was passed, not to broaden the powers of this Court or any other department of “the General Government,” but, as every student of history knows, to assure the people that the Constitution in all its provisions was intended to limit the Federal Government to the powers granted expressly or by necessary implication. If any broad, unlimited power to hold laws unconstitutional because they offend what this Court conceives to be the “[collective] conscience of our people” is vested in this Court by the Ninth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, or any other provision of the Constitution, it was not given by the Framers, but rather has been bestowed on the Court by the Court. This fact is perhaps responsible for the peculiar phenomenon that for a period of a century and a half no serious suggestion was ever made that the Ninth Amendment, enacted to protect state powers against federal invasion, could be used as a weapon of federal power to prevent state legislatures from passing laws they consider appropriate to govern local affairs. Use of any such broad, unbounded judicial authority would make of this Court’s members a day-to-day constitutional convention.

I repeat so as not to be misunderstood that this Court does have power, which it should exercise, to hold laws unconstitutional where they are forbidden by the Federal Constitution. My point is that there is no provision *521of the Constitution which either expressly or impliedly vests power in this Court to sit as a supervisory agency over acts of duly constituted legislative bodies and set aside their laws because of the Court’s belief that the legislative policies adopted are unreasonable, unwise, arbitrary, capricious or irrational. The adoption of such a loose, flexible, uncontrolled standard for holding laws unconstitutional, if ever it is finally achieved, will amount tó a great unconstitutional shift of power to the courts which I believe and am constrained to say will be bad for the courts and worse for the country. Subjecting federal and state laws to such an unrestrained and unrestrainable judicial control as to the wisdom of legislative enactments would, I fear, jeopardize the separation of governmental powers that the Framers set up and at the same time threaten to take away much of the power of States to govern themselves which ,the Constitution plainly intended them to have.16

*522I realize that many good and able men have eloquently spoken and written, sometimes in rhapsodical strains, about the duty of this Court to keep the Constitution in tune with the times. The idea is that the Constitution must be changed from time to time and that this Court is charged with a duty to make those changes. For myself, I must with all deference reject that philosophy. The Constitution makers knew the need for change and provided for it. Amendments suggested by the people’s elected representatives can be submitted to the people or their selected agents for ratification. That method of change was good for our Fathers, and being somewhat old-fashioned I must add it is good enough for me. And so, I cannot rely on the Due Process Clause or the Ninth Amendment or any mysterious and uncertain natural law concept as a reason for striking down this state law. The Due Process Clause with an “arbitrary and capricious” or “shocking to the conscience” formula was liberally used by this Court to strike down economic legislation in the early decades of this century, threatening, many people thought, the tranquility and stability of the Nation. See, e. g., Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45. That formula, based on subjective considerations of “natural justice,” is no less dangerous when used to enforce this Court’s views about personal rights than those about economic rights. I had thought that we had laid that formula, as a means for striking down state legislation, to rest once and for all in cases like West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379; Olsen v. Nebraska ex rel. Western Reference & Bond Assn., 313 U. S. 236, and many other *523opinions.17 See also Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 74 (Holmes, J., dissenting).

In Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726, 730, this Court two years ago said in an opinion joined by all the Justices but one18 that

“The doctrine that prevailed in Lochner, Coppage, Adkins, Burns, and like cases — that due process authorizes courts to hold laws unconstitutional when they believe the legislature has acted unwisely — has long since been discarded. We have returned to the original constitutional proposition that courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to. pass laws.”

And only six weeks ago, without even bothering to hear argument, this Court overruled Tyson & Brother v. Banton, 273 U. S. 418, which had held state laws regulating ticket brokers to be a denial of due process of law.19 Gold *524v. DiCarlo, 380 TJ. S. 520. I find April’s holding hard to square with what my concurring Brethren urge today. They would reinstate the Lochner, Coppage, Adkins, Burns line of cases, cases from which this Court recoiled after the 1930’s, and which had been I thought totally discredited until now. Apparently my Brethren have less quarrel with state economic regulations than former Justices of their persuasion had. But any limitation upon their using the natural law due process philosophy to strike down any state law, dealing with any activity whatever, will obviously be only self-imposed.20

In 1798, when this Court was asked to hold another Connecticut law unconstitutional, Justice Iredell said:

“[I]t has been the policy of all the American states, which have, individually, framed their state constitutions since the revolution, and of the people of the United States, when they framed the Federal Constitution, to define with precision the objects of the legislative power, and to restrain its exercise within marked and settled boundaries. If any act of Congress, or of the Legislature of a state, violates those constitutional provisions, it is unquestionably void; though, I admit, that as the authority to declare it void is of a delicate and awful nature, the Court will never resort to that authority, but in a clear and urgent case. If, on the other hand, the Legislature of the Union, or the Legislature of any member of the Union, shall pass a law, within the *525general scope of their constitutional power, the Court cannot pronounce it to be void, merely because it is, in their judgment, contrary to the principles of natural justice. The ideas of natural justice are regulated by no fixed standard: the ablest and the purest men have differed upon the subject; and all that the Court could properly say, in such an event, would be, that the Legislature (possessed of an equal right of opinion) had passed an act which, in the opinion of the judges, was inconsistent with the abstract principles of natural justice.” Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 399 (emphasis in original).

I would adhere to that constitutional philosophy in passing on this Connecticut law today. I am not persuaded to deviate from the view which I stated in 1947 in Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 90-92 (dissenting opinion):

“Since Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, was decided, the practice has been firmly established, for better or worse, that courts can strike down legislative enactments which violate the Constitution. This process, of course, involves interpretation, and since words can have many meanings, interpretation obviously may result in contraction or extension of the original purpose of a constitutional provision, thereby affecting policy. But to pass upon the constitutionality of statutes by looking to the particular standards enumerated in the Bill of Rights and other parts of the Constitution is one thing; to invalidate statutes because of application of 'natural law’ deemed to be above and undefined by the Constitution is another. 'In the one instance, courts proceeding within clearly marked constitutional boundaries seek to execute policies written into the Constitution: in the other, they roam at will in the limit*526less area of their own beliefs as to reasonableness and actually select policies, a responsibility which the Constitution entrusts to the legislative representatives of the people.’ Federal Power Commission v. Pipeline Co., 315 U. S. 575, 599, 601, n. 4.” 21 (Footnotes omitted.)

The late Judge Learned Hand, after emphasizing his view that judges should not use the due process formula suggested in the concurring opinions today or any other formula like it to invalidate legislation offensive to their “personal preferences,” 22 made the statement, with which I fully agree, that:

“For myself it would be most irksome to be ruled by a bevy of Platonic Guardians, even if I *527knew how to choose them, which I assuredly do not.” 23

So far as I am concerned, Connecticut’s law as applied here is not forbidden by any provision of the Federal Constitution as that Constitution was written, and I would therefore affirm.

Mr. Justice Stewart,

whom Mr. Justice Black joins,

dissenting.

Since 1879 Connecticut has had on its books a law which forbids the use of contraceptives by anyone. I think this is an uncommonly silly law. As a practical matter, the law is obviously unenforceable, except in the oblique context of the present case. As a philosophical matter, I believe the use of contraceptives in the relationship of marriage should be left to personal and private choice, based upon each individual’s moral, ethical, and religious beliefs. As a matter of social policy, I think professional counsel about methods of birth control should be available to all, so that each individual’s choice can be meaningfully made. But we are not asked in this case to say whether we think this law is unwise, or even asinine. We are asked to hold that it violates the United States Constitution. And that I cannot do.

In the course of its opinion the Court refers to no less than six Amendments to the Constitution: the First, the Third, the Fourth, the Fifth, the Ninth, and the Four*528teenth. But the Court does not say which of these Amendments, if any, it thinks is infringed by this Connecticut law.

We are told that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is not, as such, the “guide” in this case. With that much I agree. There is no claim that this law, duly enacted by the Connecticut Legislature, is unconstitutionally vague. There is no claim .that the appellants were denied any of the elements of procedural due process at their trial, so as to make their convictions constitutionally invalid. And, as the Court says, the day has long passed since the Due Process Clause was regarded as a proper instrument for determining “the wisdom, need, and propriety” of state laws. Compare Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, with Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726. My Brothers Harlan and White to the contrary, “[w]e have returned to the original constitutional proposition that courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws.” Ferguson v. Skrupa, supra, at 730.

As to the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, I can find nothing in any of them to invalidate this Connecticut law, even assuming that all those Amendments are fully applicable against the States.1 It has *529not even been argued that this is a law “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” 2 And surely, unless the solemn process of constitutional adjudication is to descend to the level of a play on words, there is not involved here any abridgment of “the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” 3 No soldier has been quartered in any house.4 There has been no search, and no seizure.5 Nobody has been compelled to be a witness against himself.6

The Court also quotes the Ninth Amendment, and my Brother Goldberg's concurring opinion relies heavily upon it. But to say that the Ninth Amendment has anything to do with this case is to turn somersaults with history. The Ninth Amendment, like its companion the Tenth, which this Court held “states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered,” United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 124, was framed by James Madison and adopted by the States simply to make clear that the adoption of the Bill of Rights did not alter the plan that *530the Federal Government was to be a government of express and limited powers, and that all rights and powers not delegated to it were retained by the people and the individual States. Until today no member of this Court has ever suggested thjat the Ninth Amendment meant anything else, and the idea that a federal court could ever use the Ninth Amendment to annul a law passed by the elected representatives of the people of the State of Connecticut would have caused James Madison no little wonder.

What provision of the Constitution, then, does make this state law invalid? The Court says it is the right of privacy “created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees.” With all deference, I can find no such general right of privacy in the Bill of Rights, in any other part of the Constitution, or in any case ever before decided by this Court.7

At the oral argument in this case we were told that the Connecticut law does not “conform to current community standards.” But it is not the function of this Court to decide cases on the basis of community standards. We are here to decide cases “agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States.” It is the essence of judicial *531duty to subordinate our own personal views, our own ideas of what legislation is wise and what is not. If, as I should surely hope, the law before us does not reflect the standards of the people of Connecticut, the people of Connecticut can freely exercise their true Ninth and Tenth Amendment rights to persuade their elected representatives to repeal it. That is the constitutional way to take this law off the books.8

Mr. Justice Brennan

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Appellee William Baird was convicted at a bench trial in the Massachusetts Superior Court under Massachusetts General Laws Ann., c. 272, § 21, first, for exhibiting contraceptive articles in the course of delivering a lecture on contraception to a group of students at Boston University and, second, for giving a young woman a package of Emko vaginal foam at the close of his address.1 The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court unanimously set aside the conviction for exhibiting contraceptives on the ground that it violated Baird’s First Amendment rights, but by a four-to-three vote sustained the conviction for giving away the foam. Commonwealth v. Baird, 355 Mass. 746, 247 N. E. 2d 574 (1969). Baird subsequently filed a petition for a federal writ of habeas corpus, which the District Court dismissed. 310 F. Supp. 951 (1970). On appeal, however, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated the dismissal and remanded the action with directions to grant the writ discharging Baird. 429 F. 2d 1398 (1970). This appeal by the Sheriff of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, followed, and we noted probable jurisdiction. 401 U. S. 934 (1971). We affirm.

Massachusetts General Laws Ann., c. 272, § 21, under which Baird was convicted, provides a maximum five-year term of imprisonment for “whoever . . . gives away . . . any drug, medicine, instrument or article whatever *441for the prevention of conception,” except as authorized in § 21A. Under § 21 A, “[a] registered physician may administer to or prescribe for any married person drugs or articles intended for the prevention of pregnancy or conception. [And a] registered pharmacist actually engaged in the business of pharmacy may furnish such drugs or articles to any married person presenting a prescription from a registered physician.” 2 As interpreted by the State Supreme Judicial *442Court, these provisions make it a felony for anyone, other than a registered physician or pharmacist acting in accordance with the terms of § 21A, to dispense any article with the intention that it be used for the prevention of conception. The statutory scheme distinguishes among three distinct classes of distributees — first, married persons may obtain contraceptives to prevent pregnancy, but only from doctors or druggists on prescription; second, single persons may not obtain contraceptives from anyone to prevent pregnancy; and, third, married or single persons may obtain contraceptives from anyone to prevent, not pregnancy, but the spread of disease. This construction of state law is, of course, binding on us. E. g., Groppi v. Wisconsin, 400 U. S. 505, 507 (1971).

The legislative purposes that the statute is meant to serve are not altogether clear. In Commonwealth v. Baird, supra, the Supreme Judicial Court noted only the State’s interest in protecting the health of its citizens: “[T]he prohibition in §21,” the court declared, “is directly related to” the State’s goal of “preventing the distribution of articles designed to prevent conception which may have undesirable, if not dangerous, physical consequences.” 355 Mass., at 753, 247 N. E. 2d, at 578. In a subsequent decision, Sturgis v. Attorney General, 358 Mass. 37, -, 260 N. E. 2d 687, 690 (1970), the court, however, found “a second and more compelling ground for upholding the statute” — namely, to protect morals through “regulating the private sexual lives of single persons.” 3 The Court of Appeals, for reasons that will *443appear, did not consider the promotion of health or the protection of morals through the deterrence of fornication to be the legislative aim. Instead, the court concluded that the statutory goal was to limit contraception in and of itself — a purpose that the court held conflicted “with fundamental human rights” under Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965), where this Court struck down Connecticut’s prohibition against the use of contraceptives as an unconstitutional infringement of the right of marital privacy. 429 F. 2d, at 1401-1402.

We agree that the goals of deterring premarital sex and regulating the distribution of potentially harmful articles cannot reasonably be regarded as legislative aims of §§21 and 21 A. And we hold that the statute, viewed as a prohibition on contraception per se, violates the rights of single persons under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

I

We address at the outset appellant’s contention that Baird does not have standing to assert the rights of unmarried persons denied access to contraceptives because he was neither an authorized distributor under § 21A nor a single person unable to obtain contraceptives. There can be no question, of course, that Baird has sufficient interest in challenging the statute’s validity to satisfy the “case or controversy” requirement of Article III of the Constitution.4 Appellant’s argument, however, is that *444this case is governed by the Court’s self-imposed rules of restraint, first, that “one to whom application of a statute is constitutional will not be heard to attack the statute on the . ground that impliedly it might also be taken as applying to other persons or other situations in which its application might be unconstitutional,” United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17, 21 (1960), and, second, the “closely related corollary that a litigant may only assert his own constitutional rights or immunities,” id., at 22. Here, appellant contends that Baird’s conviction rests on the restriction in § 21A on permissible distributors and that that restriction serves a valid health interest independent of the limitation on authorized distributees. Appellant urges, therefore, that Baird’s action in giving away the foam fell squarely within the conduct- that the legislature meant and had power to prohibit and that Baird should not be allowed to attack the statute in its application to potential recipients. In any event, appellant concludes, since Baird was not himself a single person denied access to contraceptives, he should not be heard to assert their rights. We cannot agree.

The Court of Appeals held that the statute under which Baird was convicted is not a health measure. If that view is correct, we do not see how Baird may be prevented, because he was neither a doctor nor a druggist, from attacking the statute in its alleged discriminatory application to potential distributees. We think, too, that our self-imposed rule against the assertion of third-party rights must be relaxed in this case just as in Griswold v. Connecticut, supra. There the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut and a licensed physician who had prescribed contraceptives for married persons and been convicted as accessories to the crime of using contraceptives were held to have standing to raise the constitutional rights of the patients with whom they had a professional relationship. *445Appellant herPargues that the absence of a professional or aiding^aSM-abetting relationship distinguishes this case from (jmswold. 'Yet, as the Court’s discussion of prior authority in Griswold, 381 U. S., at 481, indicates, the doctor-patient and accessory-principal relationships are not the only circumstances in which one person has been found to have standing to assert the rights of another. Indeed, in Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U. S. 249 (1953), a seller of land was entitled to defend against an action for damages for breach of a racially restrictive covenant on the ground that enforcement of the covenant violated the equal protection rights of prospective non-Caucasian purchasers. The relationship there between the defendant and those whose rights he sought to assert was not simply the fortuitous connection between a vendor and potential vendees, but the relationship between one who acted to protect the rights of a minority and the minority itself. Sedler, Standing to Assert Constitutional Jus Tertii in the Supreme Court, 71 Yale L. J. 599, 631 (1962). And so here the relationship between Baird and those whose rights he seeks to assert is not simply that between a distributor and potential distributees, but that between an advocate of the rights of persons to obtain contraceptives and those desirous of doing so. The very point of Baird’s giving away the vaginal foam was to challenge the Massachusetts statute that limited access to contraceptives.

In any event, more important than the nature of the relationship between the litigant and those whose rights he seeks to assert is the impact of the litigation on the third-party interests.5 In Griswold, 381 U. S., at 481, the *446Court stated: “The rights of husband and wife, pressed here, are likely to be diluted or adversely affected unless those rights are considered in a suit involving those who have this kind of confidential relation to them.” A similar situation obtains here. Enforcement of the Massachusetts statute will materially impair the ability of single persons to obtain contraceptives. In fact, the case for according standing to assert third-party rights is stronger in this regard here than in Griswold because unmarried persons denied access to contraceptives in Massachusetts, unlike the users of contraceptives in Connecticut, are not themselves subject to prosecution and, to that extent, are denied a forum in which to assert their own rights. Cf. NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449 (1958); Barrows v. Jackson, supra.6 The Massachusetts statute, unlike the Connecticut law considered in Gris-wold, prohibits, not use, but distribution.

For the foregoing reasons we hold that Baird, who is now in a position, and plainly has an adequate incentive, to assert the rights of unmarried persons denied access to contraceptives, has standing to do so. We turn to the merits.

II

The basic principles governing application of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment are familiar. As The Chief Justice only recently explained in Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71, 75-76 (1971):

“In applying that clause, this Court has consistently recognized that the Fourteenth Amendment *447does not deny to States the power to treat different classes of persons in different ways. Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27 (1885); Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61 (1911); Railway Express Agency v. New York, 336 U. S. 106 (1949); McDonald v. Board of Election Commissioners, 394 U. S. 802 (1969). The Equal Protection Clause of that amendment does, however, deny to States the power to legislate that different treatment be accorded to persons placed by a statute into different classes on the basis of criteria wholly unrelated to the objective of that statute. A classification 'must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.’ Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U. S. 412, 415 (1920).”

The question for our determination in this case is whether there is some ground of difference that rationally explains the different treatment accorded married and unmarried persons under Massachusetts General Laws Ann., c. 272, §§21 and 21 A.7 For the reasons that follow, we conclude that no such ground exists.

First. Section 21 stems from Mass. Stat. 1879, c. 159, § 1, which prohibited, without exception, distribution of articles intended to be used as contraceptives. In Commonwealth v. Allison, 227 Mass. 57, 62, 116 N. E. 265, *448266 (1917), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court explained that the law’s “plain purpose is to protect purity, to preserve chastity, to encourage continence and self restraint, to defend the sanctity of the home, and thus to engender in the State and nation a virile and virtuous race of men and women.” Although the State clearly abandoned that purpose with the enactment of § 21A, at least insofar as the illicit sexual activities of married persons are concerned, see n. 3, supra, the court reiterated in Sturgis v. Attorney General, supra, that the object of the legislation is to discourage premarital sexual intercourse. Conceding that the State could, consistently with the Equal Protection Clause, regard the problems of extramarital and premarital sexual relations as “[e] vils ... of different dimensions and proportions, requiring different remedies,” Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 489 (1955), we cannot agree that the deterrence of premarital sex may reasonably be regarded as the purpose of the Massachusetts law.

It would be plainly unreasonable to assume that Massachusetts has prescribed pregnancy and the birth of an unwanted child as punishment for fornication, which is a misdemeanor under Massachusetts General Laws Ann., c. 272, § 18. Aside from the scheme of values that assumption would attribute to the State, it is abundantly clear that the effect of the ban on distribution of contraceptives to unmarried persons has at best a marginal relation to the proffered objective. What Mr. Justice Goldberg said in Griswold v. Connecticut, supra, at 498 (concurring opinion), concerning the effect of Connecticut’s prohibition on the use of contraceptives in discouraging extramarital sexual relations, is equally applicable here. “The rationality of this justification is dubious, particularly in light of the admitted widespread availability to all persons in the State of Connecticut, unmarried as well as married, of birth-control devices for the *449prevention of disease, as distinguished from the prevention of conception.” See also id., at 505-507 (White, J., concurring in judgment). Like Connecticut’s laws, §§21 and 21A do not at all regulate the distribution of contraceptives when they are to be used to prevent, not pregnancy, but the spread of disease. Commonwealth v. Corbett, 307 Mass. 7, 29 N. E. 2d 151 (1940), cited with approval in Commonwealth v. Baird, 355 Mass., at 754, 247 N. E. 2d, at 579. Nor, in making contraceptives available to married persons without regard to their intended use, does Massachusetts attempt to deter married persons from engaging in illicit sexual relations with unmarried persons. Even on the assumption that the fear of pregnancy operates as a deterrent to fornication, the Massachusetts statute is thus so riddled with exceptions that deterrence of premarital sex cannot reasonably be regarded as its aim.

Moreover, §§21 and 21A on their face have a dubious relation to the State’s criminal prohibition on fornication. As the Court of Appeals explained, “Fornication is a misdemeanor [in Massachusetts], entailing a thirty dollar fine, or three months in jail. Massachusetts General Laws Ann. c. 272 § IS. Violation of the present statute is a felony, punishable by five years in prison. We find it hard to believe that the legislature adopted a statute carrying a five-year penalty for its possible, obviously by no means fully effective, deterrence of the commission of a ninety-day misdemeanor.” 429 F. 2d, at 1401. Even conceding the legislature a full measure of discretion in fashioning means to prevent fornication, and recognizing that the State may seek to deter prohibited conduct by punishing more severely those who facilitate than those who actually engage in its commission, we, like the Court of Appeals, cannot believe that in this instance Massachusetts has chosen to expose the aider and abetter who simply gives away a contraceptive to *45020 times the 90-day sentence of the offender himself. The very terms of the State’s criminal statutes, coupled with the de minimis effect of §§21 and 21A in deterring fornication, thus compel the conclusion that such deterrence cannot reasonably be taken as the purpose of the ban on distribution of contraceptives to unmarried persons.

Second. Section 21A was added to the Massachusetts General Laws by Stat. 1966, c. 265, § 1. The Supreme Judicial Court in Commonwealth v. Baird, supra, held that the purpose of the amendment was to serve the health needs of the community by regulating the distribution of potentially harmful articles. It is plain that Massachusetts had no such purpose in mind before the enactment of § 21A. As the Court of Appeals remarked, “Consistent with the fact that the statute was contained in a chapter dealing with ‘Crimes Against Chastity, Morality, Decency and Good Order,’ it was cast only in terms of morals. A physician was forbidden to prescribe contraceptives even when needed for the protection of health. Commonwealth v. Gardner, 1938, 300 Mass. 372, 15 N. E. 2d 222.” 429 F. 2d, at 1401. Nor did the Court of Appeals “believe that the legislature [in enacting § 21A] suddenly reversed its field and developed an interest in health. Rather, it merely made what it thought to be the precise accommodation necessary to escape the Griswold ruling.” Ibid.

Again, we must agree with the Court of Appeals. If health were the rationale of § 21A, the statute would be both discriminatory and overbroad. Dissenting in Commonwealth v. Baird, 355 Mass., at 758, 247 N. E. 2d, at 581, Justices Whittemore and Cutter stated that they saw “in § 21 and § 21A, read together, no public health purpose. If there is need to have a physician prescribe (and a pharmacist dispense) contraceptives, that need is as great for unmarried persons as for married persons.” *451The Court of Appeals added: “If the prohibition [on distribution to unmarried persons] ... is to be taken to mean that the same physician who can prescribe for married patients does not have sufficient skill to protect the health of patients who lack a marriage certificate, or who may be currently divorced, it is illogical to the point of irrationality.” 429 F. 2d, at 1401.8 Furthermore, we must join the Court of Appeals in noting that not all contraceptives are potentially dangerous.9 As a result, if the Massachusetts statute were a health measure, it would not only invidiously discriminate against the unmarried, but also be overbroad with respect to the married, a fact that the Supreme Judicial Court itself seems to have conceded in Sturgis v. Attorney General, 358 Mass., at -, 260 N. E. 2d, at 690, where it noted that “it may well be that certain contraceptive medication and devices constitute no hazard to health, in which event it could be argued that the statute swept too broadly in its prohibition.” “In-this posture,” as the Court of *452Appeals concluded, “it is impossible to think of the statute as intended as a health measure for the unmarried, and it is almost as difficult to think of it as so intended even as to the married.” 429 F. 2d, at 1401.

But if further proof that the Massachusetts statute is not a health measure is necessary, the argument of Justice Spiegel, who also dissented in Commonwealth v. Baird, 355 Mass., at 759, 247 N. E. 2d, at 582, is conclusive : “It is at best a strained conception to say that the Legislature intended to prevent the distribution of articles 'which may have undesirable, if not dangerous, physical consequences.’ If that was the Legislature’s goal, § 21 is not required” in view of the federal and state laws already regulating the distribution of harmful drugs. See Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, § 503, 52 Stat. 1051, as amended, 21 U. S. C. § 353; Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., c. 94, § 187A, as amended. We conclude, accordingly, that, despite the statute’s superficial earmarks as a health measure, health, on the face of the statute, may no more reasonably be regarded as its purpose than the deterrence of premarital sexual relations.

Third. If the Massachusetts statute cannot be upheld as a deterrent to fornication or as a health measure, may it, nevertheless, be sustained simply as a prohibition on contraception? The Court of Appeals analysis “led inevitably to the conclusion that, so far as morals are concerned, it is contraceptives per se that are considered immoral — to thq extent that Griswold will permit such a declaration.” 429 F. 2d, at 1401-1402. The Court of Appeals went on to hold, id., at 1402:

“To say that contraceptives are immoral as such, and are to be forbidden to unmarried persons who will nevertheless persist in having intercourse, means that such persons must risk for themselves an unwanted pregnancy, for the child, illegitimacy, and *453for society, a possible obligation of support. Such a view of morality is not only the very mirror image of sensible legislation; we consider that it conflicts with fundamental human rights. In the absence of demonstrated harm, we hold it is beyond the competency of the state.”

We need not and do not, however, decide that important question in this case because, whatever the rights of the individual to access to contraceptives may be, the rights must be the same for the unmarried and the married alike.

If under Griswold the distribution of contraceptives to married persons cannot be prohibited, a ban on distribution to unmarried persons would be equally impermissible. It is true that in Griswold the right of privacy in question inhered in the marital relationship. Yet the \ marital couple is not an independent entity with a mind . and heart of its own, but an association of two individ- | uals each with a separate intellectual and emotional / makeup. If the right of privacy means anything, it is j the right of the individual, married or single, to be free j from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters] so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision] whether to bear or beget a child. See Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557 (1969).10 See also Skinner v. Okla*454homa, 316 U. S. 535 (1942); Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11, 29 (1905).

On the other hand, if Griswold is no bar to a prohibition on the distribution of contraceptives, the State could not, consistently with the Equal Protection Clause, outlaw distribution to unmarried but not to married persons. In each case the evil, as perceived by the State, would be identical, and the underinclusion would be invidious. Mr. Justice Jackson, concurring in Railway Express Agency v. New York, 336 U. S. 106, 112-113 (1949), made the point:

“The framers of the Constitution knew, and we should not forget today, that there is no more effective practical guaranty against arbitrary and unreasonable government than to require that the principles of law which officials would impose upon a minority must be imposed generally. Conversely, nothing opens the door to arbitrary action so effectively as to allow those officials to pick and choose only a few to whom they will apply legislation and thus to escape the political retribution that might be visited upon them if larger numbers were affected. Courts can take no better measure to assure that laws will be just than to require that laws be equal in operation.”

Although Mr. Justice Jackson’s comments had reference to administrative regulations, the principle he affirmed has equal application to the legislation here. We hold that by providing dissimilar treatment for married and unmarried persons who are similarly situated, Massa*455chusetts General Laws Ann., c. 272, §§21 and 21 A, violate the Equal Protection Clause. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Powell and Mr. Justice Rehnquist took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Mr. Justice Douglas,

concurring.

While I join the opinion of the Court, there is for me a narrower ground for affirming the Court of Appeals. This to me is a simple Pirst Amendment case, that amendment being applicable to the States by reason of the Fourteenth. Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359.

Under no stretch of the law as presently stated could Massachusetts require a license for those who desire to lecture on planned parenthood, contraceptives, the rights of women, birth control, or any allied subject, or pláce a tax on that privilege. As to license taxes on First Amendment rights we said in Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 115:

“A license tax certainly does not acquire constitutional validity because it classifies the privileges protected by the First Amendment along with the wares and merchandise of hucksters and peddlers and treats them all alike. Such equality in treatment does not save the ordinance. Freedom of press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion are in a preferred position.”

We held in Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, that a person speaking at a labor union rally could not be required to register or obtain a license:

“As a matter of principle a requirement of registration in order to make a public speech would seem generally incompatible with an exercise of the rights *456of free speech and free assembly. Lawful public assemblies, involving no element of grave and immediate danger to an interest the State is entitled to protect, are not instruments of harm which require previous identification of the speakers. And the right either of workmen or of unions under these conditions to assemble and discuss their own affairs is as fully protected by the Constitution as the right of businessmen, farmers, educators, political party members or others to assemble and discuss their affairs and to enlist the support of others.

“. . . If one who solicits support for the cause of labor may be required to register as a condition to the exercise of his right to make a public speech, so may he who seeks to rally support for any social, business, religious or political cause. We think a requirement that one must register before he undertakes to make a public speech to enlist support for a lawful movement is quite incompatible with the requirements of the First Amendment.” Id., at 539, 540.

Baird addressed an audience of students and faculty at Boston University on the subject of birth control and overpopulation. His address was approximately one hour in length and consisted of a discussion of various contraceptive devices displayed by means of diagrams on two demonstration boards, as well as a display of contraceptive devices in their original packages. In addition, Baird spoke of the respective merits of various contraceptive devices; overpopulation in the world; crises throughout the world due to overpopulation; the large number of abortions performed on unwed mothers; and quack abortionists and the potential harm to women resulting from abortions performed by quack abortionists. Baird also urged members of the audience to petition the Massachusetts Legislature and to make known their feel*457ings with regard to birth control laws in order to bring about a change in the laws. At the close of the address Baird invited members of the audience to come to the stage and help themselves to the contraceptive articles. We do not know how many accepted Baird’s invitation. We only know that Baird personally handed one woman a package of Emko Vaginal Foam. He was then arrested and indicted (1) for exhibiting contraceptive devices and (2) for giving one such device away. The conviction for the first offense was reversed, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts holding that the display of the articles was essential to a graphic representation of the lecture. But the conviction for the giving away of one article was sustained. 355 Mass. 746, 247 N. E. 2d 574. The case reaches us by federal habeas corpus.

Had Baird not “given away” a sample of one of the devices whose use he advocated, there could be no question about the protection afforded him by the First Amendment. A State may not “contract the spectrum of available knowledge.” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 482. See also Thomas v. Collins, supra; Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390. However noxious Baird’s ideas might have been to the authorities, the freedom to learn about them, fully to comprehend their scope and portent, and to weigh them against the tenets of the “conventional wisdom,” may not be abridged. Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1. Our system of government requires that we have faith in the ability of the individual to decide wisely, if only he is fully apprised of the merits of a controversy.

“Freedom of discussion, if it would fulfill its historic function in this nation, must embrace all issues about which information is needed or appropriate to enable the members of society to cope with the exigencies of their period.” Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 102.

The teachings of Baird and those of Galileo might be *458of a different order; but the suppression of either is equally repugnant.

As Milton said in the Areopagitica, “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

It is said that only Baird’s conduct is involved and United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, is cited. That case involved a registrant under the Selective Service Act burning his Selective Service draft card. When prosecuted for that act, he defended his conduct as “symbolic speech.” The Court held it was not.

Whatever may be thought of that decision on the merits,1 O’Brien is not controlling here. The distinction between “speech” and “conduct” is a valid one, insofar as it helps to determine in a particular case whether the purpose of the activity was to aid in the communication of ideas, and whether the form of the communication so interferes with the rights of others that reasonable regulations may be imposed.2 See Public Utilities Comm’n v. Pollak, 343 U. S. 451, 467 (Douglas, J., dissenting). *459Thus, excessive noise might well be “conduct” — a form of pollution — which can be made subject to precise, narrowly drawn regulations. See Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39, 54 (Douglas, J., dissenting). But “this Court has repeatedly stated, [First Amendment] rights are not confined to verbal expression. They embrace appropriate types of action . . . .” Brown v. Louisiana, 383 U. S. 131, 141-142.

Baird gave an hour’s lecture on birth control and as an aid to understanding the ideas which he was propagating he handed out one sample of one of the devices whose use he was endorsing. A person giving a lecture on coyote-getters would certainly improve his teaching technique if he passed one out to the audience; and he would be protected in doing so unless of course the device was loaded and ready to explode, killing or injuring people. The same holds true in my mind for mousetraps, spray guns, or any other article not dangerous per se on which speakers give educational lectures.

It is irrelevant to the application of these principles that Baird went beyond the giving of information about birth control and advocated the use of contraceptive articles. The First Amendment protects the opportunity to persuade to action whether that action be unwise or immoral, or whether the speech incites to action. See, e. g., Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444; Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229; Terminiello v. Chicago, supra.

In this case there was not even incitement to action.3 There is no evidence or finding that Baird intended that the young lady take the foam home with her when he handed it to her or that she would not have examined the *460article and then returned it to Baird, had he not been placed under arrest immediately upon handing the article over.4

First Amendment rights are not limited to verbal expression.5 The right to petition often involves the right to walk. The right of assembly may mean pushing or jostling. Picketing involves physical activity as well as a display of a sign. A sit-in can be a quiet, dignified protest that has First Amendment protection even though no speech is involved, as we held in Brown v. Louisiana, supra. Putting contraceptives on display is certainly an aid to speech and discussion. Handing an article under discussion to a member of the audience is a technique known to all teachers and is commonly used. A handout may be on such a scale as to smack of a vendor’s marketing scheme. But passing one article to an audience is merely a projection of the visual aid and should be a permissible adjunct of free speech. Baird was not making a prescription nor purporting to give medical advice. Handing out the article was not even a suggestion that the lady use it. At most it suggested that she become familiar with the product line.

I do not see how we can have a Society of the Dialogue, which the First Amendment envisages, if time-honored teaching techniques are barred to those who give educational lectures.

Mr. Justice White,

with whom Mr. Justice Blackmun joins, concurring in the result.

In Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965), we reversed criminal convictions for advising married per*461sons with respect to the use of contraceptives. As there applied, the Connecticut law, which forbade using contraceptives or giving advice on the subject, unduly invaded a zone of marital privacy protected by the Bill of Bights. The Connecticut law did not regulate the manufacture or sale of such products and we expressly left open any question concerning the permissible scope of such legislation. 381 U. S., at 485.

Chapter 272, § 21, of the Massachusetts General Laws makes it a criminal offense to distribute, sell, or give away any drug, medicine, or article for the prevention of conception. Section 21A excepts from this prohibition registered physicians who prescribe for and administer such articles to married persons and registered pharmacists who dispense on medical prescription.1

*462Appellee Baird was indicted for giving away Emko Vaginal Foam, a “medicine and article for the prevention of conception . 2 The State did not purport to charge or convict Baird for distributing to an unmarried person. No proof was offered as to the marital status of the recipient. The gravamen of the offense charged was that Baird had no license and therefore no authority to distribute to anyone. As the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts noted, the constitutional validity of Baird’s conviction rested upon his lack of status as a “distributor and not . . . the marital status of the recipient.” Commonwealth v. Baird, 355 Mass. 746, 753, 247 N. E. 2d 574, 578 (1969). The Federal District Court was of the same view.3

*463I assume that a State’s interest in the health of its citizens empowers it to restrict to medical channels the distribution of products whose use should be accompanied by medical advice. I also do not doubt that various contraceptive medicines and articles are properly available only on prescription, and I therefore have no difficulty with the Massachusetts court’s characterization of the statute at issue here as expressing “a legitimate interest in preventing the distribution of articles designed to prevent conception which may have undesirable, if not dangerous, physical consequences.” Id., at 753, 247 N. E. 2d, at 578. Had Baird distributed a supply of the so-called “pill,” I would sustain his conviction under this statute.4 Requiring a prescription to obtain potentially dangerous contraceptive material may place a substantial burden upon the right recognized in Griswold, but that burden is justified by a strong state interest and does not, as did the statute at issue in Griswold, sweep unnecessarily broadly or seek “to achieve its goals by means having a maximum destructive impact upon” a protected relationship. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S., at 485.

Baird, however, was found guilty of giving away vaginal foam. Inquiry into the validity of this conviction does not come to an end merely because some contraceptives are harmful and their distribution may be restricted. Our general reluctance to question a State’s judgment on matters of public health must give way where, as here, the restriction at issue burdens the con*464stitutional rights of married persons to use contraceptives. In these circumstances we may not accept on faith the State’s classification of a particular contraceptive as dangerous to health. Due regard for protecting constitutional rights requires that the record contain evidence that a restriction on distribution of vaginal foam is essential to achieve the statutory purpose, or the relevant facts concerning the product must be such as to fall within the range of judicial notice.

Neither requirement is met here. Nothing in the record even suggests that the distribution of vaginal foam should be accompanied by medical advice in order to protect the user’s health. Nor does the opinion of the Massachusetts court or the State’s brief filed here marshal facts demonstrating that the hazards of using vaginal foam are common knowledge or so incontrovertible that they may be noticed judicially. On the contrary, the State acknowledges that Emko is a product widely available without prescription. Given Griswold v. Connecticut, supra, and absent proof of the probable hazards of using vaginal foam, we could not sustain ap-pellee’s conviction had it been for selling or giving away foam to a married person. Just as in Griswold, where the right of married persons to use contraceptives was “diluted or adversely affected” by permitting a conviction for giving advice as to its exercise, id., at 481, so here, to sanction a medical restriction upon distribution of a contraceptive not proved hazardous to health would impair the exercise of the constitutional right.

That Baird could not be convicted for distributing Emko to a married person disposes of this case. Assuming, arguendo, that the result would be otherwise had the recipient been unmarried, nothing has been placed in the record to indicate her marital status. The State has maintained that marital status is irrelevant because an unlicensed person cannot legally dispense vaginal foam *465either to married or unmarried persons. This approach is plainly erroneous and requires the reversal of Baird's conviction; for on the facts of this case, it deprives us of knowing whether Baird was in fact convicted for making a constitutionally protected distribution of Emko to a married person.

The principle established in Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359 (1931), and consistently adhered to is that a conviction cannot stand where the “record fail[s] to prove that the conviction was not founded upon a theory which could not constitutionally support a verdict.” Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576, 586 (1969). To uphold a conviction even “though we cannot know that it did not rest on the invalid constitutional ground . . . would be to countenance a procedure which would cause a serious impairment of constitutional rights.” Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U. S. 287, 292 (1942).

Because this case can be .disposed of on the basis of settled constitutional doctrine, I perceive no reason for reaching the novel constitutional question whether a State may restrict or forbid the distribution of contraceptives to the unmarried. Cf. Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288, 345-348 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring).

Mk. Chief Justice Burgee,

dissenting.

The judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in sustaining appellee’s conviction for dispensing medicinal material without a license seems eminently correct to me and I would not disturb it. It is undisputed that appellee is not a physician or pharmacist and was prohibited under Massachusetts law from dispensing contraceptives to anyone, regardless of marital status. To my mind the validity of this restriction on dispensing medicinal substances is the only issue before the Court, *466and appellee has no standing to challenge that part of the statute restricting the persons to whom contraceptives are available. There is no need to labor this point, however, for everyone seems to agree that if Massachusetts has validly required, as a health measure, that all contraceptives be dispensed by a physician or pursuant to a physician’s prescription, then the statutory distinction based on marital status has no bearing on this case. United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17, 21 (1960).

The opinion of the Court today brushes aside appellee’s status as an unlicensed layman by concluding that the Massachusetts Legislature was not really concerned with the protection of health when it passed this statute. Mr. Justice White acknowledges the statutory concern with the protection of health, but finds the restriction on distributors overly broad because the State has failed to adduce facts showing the health hazards of the particular substance dispensed by appellee as distinguished from other contraceptives. Mr. Justice Douglas’ concurring opinion does not directly challenge the power of Massachusetts to prohibit laymen from dispensing contraceptives, but considers that appellee rather than dispensing the substance was resorting to a “time-honored teaching technique” by utilizing a “visual aid” as an adjunct to his protected speech. I am puzzled by this third characterization of the case. If the suggestion is that appellee was merely displaying the contraceptive material without relinquishing his ownership of it, then the argument must be that the prosecution failed to prove that appellee had “given away” the contraceptive material. But appellee does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence, and himself summarizes the record as showing that “at the close of his lecture he invited members of the audience ... to come and help themselves.” On the other hand, if the concurring opinion means that the First Amendment protects the distribu*467tion of all articles “not dangerous per se” when the distribution is coupled with some form of speech, then I must confess that I have misread certain cases in the area. See, e. g., United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 376 (1968); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 555 (1965); Giboney v. Empire Storage Co., 336 U. S. 490, 502 (1949).

My disagreement with the opinion of the Court and that of Mr. Justice White goes far beyond mere puzzlement, however, for these opinions seriously invade the constitutional prerogatives of the States and regrettably hark back to the heyday of substantive due process.

In affirming appellee’s conviction, the highest tribunal in Massachusetts held that the statutory requirement that contraceptives be dispensed only through medical channels served the legitimate interest of the State in protecting the health of its citizens. The Court today blithely hurdles this authoritative state pronouncement and concludes that the statute has no such purpose. Three basic arguments are advanced: First, since the distribution of contraceptives was prohibited as a moral matter in Massachusetts prior to 1966, it is impossible to believe that the legislature was concerned with health when it lifted the complete ban but insisted on medical supervision. I fail to see why the historical predominance of an unacceptable legislative purpose makes incredible the emergence of a new and valid one.1 See McGowan *468v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 445-449 (1961). The second argument, finding its origin in a dissenting opinion in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, rejects a health purpose because, “[i]f there is need to have a physician prescribe . . . contraceptives, that need is as great for unmarried persons as for married persons.” 355 Mass. 746, 758, 247 N. E. 2d 574, 581. This argument confuses the validity of the restriction on distributors with the validity of the further restriction on distributees, a part of the statute not properly before the Court. Assuming the legislature too broadly restricted the class of persons who could obtain contraceptives, it hardly follows that it saw no need to protect the health of all persons to whom they are made available. Third, the Court sees no health purpose underlying the restriction on distributors because other state and federal laws regulate the distribution of harmful drugs. I know of no rule that all enactments relating to a particular purpose must be neatly consolidated in one package in the statute books for, if so, the United States Code will not pass muster. I am unable to draw any inference as to legislative purpose from the fact that the restriction on dispensing contraceptives was not codified with other statutory provisions regulating the distribution of medicinal substances. And the existence of nonconflicting, nonpre-emptive federal laws is simply without significance in judging the validity or purpose of a state law on the same subject matter.

It is possible, of course, that some members of the Massachusetts Legislature desired contraceptives to be dispensed only through medical channels in order to minimize their use, rather than to protect the health of their users, but I do not think it is the proper function of this Court to dismiss as dubious a state court’s explication of a state statute absent overwhelming and irrefutable reasons for doing so.

*469Mr. Justice White, while acknowledging a valid legislative purpose of protecting health, concludes that the State lacks power to regulate the distribution of the contraceptive involved in this case as a means of protecting health.2 The opinion grants that appellee's conviction would be valid if he had given away a potentially harmful substance, but rejects the State’s placing this particular contraceptive in that category. So far as I am aware, this Court has never before challenged the police power of a State to protect the public from the risks of possibly spurious and deleterious substances sold within its borders. Moreover, a statutory classification is not invalid

“simply because some innocent articles or transactions may be found within the proscribed class. The inquiry must be whether, considering the end in view, the statute passes the bounds of reason and assumes the character of a merely arbitary fiat.” Purity Extract & Tonic Co. v. Lynch, 226 U. S. 192, 204 (1912).

But since the Massachusetts statute seeks to protect health by regulating contraceptives, the opinion invokes Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965), and puts the statutory classification to an unprecedented test: either the record must contain evidence supporting the classification or the health hazards of the particular contraceptive must be judicially noticeable. This is indeed a novel constitutional doctrine and not surprisingly no authority is cited for it.

Since the potential harmfulness of this particular medicinal substance has never been placed in issue in the *470state or federal courts, the State can hardly be faulted for its failure to build a record on this point. And it totally mystifies me why, in the absence of some evidence in the record, the factual underpinnings of the statutory classification must be “incontrovertible” or a matter of “common knowledge.”

The actual hazards of introducing a particular foreign substance into the human body are frequently controverted, and I cannot believe that unanimity of expert opinion is a prerequisite to a State’s exercise of its police power, no matter what the subject matter of the regulation. Even assuming no present dispute among medical authorities, we cannot ignore that it has become commonplace for a drug or food additive to be universally regarded as harmless on one day and to be condemned as perilous on the next. It is inappropriate for this Court to overrule a legislative classification by relying on the present consensus among leading authorities. The commands of the Constitution cannot fluctuate with the shifting tides of scientific opinion.

Even if it were conclusively established once and for all that the product dispensed by appellee is not actually or potentially dangerous in the somatic sense, I would still be unable to agree that the restriction on dispensing it falls outside the State’s power to regulate in the area of health. The choice of a means of birth control, although a highly personal matter, is also a health matter in a very real sense, and I see nothing arbitrary in a requirement of medical supervision.3 It is generally acknowledged that contraceptives vary in degree of effec*471tiveness and potential harmfulness.4 There may be compelling health reasons for certain women to choose the most effective means of birth control available, no matter how harmless the less effective alternatives.5 Others might be advised not to use a highly effective means of contraception because of their peculiar susceptibility to an adverse side effect.6 Moreover, there may be information known to the medical profession that a particular brand of contraceptive is to be preferred or avoided, or that it has not been adequately tested. Nonetheless, the concurring opinion would hold, as a constitutional matter, that a State must allow someone without medical training the same power to distribute this medicinal substance as is enjoyed by a physician.

It is revealing, I think, that those portions of the majority and concurring opinions rejecting the statutory limitation on distributors rely on no particular provision of the Constitution. I see nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment or any other part of the Constitu*472tion that even vaguely suggests that these medicinal forms of contraceptives must be available in the open market. I do not challenge Griswold v. Connecticut, supra, despite its tenuous moorings to the text of the Constitution, but I cannot view it as controlling authority for this case. The Court was there confronted with a statute flatly prohibiting the use of contraceptives, not one regulating their distribution. I simply cannot believe that the limitation on the class of lawful distributors has significantly impaired the right to use contraceptives in Massachusetts. By relying on Griswold in the present context, the Court has passed beyond the penumbras of the specific guarantees into the uncircum-scribed area of personal predilections.

The need for dissemination of information on birth control is not impinged in the slightest by limiting the distribution of medicinal substances to medical and pharmaceutical channels as Massachusetts has done by statute. The appellee has succeeded, it seems, in cloaking his activities in some new permutation of the First Amendment although his conviction rests in fact and law on dispensing a medicinal substance without a license. I am constrained to suggest that if the Constitution can be strained to invalidate the Massachusetts statute underlying appellee’s conviction, we could quite as well employ it for the protection of a “curbstone quack,” reminiscent of the “medicine man” of times past, who attracted a crowd of the curious with a soapbox lecture and then plied them with “free samples” of some unproved remedy. Massachusetts presumably outlawed such activities long ago, but today’s holding seems to invite their return.

*116Mr. Justice Blackmun

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This Texas federal appeal and its Georgia companion, Doe v. Bolton, post, p. 179, present constitutional challenges to state criminal abortion legislation. The Texas statutes under attack here are typical of those that have been in effect in many States for approximately a century. The Georgia statutes, in contrast, have a modern cast and are a legislative product that, to an extent at least, obviously reflects the influences of recent attitudinal change, of advancing medical knowledge and techniques, and of new thinking about an old issue.

We. forthwith acknowledge our awareness of the sensitive and emotional nature of the abortion controversy, of the vigorous opposing views, even among physicians, and of the deep and seemingly absolute convictions that the subject inspires. One’s philosophy, one’s experiences, one’s exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one’s religious training, one’s attitudes toward life and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all likely to influence and to color one’s thinking and conclusions about abortion.

In addition, population growth, pollution, poverty, and racial overtones tend to complicate and not to simplify the problem.

Our task, of course, is to resolve the issue by constitutional measurement, free of emotion and of predilection. We seek earnestly to do- this, and, because we do, we *117have inquired into, and in this opinion place some emphasis upon, medical and medical-legal history and what that history reveals about man’s attitudes toward the abortion procedure over the centuries. We bear in mind, too, Mr. Justice Holmes’ admonition in his now-vindicated dissent in Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 76 (1905):

“[The Constitution] is made for people of fundamentally differing views, and the accident of our finding certain opinions natural and familiar or novel and even shocking ought not to conclude our judgment upon the question whether statutes embodying them conflict with the Constitution of the United States.”

I

The Texas statutes that concern us here are Arts. 1191-1194 and 1196 of the State’s Penal Code.1 These make it a crime to “procure an abortion,” as therein *118defined, or to attempt one, except with respect to “an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother.” Similar statutes are in existence in a majority of the States.2

*119Texas first enacted a criminal abortion statute in 1854. Texas Laws 1854, c. 49, § 1, set forth in 3 H. Gammel, Laws of Texas 1502 (1898). This was soon modified into language that has remained substantially unchanged to the present time. See Texas Penal Code of 1857, c. 7, Arts. 531-536; G. Paschal, Laws of Texas, Arts. 2192-2197 (1866); Texas Rev. Stat., c. 8, Arts. 536-541 (1879); Texas Rev. Crim. Stat., Arts. 1071-1076 (1911). The final article in each of these compilations provided the same exception, as does the present Article 1196, for an abortion by “medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother.” 3

*120HH h — I

Jane Roe,4 a single woman who was residing m Dallas County, Texas, instituted this federal action in March 1970 against the District Attorney of the county. She sought a declaratory judgment that the Texas criminal abortion statutes were unconstitutional on their face, and an injunction restraining the defendant from enforcing the statutes.

Roe alleged that she was unmarried and pregnant; that she wished to terminate her pregnancy by an abortion “performed by a competent, licensed physician, under safe, clinical conditions”; that she was unable to get a “legal” abortion in Texas because her life did not appear to be threatened by the continuation of her pregnancy; and that she could not afford to travel to another jurisdiction in order to secure a legal abortion under safe conditions. She claimed that the Texas statutes were unconstitutionally vague and that they abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. By an amendment to her complaint Roe purported to sue “on behalf of herself and all other women” similarly situated.

James Hubert Hallford, a licensed physician, sought and was granted leave to intervene in Roe’s action. In his complaint he alleged that he had been arrested previously for violations of the Texas abortion statutes and *121that two such prosecutions were pending against him. He described conditions of patients who came to him seeking abortions, and he claimed that for many cases he, as a physician, was unable to determine whether they fell within or outside the exception recognized by Article 1196. He alleged that, as a consequence, the statutes were vague and uncertain, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that they violated his own and his patients’ rights to privacy in the doctor-patient relationship and his own right to practice medicine, rights he claimed were guaranteed by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

John and Mary Doe,5 a married couple, filed a companion complaint to that of Roe. They also named the District Attorney as defendant, claimed like constitutional deprivations, and sought declaratory and injunc-tive relief. The Does alleged that they were a childless couple; that Mrs. Doe was suffering from a “neural-chemical” disorder; that her physician had “advised her to avoid pregnancy until such time as her condition has materially improved” (although a pregnancy at the present time would not present “a serious risk” to her life); that, pursuant to medical advice, she had discontinued use of birth control pills; and that if she should become pregnant, she would want to terminate the pregnancy by an abortion performed by a competent, licensed physician under safe, clinical conditions. By an amendment to their complaint, the Does purported to sue “on behalf of themselves and all couples similarly situated.”

The two actions were consolidated and heard together by a duly convened three-judge district court. The suits thus presented the situations of the pregnant single woman, the childless couple, with the wife not pregnant, *122and the licensed practicing physician, all joining in the attack on the Texas criminal abortion statutes. Upon the filing of affidavits, motions were made for dismissal and for summary judgment. The court held that Roe and members of her class, and Dr. Hallford, had standing to sue and presented justiciable controversies, but that the Does had failed to allege facts sufficient to state a present controversy and did not have standing. It concluded that, with respect to the requests for a declaratory judgment, abstention was not warranted. On the merits, the District Court held that the “fundamental right of single women and married persons to choose whether to have children is protected by the Ninth Amendment, through the Fourteenth Amendment,” and that the Texas criminal abortion statutes were void on their face because they were both unconstitutionally vague and constituted an overbroad infringement of the plaintiffs’ Ninth Amendment rights. The court then held that abstention was warranted with respect to the requests for an injunction. It therefore dismissed the Does’ complaint, declared the abortion statutes void, and dismissed the application for injunctive relief. 314 F. Supp. 1217, 1225 (ND Tex. 1970).

The plaintiffs Roe and Doe and the intervenor Hall-ford, pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1253, have appealed to this Court from that part of the District Court’s judgment denying the injunction. The defendant District Attorney has purported to cross-appeal, pursuant to the same statute, from the court’s grant of declaratory relief to Roe and Hallford. Both sides also have taken protective appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That court ordered the appeals held in abeyance pending decision here. We postponed decision on jurisdiction to the hearing on the merits. 402 U. S. 941 (1971).

*123hH

It might have been preferable if the defendant, pursuant to our Rule 20, had presented to us a petition for certiorari before judgment in the Court of Appeals with respect to the granting of the plaintiffs’ prayer for declaratory relief. Our decisions in Mitchell v. Donovan, 398 U. S. 427 (1970), and Gunn v. University Committee, 399 U. S. 383 (1970), are to the effect that § 1253 does not authorize an appeal to this Court from the grant or denial of declaratory relief alone. We conclude, nevertheless, that those decisions do not foreclose our review of both the injunctive and the declaratory aspects of a case of this kind when it is properly here, as this one is, on appeal under § 1253 from specific denial of injunctive relief, and the arguments as to both aspects are necessarily identical. See Carter v. Jury Comm’n, 396 U. S. 320 (1970); Florida Lime Growers v. Jacobsen, 362 U. S. 73, 80-81 (1960). It would be destructive of time and energy for all concerned were we to rule otherwise. Cf. Doe v. Bolton, post, p. 179.

IV

We are next confronted with issues of justiciability, standing, and abstention. Have Roe and the Does established that “personal stake in the outcome of the controversy,” Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204 (1962), that insures that “the dispute sought to be adjudicated will be presented in an adversary context and in a form historically viewed as capable of judicial resolution,” Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 101 (1968), and Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 732 (1972) ? And what effect did the pendency of criminal abortion charges against Dr. Hallford in state court have upon the propriety of the federal court’s granting relief to him as a plaintiff-intervenor?

*124A. Jane Roe. Despite the use of the pseudonym, no suggestion is made that Roe is a fictitious person. For purposes of her case, we accept as true, and as established, her existence; her pregnant state, as of the inception of her suit in March 1970 and as late as May 21 of that year when she filed an alias affidavit with the District Court; and her inability to obtain a legal abortion in Texas.

Viewing Roe’s case as of the time of its filing and thereafter until as late as May, there can be little dispute that it then presented a case or controversy and that, wholly apart from the class aspects, she, as a pregnant single woman thwarted by the Texas criminal abortion laws, had standing to challenge those statutes. Abele v. Markle, 452 F. 2d 1121, 1125 (CA2 1971); Crossen v. Breckenridge, 446 F. 2d 833, 838-839 (CA6 1971); Poe v. Menghini, 339 F. Supp. 986, 990-991 (Kan. 1972). See Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33 (1915). Indeed, we do not read the appellee’s brief as really asserting anything to the contrary. The “logical nexus between the status asserted and the claim sought to be adjudicated,” Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S., at 102, and the necessary degree of contentiousness, Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U. S. 103 (1969), are both present.

The appellee notes, however, that the record does not disclose that Roe was pregnant at the time of the District Court hearing on May 22, 1970,6 or on the following June 17 when the court’s opinion and judgment were filed. And he suggests that Roe’s case must now be moot because she and all other members of her class are no longer subject to any 1970 pregnancy.

*125The usual rule in federal cases is that an actual controversy must exist at stages of appellate or certiorari review, and not simply at the date the action is initiated. United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36 (1950) ; Golden v. Zwickler, supra; SEC v. Medical Committee for Human Rights, 404 U. S. 403 (1972).

But when, as here, pregnancy is a significant fact in the litigation, the normal 266-day human gestation period is so short that the pregnancy will come to term before the usual appellate process is complete. If that termination makes a case moot, pregnancy litigation seldom will survive much beyond the trial stage, and appellate review will be effectively denied. Our law should not be that rigid. Pregnancy often comes more than once to the same woman, and in the general population, if man is to survive, it will always be with us. Pregnancy provides a classic justification for a conclusion of nonmootness. It truly could be “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U. S. 498, 515 (1911). See Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U. S. 814, 816 (1969); Carroll v. Princess Anne, 393 U. S. 175, 178-179 (1968); United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 345 U. S. 629, 632-633 (1953).

We, therefore, agree with the District Court that Jane Roe had standing to undertake this litigation, that she presented a justiciable controversy, and that the termination of her 1970 pregnancy has not rendered her case moot.

B. Dr. Hallford. The doctor’s position is different. He entered Roe’s litigation as a plaintiff-intervenor, alleging in his complaint that he:

“[I]n the past has been arrested for violating the Texas Abortion Laws and at the present time stands charged by indictment with violating said laws in the Criminal District Court of Dallas County, Texas to-wit: (1) The State of Texas vs. *126James H. Hallford, No. C-69-5307-IH, and (2) The State of Texas vs. James H. Hallford, No. C-69-2524-H. In both cases the defendant is charged with abortion . . . .”

In his application for leave to intervene, the doctor made like representations as to the abortion charges pending in the state court. These representations were also repeated in the affidavit he executed and filed in support of his motion for summary judgment.

Dr. Hallford is, therefore, in the position of seeking, in a federal court, declaratory and injunctive relief with respect to the same statutes under which he stands charged in criminal prosecutions simultaneously pending in state court. Although he stated that he has been arrested in the past for violating the State’s abortion laws, he makes no allegation of any substantial and immediate threat to any federally protected right that cannot be asserted in his defense against the state prosecutions. Neither is there any allegation of harassment or bad-faith prosecution. In order to escape the rule articulated in the cases cited in the next paragraph of this opinion that, absent harassment and bad faith, a defendant in a pending state criminal case cannot affirmatively challenge in federal court the statutes under which the State is prosecuting him, Dr. Hallford seeks to distinguish his status as a present state defendant from his status as a “potential future defendant” and to assert only the latter for standing purposes here.

We see no merit in that distinction. Our decision in Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U. S. 66 (1971), compels the conclusion that the District Court erred when it granted declaratory relief to Dr. Hallford instead of refraining from so doing. The court, of course, was correct in refusing to grant injunctive relief to the doctor. The reasons supportive of that action, however, are those expressed in Samuels v. Mackell, supra, and in Younger v. *127Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971); Boyle v. Landry, 401 U. S. 77 (1971); Perez v. Ledesma, 401 U. S. 82 (1971); and Byrne v. Karalexis, 401 U. S. 216 (1971). See also Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479 (1965). We note, in passing, that Younger and its companion cases were decided after the three-judge District Court decision in this case.

Dr. Hallford’s complaint in intervention, therefore, is to be dismissed.7 He is remitted to his defenses in the state criminal proceedings against him. We reverse the judgment of the District Court insofar as it granted Dr. Hallford relief and failed to dismiss his complaint in intervention.

C. The Does. In view of our ruling as to Roe’s standing in her case, the issue of the Does’ standing in their case has little significance. The claims they assert are essentially the same as those of Roe, and they attack the same statutes. Nevertheless, we briefly note the Does’ posture.

Their pleadings present them as a childless married couple, the woman not being pregnant, who have no desire to have children at this time because of their having received medical advice that Mrs. Doe should avoid pregnancy, and for “other highly personal reasons.” But they “fear . . . they may face the prospect of becoming *128parents.” And if pregnancy ensues, they “would want to terminate” it by an abortion. They assert an inability to obtain an abortion legally in Texas and, consequently, the prospect of obtaining an illegal abortion there or of going outside Texas to some place where the procedure could be obtained legally and competently.

We thus have as plaintiffs a married couple who have, as their asserted immediate and present injury, only an alleged “detrimental effect upon [their] marital happiness” because they are forced to “the choice of refraining from normal sexual relations or of endangering Mary Doe’s health through a possible pregnancy.” Their claim is that sometime in the future Mrs. Doe might become pregnant because of possible failure of contraceptive measures, and at that time in the future she might want an abortion that might then be illegal under the Texas statutes.

This very phrasing of the Does’ position reveals its speculative character. Their alleged injury rests on possible future contraceptive failure, possible future pregnancy, possible future unpreparedness for parenthood, and possible future impairment of health. Any one or more of these several possibilities may not take place and all may not combine. In the Does’ estimation, these possibilities might have some real or imagined impact upon their marital happiness. But we are not prepared to say that the bare allegation of so indirect an injury is sufficient to present an actual case or controversy. Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S., at 41-42; Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U. S., at 109-110; Abele v. Markle, 452 F. 2d, at 1124-1125; Crossen v. Breckenridge, 446 F. 2d, at 839. The Does’ claim falls far short of those resolved otherwise in the cases that the Does urge upon us, namely, Investment Co. Institute v. Camp, 401 U. S. 617 (1971); Data Processing Service v. Camp, 397 U. S. 150 (1970); *129and Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97 (1968). See also Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33 (1915).

The Does therefore are not appropriate plaintiffs in this litigation. Their complaint was properly dismissed by the District Court, and we affirm that dismissal.

y

The principal thrust of appellant’s attack on the Texas statutes is that they improperly invade a right, said to be possessed by the pregnant woman, to choose to terminate her pregnancy. Appellant would discover this right in the concept of personal “liberty” embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause; or in personal, marital, familial, and sexual privacy said to be protected by the Bill of Rights or its penumbras, see Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438 (1972); id., at 460 (White, J., concurring in result); or among those rights reserved to the people by the Ninth Amendment, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S., at 486 (Goldberg, J., concurring). Before addressing this claim, we feel it desirable briefly to survey, in several aspects, the history of abortion, for such insight as that history may afford us, and then to examine the state purposes and interests behind the criminal abortion laws.

VI

It perhaps is not generally appreciated that the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of States today are of relatively recent vintage. Those laws, generally proscribing abortion or its attempt at any time during pregnancy except when necessary to preserve the pregnant woman’s life, are not of ancient or even of common-law origin. Instead, they derive from statutory changes effected, for the most part, in the latter half of the 19th century.

*1301. Ancient attitudes. These are not capable of precise determination. We are told that at the time of the Persian Empire abortifacients were known and that criminal abortions were severely punished.8 We are also told, however, that abortion was practiced in Greek times as well as in the Roman Era,9 and that “it was resorted to without scruple.”10 The Ephesian, Soranos, often described as the greatest of the ancient gynecologists, appears to have been generally opposed to Rome’s prevailing free-abortion practices. He found it necessary to think first of the life of the mother, and he resorted to abortion when, upon this standard, he felt the procedure advisable.11 Greek and Roman law afforded little protection to the unborn. If abortion was prosecuted in some places, it seems to have been based on a concept of a violation of the father’s right to his offspring. Ancient religion did not bar abortion.12

2. The Hippocratic Oath. What then of the famous Oath that has stood so long as the ethical guide of the medical profession and that bears the name of the great Greek (460(?)-377(?) B. C.), who has been described *131as the Father of Medicine, the “wisest and the greatest practitioner of his art,” and the “most important and most complete medical personality of antiquity,” who dominated the medical schools of his time, and who typified the sum of the medical knowledge of the past? 13 The Oath varies somewhat according to the particular translation, but in any translation the content is clear: “I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion,” 14 or “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly, I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy.”15

Although the Oath is not mentioned in any of the principal briefs in this case or in Doe v. Bolton, post, p. 179, it represents the apex of the development of strict ethical concepts in medicine, and its influence endures to this day. Why did not the authority of Hippocrates dissuade abortion practice in his time and that of Rome? The late Dr. Edelstein provides us with a theory: 16 The Oath was not uncontested even in Hippocrates' day; only the Pythagorean school of philosophers frowned upon the related act of suicide. Most Greek thinkers, on the other hand, commended abortion, at least prior to viability. See Plato, Republic, V, 461; Aristotle, Politics, VII, 1335b 25. For the Pythagoreans, however, it was a matter of dogma. For them the embryo was animate from the moment of conception, and abortion meant destruction of a living being. The abortion clause of the Oath, therefore, “echoes Pythagorean doctrines,” *132and “[i’jn no other stratum of Greek opinion were such views held or proposed in the same spirit of uncompromising austerity.” 17

Dr. Edelstein then concludes that the Oath originated in a group representing only a small segment of Greek opinion and that it certainly was not accepted by all ancient physicians. He points out that medical writings down to Galen (A. D. 130-200) “give evidence of the violation of almost every one of its injunctions.” 18 But with the end of' antiquity a decided change took place. Resistance against suicide and against abortion became common. The Oath came to be popular. The emerging teachings of Christianity were in agreement with the Pythagorean ethic. The Oath “became the nucleus of all medical ethics” and “was applauded as the embodiment of truth.” Thus, suggests Dr. Edelstein, it is “a Pythagorean manifesto and not the expression of an absolute standard of medical conduct.” 19

This, it seems to us, is a satisfactory and acceptable explanation of the Hippocratic Oath's apparent rigidity. It enables us to understand, in historical context, a long-accepted and revered statement of medical ethics.

3. The common law. It is undisputed that at common law, abortion performed before “quickening”— the first recognizable movement of the fetus in útero, appearing usually from the 16th to the 18th week of pregnancy 20 — was not an indictable offense.21 The ab*133sence of- a common-law crime for pre-quickening abortion appears to have developed from a confluence of earlier philosophical, theological, and civil and canon law concepts of when life begins. These disciplines variously approached the question in terms of the point at which the embryo or fetus became “formed” or recognizably human, or in terms of when a “person” came into being, that is, infused with a “soul” or “animated.” A loose consensus evolved in early English law that these events occurred at some point between conception and live birth.22 This was “mediate animation.” Although *134Christian theology and the canon law came to fix the point of animation at 40 days for a male and 80 days for a female, a view that persisted until the 19th century, there was otherwise little ' agreement about the precise time of formation or animation. There was agreement, however, that prior to this point the fetus was to be regarded as part of the mother, and its destruction, therefore, was not homicide. Due to continued uncertainty about the precise time when animation occurred, to the lack of any empirical basis for the 40-80-day view, and perhaps to Aquinas' definition of movement as one of the two first principles of life, Bracton focused upon quickening as the critical point. The significance of quickening was echoed by later common-law scholars and found its way into the received common law in this country.

Whether abortion of a quick fetus was a felony at common law, or even a lesser crime, is still disputed. Bracton, writing early in the 13th century, thought it homicide.23 But the later and predominant view, following the great common-law scholars, has been that it was, at most, a lesser offense. In a frequently cited *135passage, Coke took the position that abortion of a woman “quick with childe” is “a great misprision, and no murder.” 24 Blackstone followed, saying that while abortion after quickening had once been considered manslaughter (though not murder), “modern law” took a less severe view.25 A recent review of the common-law precedents argues, however, that those precedents contradict Coke and that even post-quickening abortion was never established as a common-law crime.26 This is of some importance because while most American courts ruled, in holding or dictum, that abortion of an unquickened fetus was not criminal under their received common law,27 others followed Coke in stating that abor*136tion of a quick fetus was a “misprision,” a term they translated to mean “misdemeanor.” 28 That their reliance on Coke on this aspect of the law was uncritical and, apparently in all the reported cases, dictum (due probably to the paucity of common-law prosecutions for post-quickening abortion), makes it now appear doubtful that abortion was ever firmly established as a common-law crime even with respect to the destruction of a quick fetus.

4. The English statutory law. England's first criminal abortion statute, Lord Ellenborough's Act, 43 Geo. 3, c. 58, came in 1803. It made abortion of a quick fetus, § 1, a capital crime, but in § 2 it provided lesser penalties for the felony of abortion before quickening, and thus preserved the “quickening” distinction. This contrast was continued in the general revision of 1828, 9 Geo. 4, c. 31, § 13. It disappeared, however, together with the death penalty, in 1837, 7 Will. 4 & 1 Viet., c. 85, § 6, and did not reappear in the Offenses Against the Person Act of 1861, 24 & 25 Viet., c. 100, § 59, that formed the core of English anti-abortion law until the liberalizing reforms of 1967. In 1929, the Infant Life (Preservation) Act, 19 & 20 Geo. 5, c. 34, came into being. Its emphasis was upon the destruction of “the life of a child capable of being born alive.” It made a willful act performed with the necessary intent a felony. It contained a proviso that one was not to be *137found guilty of the offense “unless it is proved that the act which caused the death of the child was not done in good faith for the purpose only of preserving the life of the mother.”

A seemingly notable development in the English law was the case of Rex v. Bourne, [1939] 1 K. B. 687. This case apparently answered in the affirmative the question whether an abortion necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant woman was excepted from the criminal penalties of the 1861 Act. In his instructions to the jury, Judge Macnaghten referred to the 1929 Act, and observed that that Act related to “the case where a child is killed by a wilful act at the time when it is being delivered in the ordinary course of nature.” Id:, at 691. He concluded that the 1861 Act’s use of the word “unlawfully,” imported the same meaning expressed by the specific proviso in the 1929 Act, even though there was no mention of preserving the mother’s life in the 1861 Act. He then construed the phrase “preserving the life of the mother” broadly, that is, “in a reasonable sense,” to include a serious and permanent threat to the mother’s health, and instructed the jury to acquit Dr. Bourne if it found he had acted in a good-faith belief that the abortion was necessary for this purpose. Id., at 693-694. The jury did acquit.

Recently, Parliament enacted a new abortion law. This is the Abortion Act of 1967, 15 & 16 Eliz. 2, c. 87. The Act permits a licensed physician to perform an abortion where two other licensed physicians agree (a) “that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman, or of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated,” or (b) “that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as *138to be seriously handicapped.” The Act also provides that, in making this determination, “account may be taken of the pregnant woman’s actual or reasonably foreseeable environment.” It also permits a physician, without the concurrence of others, to terminate a pregnancy where he is of the good-faith opinion that the abortion “is immediately necessary to save the life or to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman.”

5. The American law. In this country, the law in effect in all but a few States until mid-19th century was the pre-existing English common law. Connecticut, the first State to enact abortion legislation, adopted in 1821 that part of Lord Ellenborough’s Act that related to a woman “quick with child.”29 The death penalty was not imposed. Abortion before quickening was made a crime in that State only in I860.30 In 1828, New York enacted legislation 31 that, in two respects, was to serve as a model for early anti-abortion statutes. First, while barring destruction of an unquickened fetus as well as a quick fetus, it made the former only a misdemeanor, but the latter second-degree manslaughter. Second, it incorporated a concept of therapeutic abortion by providing that an abortion was excused if it “shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such mother, or shall have been advised by two physicians to be necessary for such purpose.” By 1840, when Texas had received the common law,32 only eight American States *139had statutes dealing with abortion.33 It was not until after the War Between the States that legislation began generally to replace the common law. Most of these initial statutes dealt severely with abortion after quickening but were lenient with it before quickening. Most punished attempts equally with completed abortions. While many statutes included the exception for an abortion thought by one or more physicians to be necessary to save the mother’s life, that provision soon disappeared and the typical law required that the procedure actually be necessary for that purpose.

Gradually, in the middle and late 19th century the quickening distinction disappeared from the statutory law of most States and the degree of the offense and the penalties were increased. By the end of the 1950’s, a large majority of the jurisdictions banned abortion, however and whenever performed, unless done to save or preserve the life of the mother.34 The exceptions, Alabama and the District of Columbia, permitted abortion to preserve the mother’s health.35 Three States permitted abortions that were not “unlawfully” performed or that were not “without lawful justification,” leaving interpretation of those standards to the courts.36 In *140the past several years, however, a trend toward liberalization of abortion statutes has resulted in adoption, by about one-third of the States, of less stringent laws, most of them patterned after the ALI Model Penal Code, § 230.3,37 set forth as Appendix B to the opinion in Doe v. Bolton, post, p. 205.

It is thus apparent that at common law, at the time of the adoption of our Constitution, and throughout the major portion of the 19th century, abortion was viewed with less disfavor than under most American statutes currently in effect. Phrasing it another way, a woman enjoyed a substantially broader right to terminate a pregnancy than she does in most States today. At least with respect to the early stage of pregnancy, and very possibly without such a limitation, the oppor*141tunity to make this choice was present in this country well into the 19th century. Even later, the law continued for some time to treat less punitively an abortion procured in early pregnancy.

6. The position of the American Medical Association. The anti-abortion mood prevalent in this country in the late 19th century was shared by the medical profession. Indeed, the attitude of the profession may have played a significant role in the enactment of stringent criminal abortion legislation during that period.

An AMA Committee on Criminal Abortion was appointed in May 1857. It presented its report, 12 Trans, of the Am. Med. Assn. 73-78 (1859), to the Twelfth Annual Meeting. That report observed that the Committee had been appointed to investigate criminal abortion “with a view to its general suppression.” It deplored abortion and its frequency and it listed three causes of “this general demoralization”:

“The first of these causes is a wide-spread popular ignorance of the true character of the crime— a belief, even among mothers themselves, that the foetus is not alive till after the period of quickening.

“The second of the agents alluded to is the fact that the profession themselves are frequently supposed careless of foetal life ....

“The third reason of the frightful extent of this crime is found in the grave defects of our laws, both common and statute, as regards the independent and actual existence of the child before birth, as a living being. These errors, which are sufficient in most instances to prevent conviction, are based, and only based, upon mistaken and exploded medical dogmas. With strange inconsistency, the law fully acknowledges the foetus in útero and its inherent rights, for civil purposes; while personally and as criminally affected, it fails to recognize it, *142and to its life as yet denies all protection.” Id,., at 75-76.

The Committee then offered, and the Association adopted, resolutions protesting “against such unwarrantable destruction of human life,” calling upon-state legislatures to revise their abortion laws, and requesting the cooperation of state medical societies “in pressing the subject.” Id., at 28, 78.

In 1871 a long and vivid report was submitted by the Committee on Criminal Abortion. It ended with the observation, “We had to deal with human life. In a matter of less importance we could entertain no compromise. An honest judge on the bench would call things by their proper names. We could do no less.” 22 Trans, of the Am. Med. Assn. 258 (1871). It proffered resolutions, adopted by the Association, id., at 38-39, recommending, among other things, that it “be unlawful and unprofessional for any physician to induce abortion- or premature labor, without the concurrent opinion of at least one respectable consulting physician, and then always with a view to the safety of the child— if that be possible,” and calling “the attention of the clergy of all denominations to the perverted views of morality entertained by a large class of females — aye, and men also, on this important question.”

Except for periodic condemnation of the criminal abortionist, no further formal AMA action took place until 1967. In that year, the Committee on Human Reproduction urged the adoption of a stated policy of opposition to induced abortion, except when there is “documented medical evidence” of a threat to the health or life of the mother, or that the child “may be born with incapacitating physical deformity or mental deficiency,” or that a pregnancy “resulting from legally established statutory or forcible rape or incest may constitute a threat to the mental or physical health of the *143patient,” two other physicians “chosen because of their recognized professional competence have examined the patient and have concurred in writing,” and the procedure “is performed in a hospital accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals.” The providing of medical information by physicians to state legislatures in their consideration of legislation regarding therapeutic abortion was “to be considered consistent with the principles of ethics of the American Medical Association.” This recommendation was adopted by the House of Delegates. Proceedings of the AMA House of Delegates 40-51 (June 1967).

In 1970, after the introduction of a variety of proposed resolutions, and of a report from its Board of Trustees, a reference committee noted “polarization of the medical profession on this controversial issue”; division among those who had testified; a difference of opinion among AMA councils and .committees; “the remarkable shift in testimony” in six months, felt to be influenced “by the rapid changes in state laws and by the judicial decisions which tend to make abortion more freely available;” and a feeling “that this trend will continue.” On June 25, 1970, the House of Delegates adopted preambles and most of the resolutions proposed by the reference committee. The preambles emphasized “the best interests of the patient,” “sound clinical judgment,” and “informed patient consent,” in contrast to “mere acquiescence to the patient's demand.” The resolutions asserted that abortion is a medical procedure that should be performed by a licensed physician in an accredited hospital only after consultation with two other physicians and in conformity with state law, and that no party to the procedure should be required to violate personally held moral principles.38 Proceedings *144of the AMA House of Delegates 220 (June 1970). The AMA Judicial Council rendered a complementary opinion.39

7. The position of the American Public Health Association. In October 1970, the Executive Board of the APHA adopted Standards for Abortion Services. These were five in number:

“a. Rapid and simple abortion referral must be readily available through state and local public *145health departments, medical societies, or other nonprofit organizations.

“b. An important function of counseling should be to simplify and expedite the provision of abortion services; it should not delay the obtaining of these services.

“c. Psychiatric consultation should not be mandatory. As in the case of other specialized medical services, psychiatric consultation should be sought for definite indications and not on a routine basis.

“d. A wide range of individuals from appropriately trained, sympathetic volunteers to highly skilled physicians may qualify as abortion counselors.

“e. Contraception and/or sterilization should be discussed with each abortion patient.” Recommended Standards for Abortion Services, 61 Am. J. Pub. Health 396 (1971).

Among factors pertinent to life and health risks associated with abortion were three that “are recognized as important”:

“a. the skill of the physician,

“b. the environment in which the abortion is performed, and above all

“c. the duration of pregnancy, as determined by uterine size and confirmed by menstrual history.” Id., at 397.

It was said that “a well-equipped hospital” offers more protection “to cope with unforeseen difficulties than an office or clinic without such resources. . . . The factor of gestational age is of overriding importance.” Thus, it was recommended that abortions in the second trimester and early abortions in the presence of existing medical complications be performed in hospitals as inpatient procedures. For pregnancies in the first tri*146mester, abortion in the hospital with or without overnight stay “is probably the safest practice.” An abortion in an extramural facility, however, is an acceptable alternative “provided arrangements exist in advance to admit patients promptly if unforeseen complications develop.” Standards for an abortion facility were listed. It was said that at present abortions should be performed by physicians or osteopaths who are licensed to practice and who have “adequate training.” Id., at 398.

8. The position of the American Bar Association. At its meeting in February 1972 the ABA House of Delegates approved, with 17 opposing votes, the Uniform Abortion Act that had been drafted and approved the preceding August by the Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. 58 A. B. A. J. 380 (1972). We set forth the Act in full in the margin.40 The *147Conference has appended an enlightening Prefatory-Note.41

VII

Three reasons have been advanced to explain historically the enactment of criminal abortion laws in the 19th century and to justify their continued existence.

*148It has been argued occasionally that these laws were the product of a Victorian social concern to discourage illicit sexual conduct. Texas, however, does not advance this justification in the present case, and it appears that no court or commentator has taken the argument seriously.42 The appellants and amici contend, moreover, that this is not a proper state purpose at all and suggest that, if it were, the Texas statutes are overbroad in protecting it since the law fails to distinguish between married and unwed mothers.

A second reason is concerned with abortion as a medical procedure. When most criminal abortion laws were first enacted, the procedure was a hazardous one for the woman.43 This was particularly true prior to the *149development of antisepsis. Antiseptic techniques, of course, were based on discoveries by Lister, Pasteur, and others first announced in 1867, but were not generally accepted and employed until about the turn of the century. Abortion mortality was high. Even after 1900, and perhaps until as late as the development of antibiotics in the 1940’s, standard modern techniques such as dilation and curettage were not nearly so safe as they are today. Thus, it has been argued that a State’s real concern in enacting a criminal abortion law was to protect the pregnant woman, that is, to restrain her from submitting to a procedure that placed her life in serious jeopardy.

Modern medical techniques have altered this situation. Appellants and various amici refer to medical data indicating that abortion in early pregnancy, that is, prior to the end of the first trimester, although not without its risk, is now relatively safe. Mortality rates for women undergoing early abortions, where the procedure is legal, appear to be as low as or lower than the rates for normal childbirth.44 Consequently, any interest of the State in protecting the woman from an inherently hazardous procedure, except when it would be equally dangerous for her to forgo it, has largely disappeared. Of course, important state interests in the areas of health and medical standards do remain. *150The State has a legitimate interest in seeing to it that abortion, like any other medical procedure, is performed under circumstances that insure maximum safety for the patient. This interest obviously extends at least to the performing physician and his staff, to the facilities involved, to the availability of after-care, and to adequate provision for any complication or emergency that might arise. The prevalence of high mortality rates at illegal “abortion mills” strengthens, rather than weakens, the State’s interest in regulating the conditions under which abortions are performed. Moreover, the risk to the woman increases as her pregnancy continues. Thus, the State retains a definite interest in protecting the woman’s own health and safety when an abortion is proposed at a late stage of pregnancy.

The third reason is the State’s interest — some phrase it in terms of duty — in protecting prenatal life. Some of the argument for this justification rests on the theory that a new human life is present from the moment of conception.45 The State’s interest and general obligation to protect life then extends, it is argued, to prenatal life. Only when the life of the pregnant mother herself is at stake, balanced against the life she carries within her, should the interest of the embryo or fetus not prevail. Logically, of course, a legitimate state interest in this area need not stand or fall on acceptance of the belief that life begins at conception or at some other point prior to live birth. In assessing the State’s interest, recognition may be given to the less rigid claim that as long as at least potential life is involved, the State may assert interests beyond the protection of the pregnant woman alone.

*151Parties challenging state abortion laws have sharply disputed in some courts the contention that a purpose of these laws, when enacted, was to protect prenatal life.46 Pointing to the absence of legislative history to support the contention, they claim that most state laws were designed solely to protect the woman. Because medical advances have lessened this concern, at least with respect to abortion in early pregnancy, they argue that with respect to such abortions the laws can no longer be justified by any state interest. There is some scholarly support for this view of original purpose.47 The few state courts called upon to interpret their laws in the late 19th and early 20th centuries did focus on the State’s interest in protecting the woman’s health rather than in preserving the embryo and fetus.48 Proponents of this view point out that in many States, including Texas,49 by statute or judicial interpretation, the pregnant woman herself could not be prosecuted for self-abortion or for cooperating in an abortion performed upon her by another.50 They claim that adoption of the “quickening” distinction through received common *152law and state statutes tacitly recognizes the greater health hazards inherent in late abortion and impliedly repudiates the theory that life begins at conception.

It is with these interests, and the weight to be attached to them, that this case is concerned.

VIII

The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U. S. 250, 251 (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. In varying contexts, the Court or individual Justices have, indeed, found at least the roots of that right in the First Amendment, Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, 564 (1969); in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 8-9 (1968), Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 350 (1967), Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616 (1886), see Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting); in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S., at 484-485; in the Ninth Amendment, id., at 486 (Goldberg, J., concurring); or in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, see Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 399 (1923). These decisions make it clear that only personal rights that can be deemed “fundamental” or “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 325 (1937), are included in this guarantee of personal privacy. They also make it clear that the right has some extension to activities relating to marriage, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 12 (1967); procreation, Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535, 541-542 (1942); contraception, Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S., at 453-454; id., at 460, 463-*153465 (White, J., concurring in result); family relationships, Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 166 (1944) ; and child rearing and education, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 535 (1925), Meyer v. Nebraska, supra.

This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent. Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it. In other cases, as in this one, the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood may be involved. All these are factors the woman and her responsible physician necessarily will consider in consultation.

On the basis of elements such as these, appellant and some amici argue that the woman’s right is absolute and that she is entitled to terminate her. pregnancy at whatever time, in whatever way,- and for whatever reason she alone chooses. With this we do not agree. Appellant’s arguments that Texas either has no valid interest at all in regulating the abortion decision, or no interest strong enough to support any limitation upon the woman’s sole determination, are unpersuasive. The *154Court’s decisions recognizing a right of privacy also acknowledge that some state regulation in areas protected by that right is appropriate. As noted above, a State may properly assert important interests in safeguarding health, in maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life. At some point in pregnancy, these respective interests become sufficiently compelling to sustain regulation of the factors that govern the abortion decision. The privacy right involved, therefore, cannot be said to be absolute. In fact, it is not clear to us that the claim asserted by some amici that one has an unlimited right to do with one’s body as one pleases bears a close relationship to the right of privacy previously articulated in the Court’s decisions. The Court has refused to recognize an unlimited right of this kind in the past. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11 (1905) (vaccination); Buck v. Bell, 274 U. S. 200 (1927) (sterilization).

We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation.

We note that those federal and state courts that have recently considered abortion law challenges have reached the same conclusion. A majority, in addition to the District Court in the present case, have held state laws unconstitutional, at least in part, because of vagueness or because of overbreadth and abridgment of rights. Abele v. Markle, 342 F. Supp. 800 (Conn. 1972), appeal docketed, No. 72-56; Abele v. Markle, 351 F. Supp. 224 (Conn. 1972), appeal docketed, No. 72-730; Doe v. Bolton, 319 F. Supp. 1048 (ND Ga. 1970), appeal decided today, post, p. 179; Doe v. Scott, 321 F. Supp. 1385 (ND Ill. 1971), appeal docketed, No. 70-105; Poe v. Menghini, 339 F. Supp. 986 (Kan. 1972); YWCA v. Kugler, 342 F. Supp. 1048 (NJ 1972); Babbitzv. McCann, *155310 F. Supp. 293 (ED Wis. 1970), appeal dismissed, 400 U. S. 1 (1970); People v. Belous, 71 Cal. 2d 954, 458 P. 2d 194 (1969), cert, denied, 397 U. S. 915 (1970); State v. Barquet, 262 So. 2d 431 (Fla. 1972).

Others have sustained state statutes. Crossen v. Attorney General, 344 F. Supp. 587 (ED Ky. 1972), appeal docketed, No. 72-256; Rosen v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, 318 F. Supp. 1217 (ED La. 1970), appeal docketed, No. 70-42; Corkey v. Edwards, 322 F. Supp. 1248 (WDNC 1971), appeal docketed, No. 71-92; Steinberg v. Brown, 321 F. Supp. 741 (ND Ohio 1970); Doe v. Rampton (Utah 1971), appeal docketed, No. 71-5666; Cheaney v. State,-Ind.-, 285 N. E. 2d 265 (1972); Spears v. State, 257 So. 2d 876 (Miss. 1972); State v. Munson, 86 S. D. 663, 201 N. W. 2d 123 (1972), appeal docketed, No. 72-631.

Although the results are divided, most of these courts have agreed that the right of privacy, however based, is broad enough to cover the abortion decision; that the right, nonetheless, is not absolute and is subject to some limitations; and that at some point the state interests as to protection of health, medical standards, and prenatal life, become dominant. We agree with this approach.

Where certain “fundamental rights” are involved, the Court has held that regulation limiting these rights may be justified only by a “compelling state interest,” Kramer v. Union Free School District, 395 U. S. 621, 627 (1969); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618, 634 (1969), Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 406 (1963), and that legislative enactments must be narrowly drawn to express only the legitimate state interests at stake. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S., at 485; Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500, 508 (1964); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 307-308 (1940); see *156Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S., at 460, 463-464 (White, J., concurring in result).

In the recent abortion cases, cited above, courts have recognized these principles. Those striking down state laws have generally scrutinized the State’s interests in protecting health and potential life, and have concluded that neither interest justified broad limitations on the reasons for which a physician and his pregnant patient might decide that she should have an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy. Courts sustaining state laws have held that the State’s determinations to protect health or prenatal life are dominant and constitutionally justifiable.

IX

The District Court held that the appellee failed to meet his burden of demonstrating that the Texas statute’s infringement upon Roe’s rights was necessary to support a compelling state interest, and that, although the appellee presented “several compelling justifications for state presence in the area of abortions,” the statutes outstripped these justifications and swept “far beyond any areas of compelling state interest.” 314 F. Supp., at 1222-1223. Appellant and appellee both contest that holding. Appellant, as has been indicated, claims an absolute right that bars any state imposition of criminal penalties in the area. Appel-lee argues that the State’s determination to recognize and protect prenatal life from and after conception constitutes a compelling state interest. As noted above, we do not agree fully with either formulation.

A. The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a “person” within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, *157for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument:51 On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument52 that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Constitution does not define “person” in so many words. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment contains three references to “person.” The first, in defining “citizens,” speaks of “persons born or naturalized in the United States.” The word also appears both in the Due Process Clause and in the Equal Protection Clause. “Person” is used in other places in the Constitution: in the listing of qualifications for Representatives and Senators, Art. I, § 2, cl. 2, and § 3, cl. 3; in the Apportionment Clause, Art. I, § 2, cl. 3; 53 in the Migration and Importation provision, Art. I, § 9, cl. 1; in the Emolument Clause, Art. I, § 9, cl. 8; in the Electors provisions, Art. II, § 1, cl. 2, and the superseded cl. 3; in the provision outlining qualifications for the office of President, Art. II, § 1, cl. 5; in the Extradition provisions, Art. IV, § 2, cl. 2, and the superseded Fugitive Slave Clause 3; and in the Fifth, Twelfth, and Twenty-second Amendments, as well as in §§ 2 and 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But in nearly all these instances, the use of the word is such that it has application only postnatally. None indicates, with any assurance, that it has any possible pre-natal application.54

*158All this, together with our observation, supra, that throughout the major portion of the 19th century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word “person,” as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.55 This is in accord with the results reached in those few cases where the issue has been squarely presented. McGarvey v. Magee-Womens Hospital, 340 F. Supp. 751 (WD Pa. 1972); Byrn v. New York City Health & Hospitals Corp., 31 N. Y. 2d 194, 286 N. E. 2d 887 (1972), appeal docketed, No. 72-434; Abele v. Markle, 351 F. Supp. 224 (Conn. 1972), appeal docketed, No. 72-730. Cf. Cheaney v. State,-Ind., at-, 285 N. E. 2d, at 270; Montana v. Rogers, 278 F. 2d 68, 72 (CA7 1960), aff’d sub nom. Montana v. Kennedy, 366 U. S. 308 (1961); Keeler v. Superior Court, 2 Cal. 3d 619, 470 P. 2d 617 (1970); State v. Dickinson, 28 *159Ohio St. 2d 65, 275 N. E. 2d 599 (1971). Indeed; our decision in United States v. Vuitch, 402 U. S. 62 (1971), inferentially is to the same effect, for we there would not have indulged in statutory interpretation favorable to abortion in specified circumstances if the necessary consequence was the termination of life entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection.

This conclusion, however, does not of itself fully answer the contentions raised by Texas, and we pass on to other considerations.

B. The pregnant woman cannot be isolated in her ’privacy. She carries an embryo and, later, a fetus, if one accepts the medical definitions of the developing young in the human uterus. See Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary 478-479, 547 (24th ed. 1965). The situation therefore is inherently different from marital intimacy, or bedroom possession of obscene material, or marriage, or procreation, or education, with which Eisenstadt and Griswold, Stanley, Loving, Skinner, and Pierce and Meyer were respectively concerned. As we have intimated above, it is reasonable and appropriate for a State to decide that at some point in time another interest, that of health of the mother or that of potential human life, becomes significantly involved. The woman's privacy is no longer sole and any right of privacy she possesses must be measured accordingly.

Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.

*160It should be sufficient to note briefly the wide divergence of thinking on this most sensitive and difficult question. There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live birth. This was the belief of the Stoics.56 It appears to be the predominant, though not the unanimous, attitude of the Jewish faith.57 It may be taken to represent also the position of a large segment of the Protestant community, insofar as that can be ascertained; organized groups that have taken a formal position on the abortion issue have generally regarded abortion as a matter for the conscience of the individual and her family.58 As we have noted, the common law found greater significance in quickening. Physicians and their scientific colleagues have regarded that event with less interest and have tended to focus either upon conception, upon live birth, or upon the interim point at which the fetus becomes “viable,” that is, potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid.59 Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.60 The Aristotelian theory of “mediate animation,” that held sway throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe, continued to be official Roman Catholic dogma until the 19th century, despite opposition to this “ensoulment” theory from those in the Church who would recognize the existence of life from *161the moment of conception.61 The latter is now, of course, the official belief of the Catholic Church. As one brief amicus discloses, this is a view strongly held by many non-Catholics as well, and by many physicians. Substantial problems for precise definition of this view are posed, however, by new embryological data that purport to indicate that conception is a “process” over time, rather than an event, and by new medical techniques such as menstrual extraction, the “morning-after” pill, implantation of embryos, artificial insemination, and even artificial wombs.62

In areas other than criminal abortion, the law has been reluctant to endorse any theory that life, as we recognize it, begins before live birth or to accord legal rights to the unborn except in narrowly defined situations and except when the rights are contingent upon live birth. For example, the traditional rule of tort law denied recovery for prenatal injuries even though the child was born alive.63 That rule has been changed in almost every jurisdiction. In most States, recovery is said to be permitted only if the fetus was viable, or at least quick, when the injuries were sustained, though few *162courts have squarely so held.64 In a recent development, generally opposed by the commentators, some States permit the parents of a stillborn child to maintain an action for wrongful death because of prenatal injuries.65 Such an action, however, would appear to be one to vindicate the parents’ interest and is thus consistent with the view that the fetus, at most, represents only the potentiality of life. Similarly, unborn children have been recognized as acquiring rights or interests by way of inheritance or other devolution of property, and have been represented by guardians ad litem.66 Perfection of the interests involved, again, has generally been contingent upon live birth. In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.

X

In view of all this, we do not agree that, by adopting one theory of life, Texas may override the rights of the pregnant woman that are at stake. We repeat, however, that the State does have an important and legitimate interest in preserving and protecting the health of the pregnant woman, whether she be a resident of the State or a nonresident who seeks medical consultation and treatment there, and that it has still another important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life. These interests are separate and distinct. Each grows in substantiality as the woman approaches *163term and, at a point during pregnancy, each becomes “compelling.”

With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in the health of the mother, the “compelling” point, in the light of present medical knowledge, is at approximately the end of the first trimester. This is so because of the now-established medical fact, referred to above at 149, that until the end of the first trimester mortality in abortion may be less than mortality in normal childbirth, ft follows that, from and after this point, a State may regulate the abortion procedure to the extent that the regulation reasonably relates to the preservation and protection of maternal health. Examples of permissible state regulation in this area are requirements as to the qualifications of the person who is to perform the abortion; as to the licensure of that person; as to the facility in which the procedure is to be performed, that is, whether it must be a hospital or may be a clinic or some other place of less-than-hospital status; as to the licensing of the facility; and the like.

This means, on the other hand, that, for the period of pregnancy prior to this “compelling” point, the attending physician, in consultation with his patient, is free to determine, without regulation by the State, that, in his medical judgment, the patient’s pregnancy should be terminated. If that decision is reached, the judgment may be effectuated by an abortion free of interference by the State.

With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the “compelling” point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion *164during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

Measured against these standards, Art. 1196 of the Texas Penal Code, in restricting legal abortions to those “procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother,” sweeps too broadly. The statute makes no distinction between abortions performed early in pregnancy and those performed later, and it limits to a single reason, “saving” the mother’s life, the legal justification for the procedure. The statute, therefore, cannot survive the constitutional attack made upon it here.

This conclusion makes it unnecessary for us to consider the additional challenge to the Texas statute asserted on grounds of vagueness. See United States v. Vuitch, 402 U. S., at 67-72.

XI

To summarize and to repeat:

1. A state criminal abortion statute of the current Texas type, that excepts from criminality only a lifesaving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without recognition of the other interests involved, is violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman’s attending physician.

(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.

(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life *165may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.

2. The State may define the term “physician,” as it has been employed in the preceding paragraphs of this Part XI of this opinion, to mean only a physician currently licensed by the State, and may proscribe any abortion by a person who is not a physician as so defined.

In Doe v. Bolton, post, p. 179, procedural requirements contained in one of the modern abortion statutes are considered. That opinion and this one, of course, are to be read together.67

This holding, we feel, is consistent with the relative weights of the respective interests involved, with the lessons and examples of medical and legal history, with the lenity of the common law, and with the demands of the profound problems of the present day. The decision leaves the State free to place increasing restrictions on abortion as the period of pregnancy lengthens, so long as those restrictions are tailored to the recognized state interests. The decision vindicates the right of the physician to administer medical treatment according to his professional judgment up to the points where important *166state interests provide compelling justifications for intervention. Up to those points, the abortion decision in all its aspects is inherently, and primarily, a medical decision, and basic responsibility for it must rest with the physician. If an individual practitioner abuses the privilege of exercising proper medical judgment, the usual remedies, judicial and intra-professional, are available.

XII

Our conclusion that Art. 1196 is unconstitutional means, of course, that the Texas abortion statutes, as a unit, must fall. The exception of Art. 1196 cannot be struck down separately, for then the State would be left with a statute proscribing all abortion procedures no matter how medically urgent the case.

Although the District Court granted appellant Roe declaratory relief, it stopped short of issuing an injunction against enforcement of the Texas statutes. The Court has recognized that different considerations enter into a federal court’s decision as to declaratory relief, on the one hand, and injunctive relief, on the other. Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U. S. 241, 252-255 (1967); Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479 (1965). We are not dealing with a statute that, on its face, appears to abridge free expression, an area of particular concern under Dombrowski and refined in Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S., at 50.

We find it unnecessary to decide whether the District Court erred in withholding injunctive relief, for we assume the Texas prosecutorial authorities will give full credence to this decision that the present criminal abortion statutes of that State are unconstitutional.

The judgment of the District Court as to intervenor Hallford is reversed, and Dr. Hallford’s complaint in intervention is dismissed. In all other respects, the judg*167ment of the District Court is affirmed. Costs are allowed to the appellee.

It is so ordered.

[For concurring opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Burger, see post, p. 207.]

[For concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas, see post, p. 209.]

[For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice White, see post, p. 221.]

Mr. Justice Stewart,

concurring.

In 1963, this Court, in Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726, purported to sound the death knell for the doctrine of substantive due process, a doctrine under which many-state laws had in the past been held to violate the Fourteenth Amendment. As Mr. Justice Black’s opinion for the Court in Skrupa put it: “We have returned to the original constitutional proposition that courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws.” Id., at 730.1

Barely two years later, in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, the Court held a Connecticut birth control law unconstitutional. In view of what had been so recently said in Skrupa, the Court’s opinion in Griswold understandably did its best to avoid reliance on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as the ground for decision. Yet, the Connecticut law did not violate any provision of the Bill of Rights, nor any other specific provision of the Constitution.2 So it was clear *168to me then, and it is equally clear to me now, that the Griswold decision can be rationally understood only as a holding that the Connecticut statute substantively invaded the “liberty” that is protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.3 As so understood, Griswold stands as one in a long line of pre-Skrupa cases decided under the doctrine of substantive due process, and I now accept it as such.

“In a Constitution for a free people, there can be no doubt that the meaning of 'liberty’ must be broad indeed.” Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 572. The Constitution nowhere mentions a specific right of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life, but the “liberty” protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment covers more than those freedoms explicitly named in the Bill of Rights. See Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U. S. 232, 238-239; Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 534-535; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 399-400. Cf. Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618, 629-630; United States v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745, 757-758; Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89, 96; Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500, 505; Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S. 116, 127; Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497, 499-500; Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33, 41.

*169As Mr. Justice Harlan once wrote: “[T]he full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This ‘liberty’ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints . . . and which also recognizes, what a reasonable and sensitive judgment must, that certain interests require particularly careful scrutiny of the state needs asserted to justify their abridgment.” Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 543 (opinion dissenting from dismissal of appeal) (citations omitted). In the words of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, “Great concepts like . . . ‘liberty’ . . . were purposely left to gather meaning from experience. For they relate to the whole domain of social and economic fact, and the statesmen who founded this Nation knew too well that only a stagnant society remains unchanged.” National Mutual Ins. Co. v. Tidewater Transfer Co., 337 U. S. 582, 646 (dissenting opinion).

Several decisions of this Court make clear that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 12; Griswold v. Connecticut, supra; Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra; Meyer v. Nebraska, supra. See also Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 166; Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535, 541. As recently as last Term, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 453, we recognized “the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person *170as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” That right necessarily includes the right of a woman to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. “Certainly the interests of a woman in giving of her physical and emotional self during pregnancy and the interests that will be affected throughout her life by the birth and raising of a child are of a far greater degree of significance and personal intimacy than the right to send a child to private school protected in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510 (19250, or the right to teach a foreign language protected in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 (1923).” Abele v. Markle, 351 F. Supp. 224, 227 (Conn. 1972).

Clearly, therefore, the Court today is correct in holding that the right asserted by Jane Roe is embraced within the personal liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

It is evident that the Texas abortion statute infringes that right directly. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more complete abridgment of a constitutional freedom than that worked by the inflexible criminal statute now in force in Texas. The question then becomes whether the state interests advanced to justify this abridgment can survive the “particularly careful scrutiny” that the Fourteenth Amendment here requires.

The asserted state interests are protection of the health and safety of the pregnant woman, and protection of the potential future human life within her. These are legitimate objectives, amply sufficient to permit a State to regulate abortions as it does other surgical procedures, and perhaps sufficient to permit a State to regulate abortions more stringently or even to prohibit them in the late stages of pregnancy. But such legislation is not before us, and I think the Court today has thoroughly demonstrated that these state interests cannot constitutionally support the broad abridgment of per*171sonal liberty worked by the existing Texas law. Accordingly, I join the Court’s opinion holding that that law is invalid under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,

dissenting.

The Court’s opinion brings to the decision of this troubling question both extensive historical fact and a wealth of legal scholarship. While the opinion thus commands my respect, I find myself nonetheless in fundamental disagreement with those parts of it that invalidate the Texas statute in question, and therefore dissent.

I

The Court’s opinion decides that a State may impose virtually no restriction on the performance of abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy. Our previous decisions indicate that a necessary predicate for such an opinion is a plaintiff who was in her first trimester of pregnancy at some time during the pendency of her lawsuit. While a party may vindicate his own constitutional rights, he may not seek vindication for the rights of others. Moose Lodge v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163 (1972); Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727 (1972). The Court’s statement of facts in this case makes clear, however, that the record in no way indicates the presence of such a plaintiff. We know only that plaintiff Roe at the time of filing her complaint was a pregnant woman; for aught that appears in this record, she may have been in her last trimester of pregnancy as of the date the complaint was filed.

Nothing in the Court’s opinion indicates that Texas might not constitutionally apply its proscription of abortion as written to a woman in that stage of pregnancy. Nonetheless, the Court uses her complaint against the Texas statute as a fulcrum for deciding that States may *172impose virtually no restrictions on medical abortions performed during the first trimester of pregnancy. In deciding such a hypothetical lawsuit, the Court departs from the longstanding admonition that it should never “formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts to which it is to be applied.” Liverpool, New York & Philadelphia S. S. Co. v. Commissioners of Emigration, 113 U. S. 33, 39 (1885). See also Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 345 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring).

II

Even if there were a plaintiff in this case capable of litigating the issue which the Court decides, I would reach a conclusion opposite to that reached by the Court. I have difficulty in concluding, as the Court does, that the right of “privacy” is involved in this case. Texas, by the statute here challenged, bars the performance of a medical abortion by a licensed physician on a plaintiff such as Roe. A transaction resulting in an operation such as this is not. “private” in the ordinary usage of that word. Nor is the “privacy” that the Court finds here even a distant relative of the freedom from searches and seizures protected by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which the Court has referred to as embodying a right to privacy. Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967).

If the Court means by the term “privacy” no more than that the claim of a person to be free from unwanted state regulation of consensual transactions may be a form of “liberty” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, there is no doubt that similar claims have been upheld in our earlier decisions on the basis of that liberty. I agree with the statement of Mr. Justice Stewart in his concurring opinion that the “liberty,” against deprivation of which without due process the Fourteenth *173Amendment protects, embraces more than the rights found in the Bill of Rights. But that liberty is not guaranteed absolutely against deprivation, only against deprivation without due process of law. The test traditionally applied in the area of social and economic legislation is whether or not a law such as that challenged has a rational relation to a valid state objective. Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 491 (1955). The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment undoubtedly does place a limit, albeit a broad one, on legislative power to enact laws such as this. If the Texas statute were to prohibit an abortion even where the mother’s life is in jeopardy, I have little doubt that such a statute would lack a rational relation to a valid state objective under the test stated in Williamson, supra. But the Court’s sweeping' invalidation of any restrictions on abortion during the first trimester is impossible to justify under that standard, and the conscious weighing of competing factors that the Court’s opinion apparently substitutes for the established test is far more appropriate to a legislative judgment than to a judicial one.

The Court eschews the history of the Fourteenth Amendment in its reliance on the “compelling state interest” test. See Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U. S. 164, 179 (1972) (dissenting opinion). But the Court adds a new wrinkle to this test by transposing it from the legal considerations associated with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to this case arising under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Unless I misapprehend the consequences of this transplanting of the “compelling state interest test,” the Court’s opinion will accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of leaving this area of the law more confused than it found it.

*174While the Court’s opinion quotes from the dissent of Mr. Justice Holmes in Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 74 (1905), the result it reaches is more closely attuned to the majority opinion of Mr. Justice Peckham in that case. As in Lochner and similar cases applying substantive due process standards to economic and social welfare legislation, the adoption of the compelling state interest standard will inevitably require this Court to examine the legislative policies and pass on the wisdom of these policies in the very process of deciding whether a particular state interest put forward may or may not be “compelling.” The decision here to break pregnancy into three distinct terms and to outline the permissible restrictions the State may impose in each one, for example, partakes more of judicial legislation than it does of a determination of the intent of the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The fact that a majority of the States reflecting, after all, the majority sentiment in those States, have had restrictions on abortions for at least a century is a strong indication, it seems to me, that the asserted right to an abortion is not “so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental,” Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 105 (1934). Even today, when society’s views on abortion are changing, the very existence of the debate is evidence that the “right” to an abortion is not so universally accepted as the appellant would have us believe.

To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment. As early as 1821, the first state law dealing directly with abortion was enacted by the Connecticut Legislature. Conn. Stat., Tit. 22, §§ 14, 16. By the time of the adoption of the Four*175teenth Amendment in 1868, there were at least 36 laws enacted by state or territorial legislatures limiting abortion.1 While many States have amended or updated *176their laws, 21 of the laws on the books in 1868 remain in effect today.2 Indeed, the Texas statute struck down today was, as the majority notes, first enacted in 1857 *177and “has remained substantially unchanged to the present time.” Ante, at 119.

There apparently was no question concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statutes when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. The only conclusion possible from this history is that the drafters did not intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter.

I — I HH ) — H

Even if one were to agree that the case that the Court decides were here, and that the enunciation of the substantive constitutional law in the Court’s opinion were proper, the actual disposition of the case by the Court is still difficult to justify. The Texas statute is struck down in toto, even though the Court apparently concedes that at later periods of pregnancy Texas might impose these selfsame statutory limitations on abortion. My understanding of past practice is that a statute found *178to be invalid as applied to a particular plaintiff, but not unconstitutional as a whole, is not simply “struck down” but is, instead, declared unconstitutional as applied to the fact situation before the Court. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356 (1886); Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576 (1969).

For all of the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.

*681Mr. Justice Brennan

delivered the opinion of the Court (Parts I, II, III, and V), together with an opinion (Part IV), in which Mr. Justice Stewart, Mr. Justice Marshall, and Mr. Justice Blackmun joined.

Under New York Educ. Law § 6811 (8) (McKinney 1972) it is a crime (1) for any person to sell or distribute any contraceptive of any kind to a minor under the age of 16 years ; (2) for anyone other than a licensed pharmacist to distribute contraceptives to persons 16 or over; and (3) for anyone, including licensed pharmacists, to advertise or display contraceptives.1 A three-judge District Court for the Southern District of New York declared § 6811 (8) unconstitutional in its entirety under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the *682Federal Constitution insofar as it applies to nonprescription contraceptives, and enjoined its enforcement as so applied. 398 F. Supp. 321 (1975). We noted probable jurisdiction, 426 U. S. 918 (1976). We affirm.

I

We must address a preliminary question of the standing of the various appellees to maintain the action. We conclude that appellee Population Planning Associates, Inc. (PPA) has the requisite standing and therefore have no occasion to decide the standing of the other appellees.2

PPA is a corporation primarily engaged in the mail-order retail sale of nonmedical contraceptive devices from its offices in North Carolina. PPA regularly advertises its products in periodicals published or circulated in New York, accepts orders from New York residents, and fills orders by mailing contraceptives to New York purchasers. Neither the advertisements nor the order forms accompanying them limit availability of PPA’s products to persons of any particular age.

Various New York officials have advised PPA that its activities violate New York law. A letter of December 1, 1971, notified PPA that a PPA advertisement in a New York college newspaper violated § 6811 (8), citing each of the three challenged provisions, and requested “future compliance” with the *683law. A second letter, dated February 23, 1973, notifying PPA that PPA’s magazine advertisements of contraceptives violated the statute, referred particularly to the provisions prohibiting sales to minors and sales by nonpharmacists, and threatened: “In the event you fail to comply, the matter will be referred to our Attorney General for legal action.” Finally, PPA was served with a copy of a report of inspectors of the State Board of Pharmacy, dated September 4, 1974, which recorded that PPA advertised male contraceptives, and had been advised to cease selling contraceptives in violation of the state law.

That PPA has standing to challenge § 6811 (8), not only in its own right but also on behalf of its potential customers, is settled by Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190, 192-197 (1976). Craig held that a vendor of 3.2% beer had standing to challenge in its own right and as advocate for the rights of third persons, the gender-based discrimination in a state statute that prohibited sale of the beer to men, but not to women, between the agfes of 18 and 21. In this case, as did the statute in Craig, § 6811 (8) inflicts on the vendor PPA “injury in fact” that satisfies Art. Ill’s case-or-controversy requirement, since “[t]he legal duties created by the statutory sections under challenge are addressed directly to vendors such as [PPA. It] is obliged either to heed the statutory [prohibition], thereby incurring a direct economic injury through the constriction of [its] market, or to disobey the statutory command and suffer” legal sanctions. 429 U. S., at 194;3 There*684fore, PPA is among the “vendors and those in like positions [who] have been uniformly permitted to resist efforts at restricting their operations by acting as advocates for the rights of third parties who seek access to their market or function.” Id., at 195. See also Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 443-446 (1972); Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, 396 U. S. 229, 237 (1969); Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U. S. 249, 257-260 (1953). As such, PPA “is entitled to assert those concomitant rights of third parties that would be ‘diluted or adversely affected’ should [its] constitutional challenge fail.” Craig v. Boren, supra, at 195, quoting Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 481 (1965).4

II

Although “[t]he Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy,” the Court has recognized that one aspect of the “liberty” protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is “a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy.” Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 152 (1973). This right of personal privacy includes “the interest in independence in making certain kinds of important decisions.” Whalen v. Roe, 429 U. S. 589, 599-600 (1977). While the outer limits of this aspect of privacy have not been marked by the Court, it is clear that among *685the decisions that an individual may make without unjustified government interference are personal decisions “relating to fmarriage, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 12 (1967); procreation, Skinner v. Oklahoma, ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535, 541-542 (1942); contraception; Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S., at 453-454; id., at 460, 463-465 (White, J., concurring in result); family relationships, Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 166 (1944); and child rearing and education, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 535 (1925); Meyer v. Nebraska, [262 U. S. 390, 399 (1923)].” Roe v. Wade, supra, at 152-153. See also Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur, 414 U. S. 632, 639-640 (1974).

The decision whether or not to beget or bear a child is at the very heart of this cluster of constitutionally protected choices. That decision holds a particularly important place in the history of the right of privacy, a right first explicitly recognized in an opinion holding unconstitutional a statute prohibiting the use of contraceptives, Griswold v. Connecticut, supra, and most prominently vindicated in recent years in the contexts of contraception, Griswold v. Connecticut, supra; Eisenstadt v. Baird, supra; and abortion, Roe v. Wade, supra; Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973); Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52 (1976). This is understandable, for in a field that by definition concerns the most intimate of human activities and relationships, decisions whether to accomplish or to prevent conception are among the most private and sensitive. “If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free of unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” Eisenstadt v. Baird, supra, at 453. (Emphasis omitted.)

That the constitutionally protected right of privacy extends to an individual’s liberty to make choices regarding contraception does not, however, automatically invalidate every state *686regulation in this area. The business of manufacturing and selling contraceptives may be regulated in ways that do not infringe protected individual choices. And even a burdensome regulation may be validated by a sufficiently compelling state interest. In Roe v. Wade, for example, after determining that the “right of privacy . . . encompass [es] a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy,” 410 U. S., at 153, we cautioned that the right is not absolute, and that certain state interests (in that case,- “interests in safeguarding health, in maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life”) may at some point “become sufficiently compelling to sustain regulation of the factors that govern the abortion decision.” Id., at 154. “Compelling” is of course the key word; where a decision as fundamental as that whether to bear or beget a child is involved, regulations imposing a burden on it may be justified only by compelling state interests, and must be narrowly drawn to express only those interests. Id., at 155-156, and cases there cited.

With these principles in mind, we turn to the question whether the District Court was correct in holding invalid the provisions of § 6811 (8) as applied to the distribution of nonprescription contraceptives.

Ill

We consider first the wider restriction on access to contraceptives created by § 6811 (8)’s prohibition of the distribution of nonmedical contraceptives to adults except through licensed pharmacists.

Appellants argue that this Court has not accorded a “right of access to contraceptives” the status of a fundamental aspect of personal liberty. They emphasize that Griswold v. Connecticut struck down a state prohibition of the use of contraceptives, and so had no occasion to discuss laws “regulating their manufacture or sale.” 381 U. S., at 485. Eisenstadt v. Baird, was decided under the Equal Protection Clause, holding that “whatever the rights of the individual to access to contra*687ceptives may be, the rights must be the same for the unmarried and the married alike.” 405 U. S., at 453. Thus appellants argue that neither case should be treated as reflecting upon, the State’s power to limit or prohibit distribution of contraceptives to any persons, married or unmarried. But see id., at 463-464 (White, J., concurring in result).

The fatal fallacy in this argument is that it overlooks the underlying premise of those decisions that the Constitution protects “the right of the individual ... to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into . . . the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” Id., at 453. Griswold did state that by “forbidding the use of contraceptives rather than regulating their manufacture or sale,” the Connecticut statute there had “a maximum destructive impact” on privacy rights. 381 U. S., at 485. This intrusion into “the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms” made that statute particularly “repulsive.” Id., at 485-486. But subsequent decisions have made clear that the constitutional protection of individual autonomy in matters of childbearing is not dependent on that element. Eisenstadt v. Baird, holding that the protection is not limited to married couples, characterized the protected right as the “decision whether to bear or beget a child.” 405 U. S., at 453 (emphasis added). Similarly, Roe v. Wade, held that the Constitution protects “a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” 410 U. S., at 153 (emphasis added). See also Whalen v. Roe, supra, at 599-600, and n. 26. These decisions put Griswold in proper perspective. Griswold may no longer be read as holding only that a State may not prohibit a married couple’s use of contraceptives. Read in light of its progeny, the teaching of Griswold is that the Constitution protects individual decisions in matters of childbearing from unjustified intrusion by the State.

Restrictions on the distribution of contraceptives clearly burden the freedom to make such decisions. A total prohibition against sale of contraceptives, for example, would intrude *688upon individual decisions in matters of procreation and contraception as harshly as a direct ban on their use. Indeed, in practice, a prohibition against all sales, since more easily and less offensively enforced, might have an even more devastating effect upon the freedom to choose contraception. Cf. Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497 (1961).

An instructive analogy is found in decisions after Roe v. Wade, supra, that held unconstitutional statutes that did not prohibit abortions outright but limited in a variety of ways a woman’s access to them. Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973); Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52 (1976). See also Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U. S. 809 (1975). The significance of these cases is that they establish that the same test must be applied to state regulations that burden an individual’s right to decide to prevent conception or terminate pregnancy by substantially limiting access to the means of effectuating that decision as is applied to state statutes that prohibit the decision entirely. Both types of regulation “may be justified only by a ‘compelling state interest’. . . and . . . must be narrowly drawn to express only the legitimate state interests at stake.” Roe v. Wade, supra, at 155.6 See also Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S., at 463 (White, J., concurring in result). This is so not because- there is an independent fundamental “right of access to contraceptives,” but because such access is essential to exercise of the constitutionally protected right of decision in matters of childbearing that is the *689underlying foundation of the holdings in Griswold, Eisenstadt v. Baird, and Roe v. Wade.

Limiting the distribution of nonprescription contraceptives to licensed pharmacists clearly imposes a significant burden on the right of the individuals to use contraceptives if they choose to do so. Eisenstadt v. Baird, supra, at 461-464 (White, J., concurring in result). The burden is, of course, not as great as that under a total ban on distribution. Nevertheless, the restriction of distribution channels to a small fraction of the total number of possible retail outlets renders contraceptive devices considerably less accessible to the public, reduces the opportunity for privacy of selection and purchase,6 and lessens the possibility of price competition.7 Cf. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S., at 503 (White, J., concurring in judgment). Of particular relevance here is Doe v. Bolton, supra, in which the Court struck down, as unconstitutionally burdening the right of a woman to choose abortion, a statute requiring that abortions be performed only in accredited hospitals, in the absence of proof that the requirement was substantially related to the State’s interest in protecting the patient’s health. 410 U. S., at 193-195. The same infirmity infuses the limitation in § 6811 (8). “Just as in Griswold, where the right of married persons to use contraceptives was 'diluted or adversely affected’ by permitting a *690conviction for giving advice as to its exercise, . . . so here, to sanction a medical restriction upon distribution of a contraceptive not proved hazardous to health would impair the exercise of the constitutional right.” Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S., at 464 (White, J., concurring in result).

There remains the inquiry whether the provision serves a compelling state interest. Clearly “interests ... in maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life,” Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S., at 154, cannot be invoked to justify this statute. Insofar as § 6811 (8) applies to nonhazardous contraceptives,8 it bears no relation to the State’s interest in protecting health. Eisenstadt v. Baird, supra, at 450-452; 463-464 (White, J., concurring in result).9 Nor is the interest in protecting potential life implicated in state regulation of contraceptives. Roe v. Wade, supra, at 163-164.

Appellants therefore suggest that § 6811 (8) furthers other state interests. But none of them is comparable to those the Court has heretofore recognized as compelling. Appellants argue that the limitation of retail sales of nonmedical contraceptives to pharmacists (1) expresses “a proper concern that young people not sell contraceptives”; (2) “allows purchasers to inquire as to the relative qualities of the varying products and prevents anyone from tampering with them”; and (3) facilitates enforcement of the other provisions of the statute. Brief for Appellants 14. The first hardly can justify the statute’s incursion into constitutionally protected rights, and *691in any event the statute is obviously not substantially related to any goal of preventing young people from selling contraceptives.10 Nor is the statute designed to serve as a quality control device. Nothing in the record suggests that pharmacists are particularly qualified to give advice on the merits of different nonmedical contraceptives, or that such advice is more necessary to the purchaser of contraceptive products than to consumers of other nonprescription items. Why pharmacists are better able or more inclined than other retailers to prevent tampering with prepackaged products, or, if they are, why contraceptives are singled out for this special protection, is also unexplained.11 As to ease of enforcement, the prospect of additional administrative inconvenience has not been thought to justify invasion of fundamental constitutional rights. See, e. g., Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471 (1972); Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254 (1970).

IV12

A

The District Court also held unconstitutional, as applied to nonprescription contraceptives, the provision of § 6811 (8) prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives to those under *69216 years of age.13 Appellants contend that this provision of the statute is constitutionally permissible as a regulation of the morality of minors, in furtherance of the State’s policy against promiscuous sexual intercourse among the young.

The question of the extent of state power to regulate conduct of minors not constitutionally regulable when committed by adults is a vexing one, perhaps not susceptible of precise answer. We have been reluctant to attempt to define “the totality of the relationship of the juvenile and the state.” In re Gault, 387 U. S. 1, 13 (1967). Certain principles, however, have been recognized. “Minors, as well as adults, are protected by the Constitution and possess constitutional rights.” Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 74. “[Wjhatever may be their precise impact, neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor the Bill of Rights is for adults alone.” In re Gault, supra, at 13.14 On the other hand, we have held in a variety of contexts that “the power of the state to control the conduct of children reaches beyond the scope of its authority over adults.” Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 170 (1944). See Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S. 629 (1968). See also McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U. S. 528 (1971).

*693Of particular significance to the decision of this case, the right to privacy in connection with decisions affecting procreation extends to minors as well as to adults. Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, supra, held that a State “may not impose a blanket provision . . . requiring the consent of a parent or person in loco parentis as a condition for abortion of an unmarried minor during the first 12 weeks of her pregnancy.” 428 U. S., at 74. As in the case of the spousal-consent requirement struck down in the same case, id., at 67-72, “the State does not have the constitutional authority to give a third party an absolute, and possibly arbitrary, veto,” id., at 74, “ ‘which the state itself is absolutely and totally prohibited from exercising.’ ” Id., at 69. State restrictions inhibiting privacy rights of minors are valid only if they serve “any significant state interest... that is not present in the case of an adult.” Id., at 75.15 Planned Parenthood found that no such interest justified a state requirement of parental consent.16

*694Since the State may not impose a blanket prohibition, or even a blanket requirement of parental consent, on the choice of a minor to terminate her pregnancy, the constitutionality of a blanket prohibition of the distribution of contraceptives to minors is a fortiori foreclosed. The State’s interests in protection of the mental and physical health of the pregnant minor, and in protection of potential life are clearly more implicated by the abortion decision than by the decision to use a nonhazardous contraceptive.

Appellants argue, however, that significant state interests are served by restricting minors’ access to contraceptives, because free availability to minors of contraceptives would lead to increased sexual activity among the young, in violation of the policy of New York to discourage such behavior.17 The argument is that minors’ sexual activity may be deterred by increasing the hazards attendant on it. The same argument, however, would support a ban on abortions for minors, or indeed support a prohibition on abortions, or access to contraceptives, for the unmarried, whose sexual activity is also against the public policy of many States. Yet, in each of these areas, the Court has rejected the argument, noting in Roe v. Wade, that “no court or commentator has taken the argument seriously.” 410 *695U. S., at 148. The reason for this unanimous rejection was stated in Eisenstadt v. Baird: “It would be plainly unreasonable to assume that [the State] has prescribed pregnancy and the birth of an unwanted child [or the physical and psychological dangers of an abortion] as punishment for fornication.” 405 U. S., at 448. We remain reluctant to attribute any such “scheme of values” to the State.18

Moreover, there is substantial reason for doubt whether limiting access to contraceptives will in fact substantially discourage early sexual behavior. Appellants themselves conceded in the District Court that “there is no evidence that teenage extramarital sexual activity increases in proportion to the availability of contraceptives,” 398 F. Supp., at 332, and n. 10, and accordingly offered none, in the District Court or here. Appellees, on the other hand, cite a considerable body of evidence and opinion indicating that there is no such deterrent effect.19 Although we take judicial notice, as did the *696District Court, id., at 331-333, that with or without access to contraceptives, the incidence of sexual activity among minors is high,20 and the consequences of such activity are frequently devastating,21 the studies cited by appellees play no part in our decision. It is enough that we again confirm the principle that when a State, as here, burdens the exercise of a fundamental right, its attempt to justify that burden as a rational means for the accomplishment of some significant state policy requires more than a bare assertion, based on a conceded complete absence of supporting evidence, that the burden is connected to such a policy.22

*697B

Appellants argue that New York does not totally prohibit distribution of contraceptives to minors under 16, and that accordingly § 6811 (8) cannot be held unconstitutional. Although § 6811 (8) on its face is a flat unqualified prohibition, Educ. Law § 6807 (b) (McKinney, Supp. 1976-1977), see nn. 1, 7, and 13, supra, provides that nothing in Education Law §§ 6800-6826 shall be construed to prevent “[a]ny physician . . . from supplying his patients with such drugs as [he] . . . deems proper in connection with his practice.” This narrow exception, however, does not save the statute. As we have held above as to limitations upon distribution to adults, less than total restrictions on access to contraceptives that significantly burden the right to decide whether to bear children must also pass constitutional scrutiny. Appellants assert no medical necessity for imposing a medical limitation on the distribution of nonprescription contraceptives to minors. Rather, they argue that such a restriction serves to emphasize to young people the seriousness with which the State views the decision to engage in sexual intercourse at an early age.23 But this is only another form of the *698argument that juvenile sexual conduct will be deterred by making contraceptives more difficult to obtain. Moreover, that argument is particularly poorly suited to the restriction *699appellants are attempting to justify, which on appellants’ construction delegates the State’s authority to disapprove of minors’ sexual behavior to physicians, who may exercise it arbitrarily,24 either to deny contraceptives to young people, or to undermine the State’s policy of discouraging illicit early sexual behavior. This the State may not do. Cf. Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 69, 74.25

*700V

The District Court’s holding that the prohibition of any “advertisement or display” of contraceptives is unconstitutional was clearly correct. Only last Term Virginia Pharmacy Bd. v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U. S. 748 (1976), held that a State may not “completely suppress the dissemination of concededly truthful information about entirely lawful activity,” even when that information could be categorized as “commercial speech.” Id., at 773. Just as in that case, the statute challenged here seeks to suppress completely any information about the availability and price of contraceptives.26 Nor does the case present any question left open in Virginia Pharmacy Bd.; here, as there, there can be no contention that the regulation is “a mere time, place, and manner restriction,” id., at 771, or that it prohibits only misleading or deceptive advertisements,.ibid., or “that the transactions proposed in the forbidden advertisements are themselves illegal in any way. Cf. Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Relations Comm’n, [413 U. S. 376 (1973)].” Id., at 772-773. Moreover, in addition to the “substantial individual and societal interests” in the free flow of commercial information enumerated in Virginia Pharmacy Bd., supra, at 763-766, the *701information suppressed by this statute “related to activity with which, at least in some respects, the State could not interfere.” 425 U. S., at 760. Cf. Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U. S. 809 (1975).

Appellants contend that advertisements of contraceptive products would be offensive and embarrassing to those exposed to them, and that permitting them would legitimize ■ sexual activity of young people. But these are classically not justifications validating the suppression of expression protected by the First Amendment.. At least where obscenity is not involved, we have consistently held that the fact that protected speech may be offensive to some does not justify its suppress sion. See, e. g., Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15 (1971).27 As for the possible “legitimation” of illicit sexual behavior, whatever might be the case if the advertisements directly incited illicit sexual activity among the young, none of the advertisements in this record can even remotely be characterized as “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and . . . likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 447 (1969). They merely state the availability of products and services that are not only entirely legal, cf. Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Relations Comm’n, 413 U. S. 376 (1973), but constitutionally protected. Cf. Bigelow v. Virginia, supra28 These arguments *702therefore do not justify the total suppression of advertising concerning contraceptives.29

Affirmed.

The Chief Justice dissents.

Mr. Justice White,

concurring in part and concurring in the result.

I join Parts I, III, and V of the Court’s opinion and concur in the result with respect to Part IV.*

Although I saw no reason in Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438 (1972), to reach “the novel constitutional question whether a State may restrict or forbid the distribution- of contraceptives to the unmarried,” id., at 465 (concurring in result), four of the seven Justices participating in that case held that in this respect the rights of unmarried persons were equal to those of the married. Given Eisenstadt and given the decision of the Court in the abortion case, Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), the result reached by the Court in Part III of its opinion appears warranted. I do not regard the opinion, however, as declaring unconstitutional any state law forbidding extramarital sexual relations. On this assumption I join Part III.

I concur in the result in Part IV primarily because the State has not demonstrated that the prohibition against distribution of contraceptives to minors measurably contributes to the deterrent purposes which the State advances as justification for the restriction. Again, however, the legality of state laws forbidding premarital intercourse is not at issue here; and, with Mr. Justice Stevens, “I would describe as *703‘frivolous’ appellees’ argument that a minor has the constitutional right to put contraceptives to their intended use, notwithstanding the combined objection of both parents and the State,” post, at 713.

In joining Part V of the Court’s opinion, I should also say that I agree with the views of Me. Justice Stevens expressed in Part II of his separate opinion.

Me. Justice Powell,

concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

I agree that Population Planning Associates has standing to maintain this action, and therefore join Part I of the Court’s opinion. Although I concur in the judgment of the Court, I am not persuaded that the Constitution requires the severe constraints that the Court’s opinion places upon legislative efforts to regulate the distribution of contraceptives, particularly to the young.

I

The Court apparently would subject all state regulation affecting adult sexual relations to the strictest standard of judicial review. Under today’s decision, such regulation “may be justified only by compelling state interests, and must be narrowly drawn to express only those interests.” Ante, at 686. Even regulation restricting only the sexual activity of the young must now be justified by a “significant state interest,” a standard that is “apparently less rigorous” than the standard the Court would otherwise apply. Ante, at 693 n. 16. In my view, the extraordinary protection the Court would give to all personal decisions in matters of sex is neither required by the Constitution nor supported by our prior decisions.

A

The cases on which the Court relies for its “compelling interest” standard do not support the sweeping principle it adopts today. Those cases generally involved direct and sub*704stantial interference with constitutionally protected rights. In Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965), the Court invalidated a state statute prohibiting the use of contraceptives and making it illegal for physicians to give advice to married persons regarding contraception. The statute was viewed as one “operating] directly on an intimate relation of husband and wife and their physician’s role in one aspect of that relation,” id., at 482, and “seek[ing] to achieve its goals by means having a maximum destructive impact upon that relationship,” id., at 485. In Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973). the Court reviewed a Texas statute imposing severe criminal sanctions on physicians and other medical personnel who performed nontherapeutic abortions, thus effectively foreclosing the availability and safety of this desired service. And just last Term, in Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52 (1976), we invalidated Missouri’s requirement of spousal consent as a state-imposed “absolute obstacle to a woman’s decision that Roe held to be constitutionally protected from such interference.” Id., at 71 n. 11.

The Court relies on Planned Parenthood, supra, and Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973), for the proposition that “the same test must be applied to state regulations that burden an individual’s right to decide to prevent conception or terminate pregnancy by substantially limiting access to the means of effectuating that decision as is applied tó state statutes that prohibit the decision entirely.” Ante, at 688. But neither of those cases refers to the “compelling state interest” test. In Bolton, the Court invalidated procedural requirements of the Georgia abortion statute that were found not “reasonably •related” to the asserted legislative purposes or to the “patient’s needs,” 410 U. S., at 194, 199. Planned Parenthood involved-in addition to the “absolute obstacle” referred to above — the Missouri requirement of prior written consent by the pregnant woman. Despite the fact that Missouri normally did not require written consent for other surgical procedures,- the Court *705sustained this regulation without requiring any demonstration of compelling state interests. The Court recognized that the decision to abort “is an important, and often a stressful one,” and the State thus constitutionally could assure that the woman was aware of the significance of the decision. 428 17. S., at 67.

In sum, the Court quite unnecessarily extends the reach of cases like Griswold and Roe. Neither our precedents nor sound principles of constitutional analysis require state legislation to meet the exacting “compelling state interest” standard whenever it implicates sexual freedom. In my view, those cases make clear that that standard has been invoked only when the state regulation entirely frustrates or heavily burdens the exercise of constitutional rights in this area. See Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U. S. 132, 147 (1976). This is not to say that other state regulation is free from judicial review. But a test so severe that legislation rarely can meet it should be imposed by courts with deliberate restraint in view of the respect that properly should be accorded legislative judgments.

B

There is also no justification for subjecting restrictions on the sexual activity of the young to heightened judicial review. Under our prior cases, the States have broad latitude to legislate with respect to adolescents. The principle is well settled that “a State may permissibly determine that, at least in some precisely delineated areas, a child ... is not possessed of that full capacity for individual choice” which is essential to the exercise of various constitutionally protected interests. Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S. 629, 649-650 (1968) (Stewart, J., concurring in result). This principle is the premise of our prior decisions, ostensibly reaffirmed by the plurality, ante, at 692, holding that “the power of the state to control the conduct of children reaches beyond the scope of its authority over adults.” Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 170 (1944). *706Restraints' on the freedom of minors may be justified “even though comparable restraints on adults would be constitutionally impermissible.” Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, supra, at 102 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) ,1

New York has exercised its responsibility over minors in areas falling within the “cluster of constitutionally protected choices” relating to sex and marriage. Ante, at 685. It has set an age limitation below which persons cannot marry without parental consent, N. Y. Dom. Rel. Law §§ 15,15-a (McKinney 1964 and Supp. 1976-1977), and has established by statute the age at which a minor is legally recognized as having the capacity to consent to sexual activity, Penal Law § 130.05 (3) (a) (McKinney 1975). See also Penal Law §§ 130.25, 130.30, 130.35 (McKinney 1975). These provisions highlight the State’s concern that its juvenile citizens generally lack the maturity and understanding necessary to make decisions concerning marriage and sexual relationships.

Until today, I would not have thought it was even arguably necessary to review state regulation of this sort under a standard that for all-practical purposes approaches the “compelling state interest” standard. At issue in Ginsberg v. New York, supra, for example, was the question of the constitutionality on its face of a New York criminal obscenity statute which prohibited the sale to minors of material defined to be obscene on the basis of its appeal to them whether or not it would be obscene to adults. The Court recognized that “the State has *707an interest 'to protect the welfare of children’ and to see that they are 'safeguarded from abuses’ which might prevent their 'growth into free and independent well-developed men and citizens.’ ” 390 U. S., at 640-641, quoting Prince v. Massachusetts, supra, at 165. Consequently, the “only question remaining” in that case was “whether the New York Legislature might rationally conclude, as it has, that exposure to the materials proscribed by [the statute] constitutes such an 'abuse.’ ” 390 U. S., at 641. Similarly, the relevant question in any case where state laws impinge on the freedom of action of young people in sexual matters is whether the restriction rationally serves valid state interests.

II

With these considerations in mind, I turn to the specific provisions of the New York statute limiting the distribution of contraceptives.

A

New York has made it a crime for anyone other than a physician to sell or distribute contraceptives to' minors under the age of 16 years. Educ. Law § 6811 (8) (McKinney 1972). This element of New York’s program of regulation for the protection of its minor citizens is said to evidence the State’s judgment that the health and well-being of minors would be better assured if they are not encouraged to engage in sexual intercourse without guidance. Although I have no doubt that properly framed legislation serving this purpose would meet constitutional standards, the New York provision is defective in two respects. First, it infringes the privacy interests of married females between the ages of 14 and 16, see ante, at 695 n. 18, in that it prohibits the distribution of contraceptives to such females except by a physician. In authorizing marriage at that age, the State also sanctions sexual intercourse between the partners and expressly recognizes that once the marriage relationship exists the husband and *708wife are presumed to possess the requisite understanding and maturity to make decisions concerning sex and procreation. Consequently, the state interest that justifies a requirement of prior counseling with respect to minors in general simply is inapplicable with respect to minors for whom the State has affirmatively approved marriage.

Second, this provision prohibits parents from distributing contraceptives to their children, a restriction that unjustifiably interferes with parental interests in rearing their children. Cf. Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S., at 639 and n. 7. “ [Constitutional interpretation has consistently recognized that the parents’ claim to authority in their own household to direct the rearing of their children is basic in the structure of our society. Tt is cardinal with us that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder.’ ” Ibid., quoting Prince v. Massachusetts, supra, at 166. See Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 231-233 (1972); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 534-535 (1925); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 399-401 (1923). Moreover, this statute would allow the State “to enquire into, prove, and punish,” Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 548 (1961) (Harlan, J., dissenting), the exercise of this parental responsibility. The State points to no interest of sufficient magnitude to justify this direct interference with the parental guidance that is especially appropriate in this sensitive area of child development.2

*709But in my view there is considerably more room for state regulation in this area than would be permissible under the plurality’s opinion. It seems clear to me, for example, that the State would further a constitutionally permissible end if it encouraged adolescents to seek the advice and guidance of their parents before deciding whether to engage in sexual intercourse. Planned Parenthood, 428 U. S., at 91 (Stewart, J., concurring). The State justifiably may take note of the psychological pressures that might influence children at a time in their lives when they generally do not possess the maturity necessary to understand and control their responses. Participation in sexual intercourse at an early age may have both physical and psychological consequences. These include the risks of venereal disease and pregnancy, and the less obvious mental and emotional problems that may result from sexual activity by children. Moreover, society has long adhered to the view that sexual intercourse should hot be engaged in promiscuously, a judgment that an adolescent may be less likely to heed than an adult.

Requiring minors to seek parental guidance would be consistent with our prior cases. In Planned Parenthood, we considered whether there was “any significant state interest in conditioning [a minor’s] abortion [decision] on the consent of a parent or person in loco parentis that is not present in the case of an adult.” 428 U. S., at 75. Observing that the minor necessarily would be consulting with a physician on all aspects of the abortion decision, we concluded that the Missouri requirement was invalid because it im*710posed “a special-consent provision, exercisable by a person other than the woman and her physician, as a prerequisite to a minor’s termination of her pregnancy and [did] so without a sufficient justification for the restriction.” Ibid. But we explicitly suggested that a materially different constitutional issue would be presented with respect to a statute assuring in most instances consultation between the parent and child. Ibid., citing Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U. S. 132 (1976). See Planned Parenthood, supra, at 90-91 (Stewart, J., concurring).

A requirement of prior parental consultation is merely one illustration of permissible regulation in this area. As long as parental distribution is permitted, a State should have substantial latitude in regulating the distribution of contraceptives to minors.3

B

New York also makes it a crime for anyone other than a licensed pharmacist to sell or distribute contraceptives to adults and to minors aged 16 or over. The only serious justification offered by the State for this prohibition is that it is necessary to facilitate enforcement of the limitation on distribution to children under 16 years of age. Since the Court invalidates that limitation today, the pharmacy restriction lacks any rational justification. I therefore agree with the Court that § 6811 (8)’s limitation on the distribution of nonprescription contraceptives cannot be sustained.

But even if New York were to enact constitutionally permissible limitations on access for children, I doubt that it could justify the present pharmacy restriction as an enforcement measure. Restricting the kinds of retail outlets that may dis*711tribute contraceptives may well be justified,4 but the present statute even prohibits distribution by mail to adults. In this respect, the statute works a significant invasion of the constitutionally protected privacy in decisions concerning sexual relations. By requiring individuals to buy contraceptives over the counter, the statute heavily burdens constitutionally protected freedom.5

Ill

I also agree with the Court that New York cannot lawfully prohibit all “advertisement or display” of contraceptives. But it seems to me that the Court’s opinion may be read too broadly. It flatly dismisses, as justifications “classically” irrelevant, the State’s contentions that the indiscriminate advertisement of contraceptive products in some settings could be unduly offensive and could be viewed by the young as legitimation of sexual promiscuity. I agree that these jus*712tifications cannot support a complete ban on advertising, but I see no reason to cast any doubt on the authority of the State to impose carefully tailored restrictions designed to serve legitimate governmental concerns as to the effect of commercial advertising on the young.6

Mr. Justice Stevens,

concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

For the reasons stated in Parts I, II, and III of the opinion of the Court, which I join, I agree that Population Planning Associates, Inc., has standing to challenge the New York statute and that the grant to licensed pharmacists of a monopoly in the distribution of nonmedical contraceptives is unconstitutional. I also agree with the conclusion that New York’s prohibition against the distribution of contraceptives to persons under 16 years of age is unconstitutional, and with the Court’s conclusion that the total suppression of advertising or display of contraceptives is invalid, but my reasons differ from those set forth in Part IY of Mr. Justice Bren*713nan’s opinion and I wish to add emphasis to the limitation on the Court’s holding in Part V.

I

There are two reasons why I do not join Part IV. First, the holding in Planned Parenthood of Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 72-75, that a minor’s decision to abort her pregnancy may not be conditioned on parental consent, is not dispositive here. The options available to the already pregnant minor are fundamentally different from those available to nonpregnant minors. The former must bear a child unless she aborts; but persons in the latter category can and generally will avoid childbearing by abstention. Consequently, even if I had joined that part of Planned Parenthood, I could not agree that the Constitution provides the same measure of protection to the minor’s right to use contraceptives as to the pregnant female’s right to abort.

Second, I would not leave open the question whether there is a significant state interest in discouraging sexual activity among unmarried persons under 16 years of age. Indeed, I would describe as “frivolous” appellees’ argument that a minor has the constitutional right to put contraceptives to their intended use, notwithstanding the combined objection of both parents and the State.

For the reasons explained by Mr. Justice Powell, I agree that the statute may not be applied to married females between the ages of 14 and 16, or to distribution by parents. I am not persuaded, however, that these glaring defects alone justify an injunction against other applications of the statute. Only one of the three plaintiffs in this case is a parent who wishes to give contraceptives to his children. The others are an Episcopal minister who sponsors a program against venereal disease, and a mail-order firm, which presumably has no way to determine the age of its customers. I am satisfied, for the reasons that follow, that the statute is also invalid as applied to them.

*714The State’s important interest in the welfare of its young citizens justifies a number of protective measures. See Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, supra, at 102 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Such special legislation is premised on the fact that young persons frequently make unwise choices with harmful consequences; the State may properly ameliorate thpse consequences by providing, for example, that a minor may not be required to honor his bargain. It is almost unprecedented, however, for a State to require that an ill-advised act by a minor give rise to greater risk of irreparable harm than a similar act by an adult.1

Common sense indicates that many young people will engage in sexual activity regardless of what the New York Legislature does; and further, that the incidence of venereal disease and premarital pregnancy is affected by the availability or unavailability of contraceptives. Although young persons theoretically may avoid those harms by practicing total abstention, .inevitably many will not. The statutory prohibition denies them and their parents a choice which, if available, would reduce their exposure to disease or unwanted pregnancy.

*715The State’s asserted justification is a desire to inhibit sexual conduct by minors under 16. Appellants do not seriously contend that if contraceptives are available, significant numbers of minors who now abstain from sex will cease abstaining because they will no longer fear pregnancy or disease.2 Rather appellants’ central argument is that the statute has the important symbolic effect of communicating disapproval of sexual activity by minors.3 In essence, therefore, the statute is defended as a form of propaganda, rather than a regulation of behavior.4

Although the State may properly perform a teaching function, it seems to me that an attempt to persuade by inflicting harm on the listener is an unacceptable means of conveying a message that is otherwise legitimate. The propaganda technique used in this case significantly increases the risk of unwanted pregnancy and venereal disease. It is as though a State decided to dramatize its disapproval of motorcycles by forbidding the use of safety helmets. One need not posit a constitutional right to ride a motorcycle to characterize such a restriction as irrational and perverse.

Even as a regulation of behavior, such a statute would be defective. Assuming that the State could impose a uniform *716sanction upon young persons who risk self-inflicted harm by operating motorcycles, or by engaging in sexual activity, surely that sanction could not take the form of deliberately injuring the cyclist or infecting the promiscuous child. If such punishment may not be administered deliberately, after trial and a finding of guilt, it manifestly cannot be imposed by a legislature, indiscriminately and at random. This kind of government-mandated harm, is, in my judgment, appropriately characterized as a deprivation of liberty without due process of law.

II

In Part V of its opinion, the Court holds that New York’s total ban on contraceptive advertising is unconstitutional under Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U. S. 809, and Virginia Pharmacy Bd. v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U. S. 748. Specifically, the Court holds that all contraceptive advertising may not be suppressed because some advertising of that subject may be offensive and embarrassing to the reader or listener. I also agree with that holding.

The Court properly does not decide whether the State may impose any regulation on the content of contraceptive advertising in order to minimize its offensive character. I have joined Part V of the opinion on the understanding that it does not foreclose such regulation simply because an advertisement is within the zone protected by the First Amendment.

The fact that a type of communication is entitled to some constitutional protection does not require the conclusion that it is totally immune from regulation. Cf. Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50, 65-71 (opinion of Stevens, J.). An editorial and an advertisement in the same newspaper may contain misleading matter in equal measure. Although each is a form of protected expression, one may be censored while the other may not.

In the area of commercial speech — as in the business of exhibiting motion pictures for profit — the offensive character of *717the communication is a factor which may affect the time, place, or manner in which it may be expressed. Cf. Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., supra. The fact that the advertising of a particular subject matter is sometimes offensive does not deprive all such advertising of First Amendment protection; but it is equally clear to me that the existence of such protection does not deprive the State of all power to regulate such advertising in order to minimize its offensiveness. A picture which may appropriately be included in an instruction book may be excluded from a billboard.

I concur in the judgment and in Parts I, II, III, and V of the Court’s opinion.

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,

dissenting.

Those who valiantly but vainly defended the heights of Bunker Hill in 1775 made it possible that men such as James Madison might later sit in the first Congress and draft the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. The post-Civil War Congresses which drafted the Civil War Amendments to the Constitution could not have accomplished their task without the blood of brave men on both sides which was shed at Shiloh, Gettysburg, and Cold Harbor. If those responsible for these Amendments, by feats of valor or efforts of draftsmanship, could have lived to know that their efforts had enshrined in the Constitution the right of commercial vendors of contraceptives to peddle them to unmarried minors through such means as window displays and vending machines located in the men’s room of truck stops, notwithstanding the considered judgment of the New York Legislature to the contrary, it is not difficult to imagine their reaction.1

*718I do not believe that the cases discussed in the Court’s opinion require any such result, but to debate the- Court’s treatment of the question on a case-by-case basis would concede more validity to the result reached by the Court than I am willing to do.2 There comes a point when endless and ill-considered extension of principles originally formulated in quite different cases produces such an indefensible result that no logic chopping can possibly make the fallacy of the result more obvious. The Court here in effect holds that the First and Fourteenth Amendments not only guarantee full and free debate before a legislative judgment as to the moral dangers to which minors within the jurisdiction of the State should not be subjected, but goes further and absolutely prevents the representatives of the majority from carrying out such a policy after the issues have been fully aired.

No questions of religious belief, compelled allegiance to a secular creed, or decisions on the part of married couples as to procreation, are involved here. New York has simply decided that it wishes to discourage unmarried minors under 16 from having promiscuous sexual intercourse with one another. Even the Court would scarcely go so far as to say that this is not a subject with which the New York Legislature may properly concern itself.

That legislature has not chosen to deny to a pregnant woman, after the fait accompli of pregnancy, the one remedy *719which would enable her to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. It has instead sought to deter the conduct which will produce such faits accomplis. The majority of New York’s citizens are in effect told that however deeply they may be concerned about the problem of promiscuous sex and intercourse among unmarried teenagers, they may not adopt this means of dealing with it. The Court holds that New York may not use its police power to legislate in the interests of its concept of the public morality as it pertains to minors. The Court’s denial of a power so fundamental to self-government must, in the long run, prove to be but a temporary departure from a wise and heretofore settled course of adjudication to the contrary. I would reverse the judgment of the District Court.

*843Justice O’Connor, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Sou-ter

announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, III, V-A, *844V-C, and VI, an opinion with respect to Part V-E,

in which Justice Stevens joins, and an opinion with respect to Parts IV, V-B, and V-D.

I

Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt. Yet 19 years after our holding that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy in its early stages, Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), that definition of liberty is still questioned. Joining the respondents as amicus curiae, the United States, as it has done in five other cases in the last decade, again asks us to overrule Roe. See Brief for Respondents 104-117; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 8.

At issue in these cases are five provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982, as amended in 1988 and 1989. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§3203-3220 (1990). Relevant portions of the Act are set forth in the Appendix. Infra, at 902. The Act requires that a woman seeking an abortion give her informed consent prior to the abortion procedure, and specifies that she be provided with certain information at least 24 hours before the abortion is performed. § 3205. For a minor to obtain an abortion, the Act requires the informed consent of one of her parents, but provides for a judicial bypass option if the minor does not wish to or cannot obtain a parent’s consent. § 3206. Another provision of the Act requires that, unless certain exceptions apply, a married woman seeking an abortion must sign a statement indicating that she has notified her husband of her intended abortion. §3209. The Act exempts compliance with these three requirements in the event of a “medical emergency,” which is defined in §3203 of the Act. See §§3203, 3205(a), 3206(a), 3209(c). In addition to the above provisions regulating the performance of abortions, the Act imposes certain reporting requirements on facilities that provide abortion services. §§ 3207(b), 3214(a), 3214(f).

*845Before any of these provisions took effect, the petitioners, who are five abortion clinics and one physician representing himself as well as a class of physicians who provide abortion services, brought this suit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. Each provision was challenged as unconstitutional on its face. The District Court entered a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the regulations, and, after a 3-day bench trial, held all the provisions at issue here unconstitutional, entering a permanent injunction against Pennsylvania’s enforcement of them. 744 F. Supp. 1323 (ED Pa. 1990). The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part, upholding all of the regulations except for the husband notification requirement. 947 F. 2d 682 (1991). We granted certiorari. 502 U. S. 1056 (1992).

The Court of Appeals found it necessary to follow an elaborate course of reasoning even to identify the first premise to use to determine whether the statute enacted by Pennsylvania meets constitutional standards. See 947 F. 2d, at 687-698. And at oral argument in this Court, the attorney for the parties challenging the statute took the position that none of the enactments can be upheld without overruling Roe v. Wade. Tr. of Oral Arg. 5-6. We disagree with that analysis; but we acknowledge that our decisions after Roe cast doubt upon the meaning and reach of its holding. Further, The Chief Justice admits that he would overrule the central holding of Roe and adopt the rational relationship test as the sole criterion of constitutionality. See post, at 944, 966. State and federal courts as well as legislatures throughout the Union must have guidance as they seek to address this subject in conformance with the Constitution. Given these premises, we find it imperative to review once more the principles that define the rights of the woman and the legitimate authority of the State respecting the termination of pregnancies by abortion procedures.

After considering the fundamental constitutional questions resolved by Roe, principles of institutional integrity, *846and the rule of stare decisis, we are led to conclude this: the essential holding of Roe v. Wade should be retained and once again reaffirmed.

It must be stated at the outset and with clarity that Roe’s essential holding, the holding we reaffirm, has three parts. First is a recognition of the right of the woman to choose to have an abortion before viability and to obtain it without undue interference from the State. Before viability, the State’s interests are not strong enough to support a prohibition of abortion or the imposition of a substantial obstacle to the woman’s effective right to elect the procedure. Second is a confirmation of the State’s power to restrict abortions after fetal viability, if the law contains exceptions for pregnancies which endanger the woman’s life or health. And third is the principle that the State has legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus that may become a child. These principles do not contradict one another; and we adhere to each.

II

Constitutional protection of the woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy derives from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It declares that no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The controlling word in the cases before us is “liberty.” Although a literal reading of the Clause might suggest that it governs only the procedures by which a State may deprive persons of liberty, for at least 105 years, since Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 660-661 (1887), the Clause has been understood to contain a substantive component as well, one “barring certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them.” Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 331 (1986). As Justice Brandéis (joined by Justice Holmes) observed, “[djespite arguments to the contrary which had seemed to me persuasive, it is settled that the due process clause of the Fourteenth *847Amendment applies to matters of substantive law as well as to matters of procedure. Thus all fundamental rights comprised within the term liberty are protected by the Federal Constitution from invasion by the States.” Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 373 (1927) (concurring opinion). “[TJhe guaranties of due process, though having their roots in Magna Carta’s ‘per legem ter rae’ and considered as procedural safeguards ‘against executive usurpation and tyranny/ have in this country ‘become bulwarks also against arbitrary legislation.’ ” Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 541 (1961) (Harlan, J., dissenting from dismissal on jurisdictional grounds) (quoting Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 532 (1884)).

The most familiar of the substantive liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment are those recognized by the Bill of Rights. We have held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates most of the Bill of Rights against the States. See, e. g., Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 147-148 (1968). It is tempting, as a means of curbing the discretion of federal judges, to suppose that liberty encompasses no more than those rights already guaranteed to the individual against federal interference by the express provisions of the first eight Amendments to the Constitution. See Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 68-92 (1947) (Black, J., dissenting). But of course this Court has never accepted that view.

It is also tempting, for the same reason, to suppose that the Due Process Clause protects only those practices, defined at the most specific level, that were protected against government interference by other rules of law when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. See Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U. S. 110, 127-128, n. 6 (1989) (opinion of Scalia, J.). But such a view would be inconsistent with our law. It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter. We have vindicated this principle before. Marriage is mentioned nowhere in the Bill of Rights and interracial marriage was file-*848gal in most States in the 19th century, but the Court was no doubt correct in finding it to be an aspect of liberty protected against state interference by the substantive component of the Due Process Clause in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 12 (1967) (relying, in an opinion for eight Justices, on the Due Process Clause). Similar examples may be found in Turner v. Safley, 482 U. S. 78, 94-99 (1987); in Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U. S. 678, 684-686 (1977); in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 481-482 (1965), as well as in the separate opinions of a majority of the Members of the Court in that case, id., at 486-488 (Goldberg, J., joined by Warren, C. J., and Brennan, J., concurring) (expressly relying on due process), id., at 500-502 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment) (same), id., at 502-507 (White, J., concurring in judgment) (same); in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 534-535 (1925); and in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 399-403 (1923).

Neither the Bill of Rights nor the specific practices of States at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment marks the outer limits of the substantive sphere of liberty which the Fourteenth Amendment protects. See U. S. Const., Arndt. 9. As the second Justice Harlan recognized:

“[T]he full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This ‘liberty’ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints, . . . and which also recognizes, what a reasonable and sensitive judgment must, that certain interests require particularly careful scrutiny of the state needs asserted to justify their abridgment.” Poe v. *849UUman, supra, at 543 (opinion dissenting from dismissal on jurisdictional grounds).

Justice Harlan wrote these words in addressing an issue the full Court did not reach in Poe v. Ullman, but the Court adopted his position four Terms later in Griswold v. Connecticut, supra. In Griswold, we held that the Constitution does not permit a State to forbid a married couple to use contraceptives. That same freedom was later guaranteed, under the Equal Protection Clause, for unmarried couples. See Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438 (1972). Constitutional protection was extended to the sale and distribution of contraceptives in Carey v. Population Services International, supra. It is settled now, as it was when the Court heard arguments in Roe v. Wade, that the Constitution places limits on a State’s right to interfere with a person’s most basic decisions about family and parenthood, see Carey v. Population Services International, supra; Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494 (1977); Eisenstadt v. Baird, supra; Loving v. Virginia, supra; Griswold v. Connecticut, supra; Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535 (1942); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra; Meyer v. Nebraska, supra, as well as bodily integrity, see, e. g., Washington v. Harper, 494 U. S. 210, 221-222 (1990); Winston v. Lee, 470 U. S. 753 (1985); Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165 (1952).

The inescapable fact is that adjudication of substantive due process claims may call upon the Court in interpreting the Constitution to exercise that same capacity which by tradition courts always have exercised: reasoned judgment. Its boundaries are not susceptible of expression as a simple rule. That does not mean we are free to invalidate state policy choices with which we disagree; yet neither does it permit us to shrink from the duties of our office. As Justice Harlan observed:

“Due process has not been reduced to any formula; its content cannot be determined by reference to any code. *850The best that can be said is that through the course of this Court’s decisions it has represented the balance which our Nation, built upon postulates of respect for the liberty of the individual, has struck between that liberty and the demands of organized society. If the supplying of content to this Constitutional concept has of necessity been a rational process, it certainly has not been one where judges have felt free to roam where unguided speculation might take them. The balance of which I speak is the balance struck by this country, having regard to what history teaches are the traditions from which it developed as well as the traditions from which it broke. That tradition is a living thing. A decision of this Court which radically departs from it eould not long survive, while a decision which builds on what has survived is likely to be sound. No formula could serve as a substitute, in this area, for judgment and restraint.” Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S., at 542 (opinion dissenting from dismissal on jurisdictional grounds).

See also Rochin v. California, supra, at 171-172 (Frankfurter, J., writing for the Court) (“To believe that this judicial exercise of judgment could be avoided by freezing ‘due process of law’ at some fixed stage of time or thought is to suggest that the most important aspect of constitutional adjudication is a function for inanimate machines and not for judges”).

Men and women of good conscience can disagree, and we suppose some always shall disagree, about the profound moral and spiritual implications of terminating a pregnancy, even in its earliest stage. Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that cannot control our decision. Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code. The underlying constitutional issue is whether the State can resolve these philosophic questions in such a definitive way that a woman lacks all choice in the matter, except perhaps *851in those rare circumstances in which the pregnancy is itself a danger to her own life or health, or is the result of rape or incest.

It is conventional constitutional doctrine that where reasonable people disagree the government can adopt one position or the other. See, e. g., Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726 (1963); Williamson v. Lee Optical of Okla., Inc., 348 U. S. 483 (1955). That theorem, however, assumes a state of affairs in which the choice does not intrude upon a protected liberty. Thus, while some people might disagree about whether or not the flag should be saluted, or disagree about the proposition that it may not be defiled, we have ruled that a State may not compel or enforce one view or the other. See West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624 (1943); Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S. 397 (1989).

Our law affords constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education. Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U. S., at 685. Our cases recognize “the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” Eisenstadt v. Baird, supra, at 453 (emphasis in original). Our precedents “have respected the private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.” Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 166 (1944). These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. 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. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.

*852These considerations begin our analysis of the woman’s interest in terminating her pregnancy but cannot end it, for this reason: though the abortion decision may originate within the zone of conscience and belief, it is more than a philosophic exercise. Abortion is a unique act. It is an act fraught with consequences for others: for the woman who must live with the implications of her decision; for the persons who perform and assist in the procedure; for the spouse, family, and society which must confront the knowledge that these procedures exist, procedures some deem nothing short of an act of violence against innocent human life; and, depending on one’s beliefs, for the life or potential life that is aborted. Though abortion is conduct, it does not follow that the State is entitled to proscribe it in all instances. That is because 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. That these sacrifices have from the beginning of the human race been endured by woman with a pride that ennobles her in the eyes of others and gives to the infant a bond of love cannot alone be grounds for the State to insist she make the sacrifice. Her suffering is too intimate and personal for the State to insist, without more, upon its own vision of the woman’s role, however dominant that vision -has been in the course of our history and our culture. The destiny of the woman must be shaped to a large extent on her own conception of her spiritual imperatives and her place in society.

It should be recognized, moreover, that in some critical respects the abortion decision is of the same character as the decision to use contraception, to which Griswold v. Connecticut, Eisenstadt v. Baird, and Carey v. Population Services International afford constitutional protection. We have no doubt as to the correctness of those decisions. They support *853the reasoning in Roe relating to the woman’s liberty because they involve personal decisions concerning not only the meaning of procreation but also human responsibility and respect for it. As with abortion, reasonable people will have differences of opinion about these matters. One view is based on such reverence for the wonder of creation that any pregnancy ought to be welcomed and carried to full term no matter how difficult it will be to provide for the child and ensure its well-being. Another is that the inability to provide for the nurture and care of the infant is a cruelty to the child and an anguish to thé parent. These are intimate views with infinite variations, and their deep, personal character underlay our decisions in Griswold, Eisenstadt, and Carey. The same concerns are present when the woman confronts the reality that, perhaps despite her attempts to avoid it, she has become pregnant.

It was this dimension of personal liberty that Roe sought to protect, and its holding invoked the reasoning and the tradition of the precedents we have discussed, granting protection to substantive liberties of the person. Roe was, of course, an extension of those cases and, as the decision itself indicated, the separate States could act in some degree to further their own legitimate interests in protecting prenatal life. The extent to which the legislatures of the States might aet to outweigh the interests of the woman in choosing to terminate her pregnancy was a subject of debate both in Roe itself and in decisions following it.

While we appreciate the weight of the arguments made on behalf of the State in the cases before us, arguments which in their ultimate formulation conclude that Roe should be overruled, the reservations any of us may have in reaffirming the central holding of Roe are outweighed by the explication of individual liberty we have given combined with the force of stare decisis. We turn now to that doctrine.

*854hH I — I

A

The obligation to follow precedent begins with necessity, and a contrary necessity marks its outer limit. With Cardozo, we recognize that no judicial system could do society's work if it eyed each issue afresh in every case that raised it. See B. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 149 (1921). Indeed, the very concept of the rule of law underlying our own Constitution requires such continuity over time that a respect for precedent is, by definition, indispensable. See Powell, Stare Decisis and Judicial Restraint, 1991 Journal of Supreme Court History 13,16. At the other extreme, a different necessity would make itself felt if a prior judicial ruling should come to be seen so clearly as error that its enforcement was for that very reason doomed.

Even when the decision to overrule a prior case is not, as in the rare, latter instance, virtually foreordained, it is common wisdom that the rule of stare decisis is not an “inexorable command,” and certainly it is not such in every constitutional case, see Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U. S. 393, 405-411 (1932) (Brandéis, J., dissenting). See also Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 842 (1991) (Souter, J., joined by Kennedy, J., concurring); Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U. S. 203, 212 (1984). Rather, when this Court reexamines a prior holding, its judgment is customarily informed by a series of prudential and pragmatic considerations designed to test the consistency of overruling a prior decision with the ideal of the rule of law, and to gauge the respective costs of reaffirming and overruling a prior case. Thus, for example, we may ask whether the rule has proven to be intolerable simply in defying practical workability, Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U. S. 111, 116 (1965); whether the rule is subject to a kind of reliance that would lend a special hardship to the consequences of overruling and add inequity to the cost of repudiation, e. g., United States v. Title Ins. & Trust *855Co., 265 U. S. 472, 486 (1924); whether related principles of law have so far developed as to have left the old rule no more than a remnant of abandoned doctrine, see Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 173-174 (1989); or whether facts have so changed, or come to be seen so differently, as to have robbed the old rule of significant application or justification, e.g., Burnet, supra, at 412 (Brandéis, J., dissenting).

So in this case we may enquire whether Roe’s central rule has been found unworkable; whether the rule’s limitation on state power could be removed without serious inequity to those who have relied upon it or significant damage to the stability of the society governed by it; whether the law’s growth in the intervening years has left Roe’s central rule a doctrinal anachronism discounted by society; and whether Roe’s premises of fact have so far changed in the ensuing two decades as to render its central holding somehow irrelevant or unjustifiable in dealing with the issue it addressed.

1

Although Roe has engendered opposition, it has in no sense proven “unworkable,” see Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 546 (1985), representing as it does a simple limitation beyond which a state law is unenforceable. While Roe has, of course, required judicial assessment of state laws affecting the exercise of the choice guaranteed against government infringement, and although the need for such review will remain as a consequence of today’s decision, the required determinations fall within judicial competence.

2

The inquiry into reliance counts the cost of a rule’s repudiation as it would fall on those who have relied reasonably on the rule’s continued application. Since the classic case for weighing reliance heavily in favor of following the earlier rule occurs in the commercial context, see Payne v. Tennes*856see, supra,, at 828, where advance planning of great precision is most obviously a necessity, it is no cause for surprise that some would find no reliance worthy of consideration in support of Roe.

While neither respondents nor their amici in so many words deny that the abortion right invites some reliance prior to its actual exercise, one can readily imagine an argument stressing the dissimilarity of this case to one involving property or contract. Abortion is customarily chosen as an unplanned response to the consequence of unplanned activity or to the failure of conventional birth control, and except on the assumption that no intercourse would have occurred but for Roe’s holding, such behavior may appear to justify no reliance claim. Even if reliance could be claimed on that unrealistic assumption, the argument might run, any reliance interest would be de minimis. This argument would be premised on the hypothesis that reproductive planning could take virtually immediate account of any sudden restoration of state authority to ban abortions.

To eliminate the issue of relianee that easily, however, one would need to limit cognizable reliance to specific instances of sexual activity. But to do this would be simply to refuse to face the fact that for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in relianee on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail. The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives. See, e. g., R. Petehesky, Abortion and Woman’s Choice 109, 138, n. 7 (rev. ed. 1990). The Constitution serves human values, and while the effect of reliance on Roe cannot be exactly measured, neither can the certain cost of overruling Roe for people who have ordered their thinking and living around that case be dismissed.

*8573

No evolution of legal principle has left Roe’s doctrinal footings weaker than they were in 1973. No development of constitutional law since the ease was decided has implicitly or explicitly left Roe behind as a mere survivor of obsolete constitutional thinking.

It will be recognized, of course, that Roe stands at an intersection of two lines of decisions, but in whichever doctrinal category one reads the case, the result for present purposes will be the same. The Roe Court itself placed its holding in the succession of cases most prominently exemplified by Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965). See Roe, 410 U. S., at 152-153. When it is so seen, Roe is clearly in no jeopardy, since subsequent constitutional developments have neither disturbed, nor do they threaten to diminish, the scope of recognized protection accorded to the liberty relating to intimate relationships, the family, and decisions about whether or not to beget or bear a child. See, e. g., Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U. S. 678 (1977); Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494 (1977).

Roe, however, may be seen not only as an exemplar of Griswold liberty but as a rule (whether or not mistaken) of personal autonomy and bodily integrity, with doctrinal affinity to cases recognizing limits on governmental power to mandate medical treatment or to bar its rejection. If so, our cases since Roe accord with Roe’s view that a State’s interest in the protection of life falls short of justifying any plenary override of individual liberty claims. Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S. 261, 278 (1990); cf., e. g., Riggins v. Nevada, 504 U. S. 127, 135 (1992); Washington v. Harper, 494 U. S. 210 (1990); see also, e. g., Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165 (1952); Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11, 24-30 (1905).

Finally, one could classify Roe as sui generis. If the case is so viewed, then there clearly has been no erosion of its central determination. The original holding resting on the *858concurrence of seven Members of the Court in 1973 was expressly affirmed by a majority of six in 1983, see Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U. S. 416 (Akron I), and by a majority of five in 1986, see Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747, expressing adherence to the constitutional ruling despite legislative efforts in some States to test its limits. More recently, in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S. 490 (1989), although two of the present authors questioned the trimester framework in a way consistent with our judgment today, see id., at 518 (Rehnquist, C. J., joined by White and Kennedy, JJ.); id., at 529 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), a majority of the Court either decided to reaffirm or declined to address the constitutional validity of the central holding of Roe. See Webster, 492 U. S., at 521 (Rehnquist, C. J., joined by White and Kennedy, JJ.); id., at 525-526 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); id., at 537, 553 (Blackmun, J., joined by Brennan and Marshall, JJ., concurring in part and dissenting in part); id., at 561-563 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

Nor will courts building upon Roe be likely to hand down erroneous decisions as a consequence. Even on the assumption that the central holding of Roe was in error, that error would go only to the strength of the state interest in fetal protection, not to the recognition afforded by the Constitution to the woman’s liberty. The latter aspect of the decision fits comfortably within the framework of the Court’s prior decisions, including Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535 (1942); Griswold, supra; Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967); and Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438 (1972), the holdings of which are “not a series of isolated points,” but mark a “rational continuum.” Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S., at 543 (Harlan, J, dissenting). As we described in *859Carey v. Population Services International, supra, the liberty which encompasses those decisions

“includes ‘the interest in independence in making certain kinds of important decisions/ While the outer limits of this aspect of [protected liberty] have not been marked by the Court, it is clear that among the decisions that an individual may make without unjustified government interference are personal decisions ‘relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, and child rearing and education/ ” 431 U. S., at 684-685 (citations omitted).

The soundness of this prong of the Roe analysis is apparent from a consideration of the alternative. If indeed the woman’s interest in deciding whether to bear and beget a child had not been recognized as in Roe, the State might as readily restrict a woman’s right to choose to carry a pregnancy to term as to terminate it, to further asserted state interests in population control, or eugenics, for example. Yet Roe has been sensibly relied upon to counter any such suggestions. E. g., Arnold v. Board of Education of Escambia County, Ala., 880 F. 2d 305, 311 (CA11 1989) (relying upon Roe and concluding that government officials violate the Constitution by coercing a minor to have an abortion); Avery v. County of Burke, 660 F. 2d 111, 115 (CA4 1981) (county agency inducing teenage girl to undergo unwanted sterilization on the basis of misrepresentation that she had sickle cell trait); see also In re Quinlan, 70 N. J. 10, 355 A. 2d 647 (relying on Roe in finding a right to terminate medical treatment), cert, denied sub nom. Garger v. New Jersey, 429 U. S. 922 (1976)). In any event, because Roe’s scope is confined by the fact of its concern with postconeeption potential life, a concern otherwise likely to be implicated only by some forms of contraception protected independently under Griswold and later cases, any error in Roe is unlikely to have serious ramifications in fixture cases.

*8604

We have seen how time has overtaken some of Roe’s factual assumptions: advances in maternal health care allow for abortions safe to the mother later in pregnancy than was true in 1973, see Akron I, supra, at 429, n. 11, and advances in neonatal care have advanced viability to a point somewhat earlier. Compare Roe, 410 U. S., at 160, with Webster, supra, at 515-616 (opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.); see Akron I, 462 U. S., at 457, and n. 5 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). But these facts go only to the scheme of time limits on the realization of competing interests, and the divergences from the factual premises of 1973 have no bearing on the validity of Roe’s central holding, that viability marks the earliest point at which the State’s interest in fetal life is constitutionally adequate to justify a legislative ban on nontherapeutic abortions. The soundness or unsoundness of that constitutional judgment in no sense turns on whether viability occurs at approximately 28 weeks, as was usual at the time of Roe, at 23 to 24 weeks, as it sometimes does today, or at some moment even slightly earlier in pregnancy, as it may if fetal respiratory capacity can somehow be enhanced in the future. Whenever it may occur, the attainment of viability may continue to serve as the critical fact, just as it has done since Roe was decided; which is to say that no change in Roe’s factual underpinning has left its central holding obsolete, and none supports an argument for overruling it.

5

The sum of the precedential enquiry to this point Shows Roe’s underpinnings unweakened in any way affecting its central holding. While it has engendered disapproval, it has not been unworkable. An 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; no erosion of principle going to liberty or personal autonomy has left Roe’s central holding a doctrinal remnant; *861Roe 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. Within the bounds of normal stare decisis analysis, then, and subject to the considerations on which it customarily turns, the stronger argument is for affirming Roe’s central holding, with whatever degree of personal reluctance any of us may have, not for overruling it.

B

In a less significant case, stare decisis analysis could, and would, stop at the point we have reached. But the sustained and widespread debate Roe has provoked calls for some comparison between that case and others of comparable dimension that have responded to national controversies and taken on the impress of the controversies addressed. Only two such decisional lines from the past century present themselves for examination, and in each instance the result reached by the Court accorded with the principles we apply today.

The first example is that line of cases identified with Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45 (1905), which imposed substantive limitations on legislation limiting economic autonomy in favor of health and welfare regulation, adopting, in Justice Holmes’s view, the theory of laissez-faire. Id., at 75 (dissenting opinion). The Lochner decisions were exemplified by Adkins v. Children’s Hospital of District of Columbia, 261 U. S. 525 (1923), in which this Court held it to be an infringement of constitutionally protected liberty of contract to require the employers of adult women to satisfy minimum wage standards. Fourteen years later, West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379 (1937), signaled the demise of Lochner by overruling Adkins. In the meantime, the Depression had come and, with it, the lesson that seemed unmistakable to most people by 1937, that the interpretation of contractual freedom protected in Adkins rested on funda*862mentally false factual assumptions about the capacity of a relatively unregulated market to satisfy minimal levels of human welfare. See West Coast Hotel Co., supra, at 399. As Justice Jackson wrote of the constitutional crisis of 1937 shortly before he came on the bench: “The older world of laissez faire was recognized everywhere outside the Court to be dead.” The Struggle for Judicial Supremacy 85 (1941). The facts upon which the earlier case had premised a constitutional resolution of social controversy had proven to be untrue, and history’s demonstration of their untruth not only justified but required the new choice of constitutional principle that West Coast Hotel announced. Of course, it was true that the Court lost something by its misperception, or its lack of prescience, and the Court-packing crisis only magnified the loss; but the clear demonstration that the facts of economic life were different from those previously assumed warranted the repudiation of the old law.

The second comparison that 20th century history invites is with the cases employing the separate-but-equal rule for applying the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee. They began with Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537 (1896), holding that legislatively mandated racial segregation in public transportation works no denial of equal protection, rejecting the argument that racial separation enforced by the legal machinery of American society treats the black race as inferior. The Plessy Court considered “the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.” Id., at 551. Whether, as a matter of historical fact, the Justices in the Plessy majority believed this or not, see id., at 557, 562 (Harlan, J., dissenting), this understanding of the implication of segregation was the stated justification for the Court’s opinion. But this understanding of *863the facts and the rule it was stated to justify were repudiated in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954) (Brown I). As one commentator observed, the question before the Court in Brown was “whether discrimination inheres in that segregation which is imposed by law in the twentieth century in certain specific states in the American Union. And that question has meaning and can find an answer only on the ground of history and of common knowledge about the facts of life in the times and places aforesaid.” Black, The Lawfulness of the Segregation Decisions, 69 Yale L. J. 421, 427 (1960).

The Court in Brown addressed these facts of life by observing that whatever may have been the understanding in Plessy’s time of the power of segregation to stigmatize those who were segregated with a “badge of inferiority,” it was clear by . 1954 that legally sanctioned segregation had just such an effect, to the point that racially separate public educational facilities were deemed inherently unequal. 347 U. S., at 494-495. Society’s understanding of the facts upon which a constitutional ruling was sought in 1954 was thus fundamentally different from the basis claimed for the decision in 1896. While we think Plessy was wrong the day it was decided, see Plessy, supra, at 552-564 (Harlan, J., dissenting), we must also recognize that the Plessy Court’s explanation for its decision was so clearly at odds with the facts apparent to the Court in 1954 that the decision to reexamine Plessy was on this ground alone not only justified but required.

West Coast Hotel and Brown each rested on facts, or an understanding of facts, changed from those which furnished the claimed justifications for the earlier constitutional resolutions. Each case was comprehensible as the Court’s response to facts that the country could understand, or had come to understand already, but which the Court of an earlier day, as its own declarations disclosed, had not been able to perceive. As the decisions were thus comprehensible *864they were also defensible, not merely as the victories of one doctrinal school over another by dint of numbers (victories though they were), but as applications of constitutional principle to facts as they had not been seen by the Court before. In constitutional adjudication as elsewhere in life, changed circumstances may impose new obligations, and the thoughtful part of the Nation could accept each decision to overrule a prior ease as a response to the Court’s constitutional duty.

Because the cases before us present no such occasion it could be seen as no such response. Because neither the factual underpinnings of Roe’s central holding nor our understanding of it has changed (and because no other indication of weakened precedent has been shown), the Court could not pretend to be reexamining the prior law with any justification beyond a present doctrinal disposition to come out differently from the Court of 1973. To overrule prior law for no other reason than that would run counter to the view repeated in our eases, that a decision to overrule should rest on some special reason over and above the belief that a prior ease was wrongly decided. See, e. g., Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600, 636 (1974) (Stewart, J., dissenting) (“A basic change in the law upon a ground no firmer than a change in our membership invites the popular misconception that this institution is little different from the two political branches of the Government. No misconception could do more lasting injury to this Court and to the system of law which it is our abiding mission to serve”); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, 677 (1961) (Harlan, J., dissenting).

C

The examination of the conditions justifying the repudiation of Adkins by West Coast Hotel and Plessy by Brown is enough to suggest the terrible price that would have been paid if the Court had not overruled as it did. In the present cases, however, as our analysis to this point makes clear, the terrible price would be paid for overruling. Our analysis *865would not be complete, however, without explaining why-overruling Roe’s central holding would not only reach an unjustifiable result under principles of stare decisis, but 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. To understand why this would be so it is necessary to understand the source of this Court’s authority, the conditions necessary for its preservation, and its relationship to the country’s understanding of itself as a constitutional Republic.

The root of American governmental power is revealed most clearly in the instance of the power conferred by the Constitution upon the-Judiciary of the United States and specifically upon this Court. As Americans of each succeeding generation are rightly told, the Court cannot buy support for its decisions by spending money and, except to a minor degree, it cannot independently coerce obedience to its decrees. The Court’s power lies, rather, in its legitimacy, a product of substance and perception that shows itself in the people’s acceptance of the Judiciary as fit to determine what the Nation’s law means and to declare what it demands.

The underlying substance of this legitimacy is of course the warrant for the Court’s decisions in the Constitution and the lesser sources of legal principle on which the Court draws. That substance is expressed in the Court’s opinions, and our contemporary understanding is such that a decision without principled justification would be no judicial act at all. But even when justification is furnished by apposite legal principle, something more is required. Because not every conscientious claim of principled justification will be accepted as such, the justification claimed must be beyond dispute. The Court must take care to speak and act in ways that allow people to accept its decisions on the terms the Court claims for them, as grounded truly in principle, not as compromises with social and political pressures having, as such, no bearing on the principled choices that the Court is *866obliged to make. Thus, the Court’s legitimacy depends on making legally principled decisions under circumstances in which their principled character is sufficiently plausible to be accepted by the Nation.

The need for principled action to be perceived as such is implicated to some degree whenever this, or any other appellate court, overrules a prior case. This is not to say, of course, that this Court cannot give a perfectly satisfactory explanation in most cases. People understand that some of the Constitution’s language is hard to fathom and that the Court’s Justices are sometimes able to perceive significant facts or to understand principles of law that* eluded their predecessors and that justify departures from existing decisions. However upsetting it may be to those most directly affected when one judicially derived rule replaces another, the country can accept some correction of error without necessarily questioning the legitimacy of the Court.

In two circumstances, however, the Court would almost certainly fail to receive the benefit of the doubt in overruling prior cases. There is, first, a point beyond which frequent overruling would overtax the country’s belief in the Court’s good faith. Despite the variety of reasons that may inform and justify a decision to overrule, we cannot forget that such a decision is usually perceived (and perceived correctly) as, at the least, a statement that a prior decision was wrong. There is a limit to the amount of error that can plausibly be imputed to prior Courts. If that limit should be exceeded, disturbance of prior rulings would be taken as evidence that justifiable reexamination of principle had given way to drives for particular results in the short term. The legitimacy of the Court would fade with the frequency of its vacillation.

That first circumstance can be described as hypothetical; the second is to the point here and now. Where, in the performance of its judicial duties, the Court decides a ease in such a way as to resolve the sort of intensely divisive controversy reflected in Roe and those rare, comparable cases, its *867decision has a dimension that the resolution of the normal case does not carry. It is the dimension present whenever the Court’s interpretation of the Constitution calls the contending sides of a national controversy to end their national division by accepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitution.

The Court is not asked to do this very often, having thus addressed the Nation only twice in our lifetime, in the decisions of Brown and Roe. But when the Court does act in this way, its decision requires an equally rare precedential force to counter the inevitable efforts to overturn it and to thwart its implementation. Some of those efforts may be mere unprincipled emotional reactions; others may proceed from principles worthy of profound respect. But whatever the premises of opposition may be, only the most convincing justification under accepted standards of precedent could suffice to demonstrate that a later decision overruling the first was anything but a surrender to political pressure, and an unjustified repudiation of the principle on which the Court staked its authority in the first instance. So to overrule under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason to reexamine a watershed decision would subvert the Court’s legitimacy beyond any serious question. Cf. Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 300 (1955) (Broten II) (“[I]t should go without saying that the vitality of th[e] constitutional principles [announced in Brown I,] cannot be allowed to yield simply because of disagreement with them”).

The country’s loss of confidence in the Judiciary would be underscored by an equally certain and equally reasonable condemnation for another failing in overruling unnecessarily and under pressure. Some cost will be paid by anyone who approves or implements a constitutional decision where it is unpopular, or who refuses to work to undermine the decision or to force its reversal. The price may be criticism or ostracism, or it may be violence. An extra price will be paid by those who themselves disapprove of the decision’s results *868when viewed outside of constitutional terms, but who nevertheless struggle to accept it, because they respect the rule of law. To all those who will be so tested by following, the Court implicitly undertakes to remain steadfast, lest in the end a price be paid for nothing. The promise of constancy, once given, binds its maker for as long as the power to stand by the decision survives and the understanding of the issue has not changed so fundamentally as to render the commitment obsolete. From the obligation of this promise this Court cannot and should not assume any exemption when duty requires it to decide a case in conformance with the Constitution. A willing breach of it would be nothing, less than a breach of faith, and no Court that broke its faith with the people could sensibly expect credit for principle in the decision by which it did that.

It is true that diminished legitimacy may be restored, but only slowly. Unlike the political branches, a Court thus weakened could not seek to regain its position with a new mandate from the voters, and even if the Court could somehow go to the polls, the loss of its principled character could not be retrieved by the casting of so many votes. Like the character of an individual, the legitimacy of the Court must be earned over time. So, indeed, must be the character of a Nation of people who aspire to live according to the rule of law. Their belief in themselves as such a people is not readily separable from their understanding of the Court invested with the authority to decide their constitutional cases and speak before all others for their constitutional ideals. If the Court’s legitimacy should be undermined, then, so would the country be in its very ability to see itself through its constitutional ideals. The Court’s concern with legitimacy is not for the sake of the Court, but for the sake of the Nation to which it is responsible.

The Court’s duty in the present cases is clear. In 1973, it confronted the already-divisive issue of governmental power *869to limit personal choice to undergo abortion, for which it provided a new resolution based on the due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Whether or not a new social consensus is developing on that issue, its divisiveness is no less today than in 1973, and pressure to overrule the decision, like pressure to retain it, has grown only more intense. A decision to overrule Roe’s essential holding under the existing circumstances would address error, if error there was, at the cost of both profound and unnecessary damage to the Court’s legitimacy, and to the Nation’s commitment to the rule of law. It is therefore imperative to adhere to the essence of Roe’s original decision, and we do so today.

IV

From what we have said so far it follows that it is a constitutional liberty of the woman to have some freedom to terminate her pregnancy. We conclude that the basic decision in Roe was based on a constitutional analysis which we cannot now repudiate. The woman’s liberty is not so unlimited, however, that from the outset the State cannot show its concern for the life of the unborn, and at a later point in fetal development the State’s interest in life has sufficient force so that the right of the woman to terminate the pregnancy can be restricted.

That brings us, of course, to the point where much criticism has been directed at Roe, a criticism that always inheres when the Court draws a specific rule from what in the Constitution is but a general standard. We conclude, however, that the urgent claims of the woman to retain the ultimate control over her destiny and her body, claims implicit in the meaning of liberty, require us to perform that function. Liberty must not be extinguished for want of a line that is clear. And it falls to us to give some real substance to the woman’s liberty to determine whether to carry her pregnancy to full term.

*870We conclude the line should be drawn at viability, so that before that time the woman has a right to choose to terminate her pregnancy. We adhere to this principle for two reasons. First, as we have said, is the doctrine of stare deci-sis. Any judicial act of line-drawing may seem somewhat arbitrary, but Roe was a reasoned statement, elaborated with great care. We have twice reaffirmed it in the face of great opposition. See Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 759; Akron I, 462 U. S., at 419-420. Although we must overrule those parts of Thornburgh and Akron I which, in our view, are inconsistent with iBoe’s statement that the State has a legitimate interest in promoting the life or potential life of the unborn, see infra, at 882-883, the central premise of those cases represents an unbroken commitment by this Court to the essential holding of Roe. It is that premise which we reaffirm today.

The second reason is that the concept of viability, as we noted in Roe, is the time at which there is a realistic possibility of maintaining and nourishing a life outside the womb, so that the independent existence of the second life can in reason and all fairness be the object of state protection that now overrides the rights of the woman. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S., at 163. Consistent with other constitutional norms, legislatures may draw lines which appear arbitrary without the necessity of offering a justification. But courts may not. We must justify the lines we draw And there is no line other than viability which is more workable. To be sure, as we have said, there may be some medical developments that affect the precise point of viability, see supra, at 860, but this is an imprecision within tolerable limits given that the medical community and all those who must apply its discoveries will continue to explore the matter. The viability line also has, as a practical matter, an element of fairness. In some broad sense it might be said that a woman who fails to act before viability has consented to the State’s intervention on behalf of the developing child.

*871The woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy before viability is the most central principle of Roe v. Wade. It is a rule of law and a component of liberty we cannot renounce.

On the other side of the equation is the interest of the State in the protection of potential life. The Roe Court recognized the State’s “important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life.” Roe, supra, at 162. The weight to be given this state interest, not the strength of the woman’s interest, was the difficult question faced in Roe. We do not need to say whether each of us, had we been Members of the Court when the valuation of the state interest came before it as an original matter, would have concluded, as the Roe Court did, that its weight is insufficient to justify a ban on abortions prior to viability even when it is subject to certain exceptions. The matter is not before us in the first instance, and coming as it does after nearly 20 years of litigation in Roe’s wake we are satisfied that the immediate question is not the soundness of Roe’s resolution of the issue, but the precedential force that must be accorded to its holding. And we have concluded that the essential holding of Roe should be reaffirmed.

Yet it must be remembered that Roe v. Wade speaks with clarity in establishing not only the woman’s liberty but also the State’s “important and legitimate interest in potential life.” Roe, supra, at 163. That portion of the decision in Roe has been given too little acknowledgment and implementation by the Court in its subsequent cases. Those eases decided that any regulation touching upon the abortion decision must survive strict scrutiny, to be sustained only if drawn in narrow terms to further a compelling state interest. See, e. g., Akron I, supra, at 427. Not all of the cases decided under that formulation can be reconciled with the holding in Roe itself that the State has legitimate interests in the health of the woman and in protecting the potential life within her. In resolving this tension, we choose to rely upon Roe, as against the later cases.

*872Roe established a trimester framework to govern abortion regulations. Under this elaborate but rigid construct, almost no regulation at all is permitted during the first trimester of pregnancy; regulations designed to protect the woman’s health, but not to further the State’s interest in potential life, are permitted during the second trimester; and during the third trimester, when the fetus is viable, prohibitions are permitted provided the life or health of the mother is not at stake. Roe, supra, at 163-166. Most of our cases since Roe have involved the application of rules derived from the trimester framework. See, e. g., Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, supra; Akron I, supra.

The trimester framework no doubt was erected to ensure that the woman’s right to choose not become so subordinate to the State’s interest in promoting fetal life that her choice exists in theory but not in fact. We do not agree, however, that the trimester approach is necessary to accomplish this objective. A framework of this rigidity was unnecessary and in its later interpretation sometimes contradicted the State’s permissible exercise of its powers.

Though the woman has a right to choose to terminate or continue her pregnancy before viability, it does not at all follow that the State is prohibited from taking steps to ensure that this choice is thoughtful and informed. Even in the earliest stages of pregnancy, the State may enact rules and regulations designed to encourage her to know that there are philosophic and social arguments of great weight that can be brought to bear in favor of continuing the pregnancy to full term and'that there are procedures and institutions to allow adoption of unwanted children as well as a certain degree of state assistance if the mother chooses to raise the child herself. “ ‘[T]he Constitution does not forbid a State or city, pursuant to democratic processes, from expressing a preference for normal childbirth.’” Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S., at 511 (opinion of *873the Court) (quoting Poelker v. Doe, 432 U. S. 519, 521 (1977)). It follows that States are free to enact laws to provide a reasonable framework for a woman to make a decision that has such profound and lasting meaning. This, too, we find consistent with Roe’s central premises, and indeed the inevitable consequence of our holding that the State has an interest in protecting the life of the unborn. .

We reject the trimester framework, which we do not consider to be part of the essential holding of Roe. See Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S., at 518 (opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.); id., at 529 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (describing the trimester framework as “problematic”). Measures aimed at ensuring that a woman’s choice contemplates the consequences for the ' fetus do not necessarily interfere with the right recognized in Roe, although those measures have been found to be inconsistent with the rigid trimester framework announced in that case. A logical reading of the central holding in Roe itself, and a necessary reconciliation of the liberty of the woman and the interest of the State in promoting prenatal life, require, in our view, that we abandon the trimester framework as a rigid prohibition on all previability regulation aimed at the protection of fetal life. The trimester framework suffers from these basic flaws: in its formulation it misconceives the nature of the pregnant woman’s interest; and in practice it undervalues the State’s interest in potential life, as recognized in Roe.

As our jurisprudence relating to all liberties save perhaps abortion has recognized, not every law which makes a right more difficult to exercise is, ipso facto, an infringement of that right. An example clarifies the point. We have held that not every ballot access limitation amounts to an infringement of the right to vote. Rather, the States are granted substantial flexibility in establishing the framework within which voters choose the candidates for whom' they *874wish to vote. Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780, 788 (1983); Norman v. Reed, 502 U. S. 279 (1992).

The abortion right is similar. Numerous forms of state regulation might have the incidental effect of increasing the cost or decreasing the availability of medical care, whether for abortion or any other medical procedure. The fact that a law which serves a valid purpose, one not designed to strike at the right itself, has the incidental effect of making it more difficult or more expensive to procure an abortion cannot be enough to invalidate it. Only where state regulation imposes an undue burden on a woman’s ability to make this decision does the power of the State reach into the heart of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause. See Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U. S. 417, 458-459 (1990) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment in part); Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U. S. 502, 519-520 (1990) (Akron II) (opinion of Kennedy, J.); Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, supra, at 530 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 828 (O’Connor, J., dissenting); Simopoulos v. Virginia, 462 U. S. 506, 520 (1983) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Planned Parenthood Assn. of Kansas City, Mo., Inc. v. Ashcroft, 462 U. S. 476, 505 (1983) (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part); Akron I, 462 U. S., at 464 (O’Connor, J., joined by White and Rehnquist, JJ., dissenting); Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U. S. 132, 147 (1976) (Bellotti I).

For the most part, the Court’s early abortion cases adhered to this view. In Maher v. Roe, 432 U. S. 464, 473-474 (1977), the Court explained: “Roe did not declare an unqualified ‘constitutional right to an abortion,’ as the District Court seemed to think. Rather, the right protects the woman from unduly burdensome interference with her freedom to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy.” See *875also Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179, 198 (1973) (“[T]he interposition of the hospital abortion committee is unduly restrictive of the patient’s rights”); Bellotti I, supra, at 147 (State may not “impose undue burdens upon a minor capable of giving an informed consent”); Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297, 314 (1980) (citing Maker, supra). Cf. Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U. S., at 688 (“[T]he same test must be applied to state regulations that burden an individual’s right to decide to prevent conception or terminate pregnancy by substantially limiting access to the means of effectuating that decision as is applied to state statutes that prohibit the decision entirely”).

These considerations of the nature of the abortion right illustrate that it is an overstatement to describe it as a right to decide whether to have an abortion “without interference from the State.” Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 61 (1976). All abortion regulations interfere to some degree with a woman’s ability to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy. It is, as a consequence, not surprising that despite the protestations contained in the original Roe opinion to the effect that the Court was not recognizing an absolute right, 410 U. S., at 154-155, the Court’s experience applying the trimester framework has led to the striking down of some abortion regulations which in no real sense deprived women of the ultimate decision. Those decisions went too far because the right recognized by Roe is a right “to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S., at 453. Not all governmental intrusion is of necessity unwarranted; and that brings us to the other basic flaw in the trimester framework: even in ftoe’s terms, in practice it undervalues the State’s interest in the potential life within the woman.

Roe v. Wade was express in its recognition of the State’s “important and legitimate interests] in preserving and pro-*876teeting the health of the pregnant woman [and] in protecting the potentiality of human life.” 410 U. S., at 162. The trimester framework, however, does not fulfill Roe’s own promise that the State has an interest in protecting fetal life or potential life. Roe began the contradiction by using the trimester framework to forbid any regulation of abortion designed to advance that interest before viability. Id., at 163. Before viability, Roe and subsequent cases treat all governmental attempts to influence a woman’s decision on behalf of the potential life within her as unwarranted. This treatment is, in our judgment, incompatible with the recognition that there is a substantial state interest in potential life throughout pregnancy. Cf. Webster, 492 U. S., at 519 (opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.); Akron I, supra, at 461 (O’Connor, J., dissenting).

The very notion that the State has a substantial interest in potential life leads to the conclusion that not all regulations must be deemed unwarranted. Not all burdens on the right to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy will be undue. In our view, the undue burden standard is the appropriate means of reconciling the State’s interest with the' woman’s constitutionally protected liberty.

The concept of an undue burden has been utilized by the Court as well as individual Members of the Court, including two of us, in ways that could be considered inconsistent. See, e. g., Hodgson v. Minnesota, supra, at 459-461 (O’CONNOR, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Akron II, supra, at 519-520 (opinion of Kennedy, J.); Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, supra, at 828-829 (O’Connor, J., dissenting); Akron I, supra, at 461-466 (O’Connor, J., dissenting); Harris v. McRae, supra, at 314; Maher v. Roe, supra, at 473; Beal v. Doe, 432 U. S. 438, 446 (1977); Bellotti I, supra, at 147. Because we set forth a standard of general application to which we intend to adhere, it is important to clarify what is meant by an undue burden.

*877A finding of an undue burden is a shorthand for the conclusion that a state regulation has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus. A statute with this purpose is invalid because the means chosen by the State to further the interest in potential life must be calculated to inform the woman’s free choice, not hinder it. And a statute which, while furthering the interest in potential life or some other valid state interest, has the effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman’s choice cannot be considered a permissible means of sérving its legitimate ends. To the extent that the opinions of the Court or of individual Justices use the undue burden standard in a manner that is inconsistent with this analysis, we set out what in our view should be the controlling standard. Cf. McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467, 489 (1991) (attempting “to define the doctrine of abuse of the writ with more precision” after acknowledging tension among earlier cases). In our considered judgment, an undue burden is an unconstitutional burden. See Akron II, 497 U. S., at 519-520 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). Understood another way, we answer the question, left open in previous opinions discussing the undue burden formulation, whether a law designed to further the State’s interest in fetal life which imposes an undue burden on the woman’s decision before fetal viability could be constitutional. See, e. g., Akron I, 462 U. S., at 462-463 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). The answer is no.

Some guiding principles should emerge. What is at stake is the woman’s right to make the ultimate decision, not a right to be insulated from all others in doing so. Regulations which do no more than create a structural mechanism by which the State, or the parent or guardian of a minor, may express profound respect for the life of the unborn are permitted, if they are not a substantial obstacle to the woman’s exereise of the right to choose. See infra, at 899-900 (addressing Pennsylvania’s parental consent requirement). *878Unless it has that effect on her right of choice, a state measure designed to persuade her to choose childbirth over abortion will be upheld if reasonably related to that goal.' Regulations designed to foster the health of a woman seeking an abortion are valid if they do not constitute an undue burden.

Even when jurists reason from shared premises, some disagreement is inevitable. Compare Hodgson, 497 U. S., at 482-497 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part), with id., at 458-460 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment in part). That is to be expected in the application of any legal standard which must accommodate life’s complexity. We do not expect it to be otherwise with respect to the undue burden standard. We give this summary:

(a) To protect the central right recognized by Roe v. Wade while at the same time accommodating the State’s profound interest in potential life, we will employ the undue burden analysis as explained in this opinion. An undue burden exists, and therefore a provision of law is invalid, if its purpose or effect is to place a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.

(b) We reject the rigid trimester framework of Roe v. Wade. To promote the State’s profound interest in potential life, throughout pregnancy the State may take measures to ensure that the woman’s choice is informed, and measures designed to advance this interest will not be invalidated as long as their purpose is to persuade the woman to choose childbirth over abortion. These measures must not be an undue burden on the right.

(c) As with any medical procedure, the State may enact regulations to further the health or safety of a woman seeking an abortion. Unnecessary health regulations that have the purpose or effect of presenting a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion impose an undue burden on the right.

*879(d) Our adoption of the undue burden analysis does not disturb the central holding of Roe v. Wade, and we reaffirm that holding. Regardless of whether exceptions are made for particular circumstances, a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.

(e) We also reaffirm Roe’s holding that “subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.” Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S., at 164-165.

These principles control our assessment of the Pennsylvania statute, and we now turn to the issue of the validity of its challenged provisions.

V

The Court of Appeals applied what it believed to be the undue burden standard and upheld each' of the provisions except for the husband notification requirement. We agree generally with this conclusion, but refine the undue burden analysis in accordance with the principles articulated above. We now consider the separate statutory sections at issue.

A

Because it is central to the operation of various other requirements, we begin with the statute’s definition of medical emergency. Under the statute, a medical emergency is

“[t]hat condition which, on the basis of the physician’s good faith clinical judgment, so complicates the medical condition of a pregnant woman as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.” 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §3208 (1990).

*880Petitioners argue that the definition is too narrow, contending that it forecloses the possibility of an immediate abortion despite some significant health risks. If the contention were correct, we would be required to invalidate the restrictive operation of the provision, for the essential holding of Roe forbids a State to interfere with a woman’s choice to undergo an abortion procedure if continuing her pregnancy would constitute a threat to her health. 410 U. S., at 164. See also Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S., at 316.

The District Court found that there were three serious conditions which would not be covered by the statute: pre-eclampsia, inevitable abortion, and premature ruptured membrane. 744 F. Supp., at 1378. Yet, as the Court of Appeals observed, 947 F. 2d, at 700-701, it is undisputed that under some circumstances each of these conditions could lead to an illness with substantial and irreversible consequences. While the definition could be interpreted in an unconstitutional manner, the Court of Appeals construed the phrase “serious risk” to include those circumstances. Id., at 701. It stated: “[W]e read the medical emergency exception as intended by the Pennsylvania legislature to assure that compliance with its abortion regulations would not in any way pose a significant threat to the life or health of a woman.” Ibid. As we said in Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U. S. 491, 499-500 (1985): “Normally, ... we defer to the construction of a state statute given it by the lower federal courts.” Indeed, we have said that we will defer to lower court interpretations of state law unless they amount to “plain” error. Palmer v. Hoffman, 318 U. S. 109, 118 (1943). This “ ‘reflects] our belief that district courts and courts of appeals are better schooled in and more able to interpret the laws of their respective States.’” Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S. 474, 482 (1988) (citation omitted). We adhere to that course today, and conclude that, as construed by the Court of Appeals, the medical emergency definition imposes no undue burden on a woman’s abortion right.

*881B

We next consider the informed consent requirement. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §3205 (1990). Except in a medical emergency, the statute requires that at least 24 hours before performing an abortion a physician inform the woman of the nature of the procedure, the health risks of the abortion and of childbirth, and the “probable gestational age of the unborn child.” The physician or a qualified nonphysician must inform the woman of the availability of printed materials published by the State describing the fetus and providing information about medical assistance for childbirth, information about child support from the father, and a list of agencies which provide adoption and other services as alternatives. to abortion. An abortion may not be performed unless the woman certifies in writing that she has been informed of the availability of these printed materials and has been provided them if she chooses to view them.

Our prior decisions establish that as with any medical procedure, the State may require a woman to give her written informed consent to an abortion. See Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 67. In this respect, the statute is unexceptional. Petitioners challenge the statute’s definition of informed consent because it includes the provision of specific information by the doctor and the mandatory 24-hour waiting period. The conclusions reached by a majority of the Justices in the separate opinions filed today and the undue burden standard adopted in this opinion require us to overrule in part some of the Court’s past decisions, decisions driven by the trimester framework’s prohibition of all previability regulations designed to further the State’s interest in fetal life.

In Akron I, 462 U. S. 416 (1983), we invalidated an ordinance which required that a woman seeking an abortion be provided by her physieian with specific information “designed. to influence the woman’s informed choice between abortion or childbirth.” Id., at 444. As we later described *882the Akron I holding in Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 762, there were two purported flaws in the Akron ordinance: the information was designed to dissuade the woman from having an abortion and the ordinance imposed “a rigid requirement that a specific body of information be given in all cases, irrespective of the particular needs of the patient. . . .” Ibid.

To the extent Akron I and Thornburgh find a constitutional violation when the government requires, as it does here, the giving of truthful, nonmisleading information about the nature of the procedure, the attendant health risks and those of childbirth, and the “probable gestational age” of the fetus, those eases go too far, are inconsistent with Roe’s acknowledgment of an important interest in potential life, and are overruled. This is clear even on the very terms of Akron I and Thornburgh. Those decisions, along with Dan-forth, recognize a substantial government interest justifying a requirement that a woman be apprised of the health risks of abortion and childbirth. E. g., Danforth, supra, at 66-67. It cannot be questioned that psychological well-being is a facet of health. Nor can it be doubted that most women considering an abortion would deem the impact on the fetus relevant, if not dispositive, to the decision. In attempting to ensure that a woman apprehend the full consequences of her decision, the State furthers the legitimate purpose of reducing the risk that a woman may elect an abortion, only to discover later, with devastating psychological consequences, that her decision was not fully informed. If the information the State requires to be made available to the woman is truthful and not misleading, the requirement may be permissible.

We also see no reason why the State may not require doctors to inform a woman seeking an abortion of the availability of materials relating to the consequences to the fetus, even when those consequences have no direct relation to her health. An example illustrates the point. We would think *883it constitutional for the State to require that in order for there to he informed consent to a kidney transplant operation the recipient must be supplied with information about risks to the donor as well as risks to himself or herself. A requirement that the physician make available information similar to that mandated by the statute here was described in Thornburgh as “an outright attempt to wedge the Commonwealth’s message discouraging abortion into the privacy of the informed-consent dialogue between the woman and her physician.” 476 U. S., at 762. We conclude, however, that informed choice need not be defined in such narrow terms that all considerations of the effect on the fetus are made irrelevant. As we have made clear, we depart from the holdings of Akron I and Thornburgh to the extent that we permit a State to further its legitimate goal of protecting the life of the unborn by enacting legislation aimed at ensuring a decision that is mature and informed, even when in so doing the State expresses a preference for childbirth over abortion. In short, requiring that the woman be informed of the availability of information relating to fetal development and the assistance available should she decide to carry the pregnancy to full term is a reasonable measure to ensure an informed choice, one which might cause the woman to choose childbirth over abortion. This requirement cannot be considered a substantial obstacle to obtaining an abortion, and, it follows, there is no undue burden.

Our prior cases also suggest that the “straitjacket,” Thornburgh, supra, at 762 (quoting Danforth, supra, at 67, n. 8), of particular information which must be given in each ease interferes with a constitutional right of privacy between a pregnant woman and her physician. As a preliminary matter, it is worth noting that the statute now before us does not require a physician to comply with the informed consent provisions “if he or she can demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence, that he or she reasonably believed that furnishing the information would have resulted in a severely *884adverse effect on the physical or mental health of the patient/’ 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3205 (1990). In this respect, the statute does not prevent the physician from exercising his or her medical judgment.

Whatever constitutional status the doctor-patient relation may have as a general matter, in the present context it is derivative of the woman’s position. The doctor-patient relation does not underlie or override the two more general rights under which the abortion right is justified: the right to make family decisions and the right to physical autonomy. On its own, the doctor-patient relation here is entitled to the same solicitude it receives in other contexts. Thus, a requirement that a doctor give a woman certain information as part of obtaining her consent to an abortion is, for constitutional purposes, no different from a requirement that a doctor give certain specific'information about any medical procedure.

All that is left of petitioners’ argument is an asserted First Amendment right of a physician not to provide information about the risks of abortion, and childbirth, in a manner mandated by the State. To be sure, the physician’s First Amendment rights not to speak are implicated, see Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705 (1977), but only as part of the practice of medicine, subject to reasonable licensing and regulation by the State, cf. Whalen v. Roe, 429 U. S. 589, 603 (1977). We see no constitutional infirmity in the requirement that the physician provide the information mandated by the State here.

The Pennsylvania statute also requires us to reconsider the holding in Akron I that the State may not require that a physician, as opposed to a qualified assistant, provide information relevant to a woman’s informed consent. 462 U. S., at 448. Since there is no evidence on this record that requiring a doctor to give the information as provided by the statute would amount in practical terms to a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion, we conclude that it is not *885an undue burden. Our eases reflect the fact that the Constitution gives the States broad latitude to decide that particular functions may be performed only by licensed professionals, even if an objective assessment might suggest that those same tasks could be performed by others. See Williamson v. Lee Optical of Okla., Inc., 348 U. S. 483 (1955). Thus, we uphold the provision as a reasonable means to ensure that the woman’s consent is informed.

Our analysis of Pennsylvania’s 24-hour waiting period between the provision of the information deemed necessary to informed consent and the performance of an abortion under the undue burden standard requires us to reconsider the premise behind the decision in Akron I invalidating a parallel requirement. In Akron I we said: “Nor are we convinced that the State’s legitimate concern that the woman’s decision be informed is reasonably served by requiring a 24-hour delay as a matter of course.” 462 U. S., at 450. We consider that conclusion to be wrong. The idea that important decisions will be more informed and deliberate if they follow some period of reflection does not strike us as unreasonable, particularly where the statute directs that important information become part of the background of the decision. The statute, as construed by the Court of Appeals, permits avoidance of the waiting period in the event of a medical emergency and the record evidence shows that in the vast majority of cases, a 24-hour delay does not create any appreciable health risk. In theory, at least, the waiting period is a reasonable measure to implement the State’s interest in protecting the life of the unborn, a measure that does not amount to an undue burden.

Whether the mandatory 24-hour waiting period is nonetheless invalid because in practice it is a substantial obstacle to a woman’s choice to terminate her pregnancy is a closer question. The findings of fact by the District Court indicate that because of the distances many women must travel to reach an abortion provider, the practical effect will often be *886a delay of much more than a day because the waiting period requires that a woman seeking an abortion make at least two visits to the doctor. The District Court also found that in many instances this will increase the exposure of women seeking abortions to “the harassment and hostility of antiabortion protestors demonstrating outside a clinic.” 744 F. Supp., at 1351. As a result, the District Court found that for those women who have the fewest financial resources, those who must travel long distances, and those who have difficulty explaining their whereabouts to husbands, employers, or others, the 24-hour waiting period will be “particularly burdensome.” Id., at 1352.

These findings are troubling in some respects, but they do not demonstrate that the waiting period constitutes an undue burden. We do not doubt that, as the District Court held, the waiting period has the effect of “increasing the cost and risk of delay of abortions,” id., at 1378, but the District Court did not conclude that the increased costs and potential delays amount to substantial obstacles. Rather, applying the trimester framework’s strict prohibition of all regulation designed to promote the State’s interest in potential life before viability, see id., at 1374, the District Court concluded that the waiting period does not further the state “interest in maternal health” and “infringes the physician’s discretion to exercise sound medical judgment,” id., at 1378. Yet, as we have stated, under the undue burden standard a State is permitted to enact persuasive measures which favor childbirth over abortion, even if those measures do not further a health interest. And while the waiting period does limit a physician’s discretion, that is not, standing alone, a reason to invalidate it. In light of the construction given the statute’s definition of medical emergency by the Court of Appeals, and the District Court’s findings, we cannot say that the waiting period imposes a real health risk.

We also disagree with the District Court’s conclusion that the “particularly burdensome” effects of the waiting period *887on some women require its invalidation. A particular burden is not of necessity a substantial obstacle. Whether a burden falls on a particular group is a distinct inquiry from whether it is a substantial obstacle even as to the women in that group. And the District Court did not conclude that the waiting period is such an obstacle even for the women who are most burdened by it. Hence, on the record before us, and in the context of this facial challenge, we are not convinced that the 24-hour waiting period constitutes an undue burden.

We are left with the argument that the various aspects of the informed consent requirement are unconstitutional because they place barriers in the way of abortion on demand. Even the broadest reading of Roe, however, has not suggested that there is a constitutional right to abortion on demand. See, e. g., Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S., at 189. Rather, the right protected by Roe is a right to decide to terminate a pregnancy free of undue interference by the State. Because the informed consent requirement facilitates the wise exercise of that right, it cannot be classified as an interference with the right Roe protects. The informed consent requirement is not an undue burden on that right.

C

Section 8209 of Pennsylvania’s abortion law provides, except in eases of medical emergency, that no physician shall perform an abortion on a married woman without receiving a signed statement from the woman that she has notified her spouse that she is about to undergo an abortion. The woman has the option of providing an alternative signed statement certifying that her husband is not the man who impregnated her; that her husband could not be located; that the pregnancy is the result of spousal sexual assault which she has reported; or that the woman believes that notifying her husband will cause him or someone else to inflict bodily injury upon her. A physician who performs an abortion on *888a married woman without receiving the appropriate signed statement will have his or her license revoked, and is liable to the husband for damages.

The District Court heard the testimony of numerous expert witnesses, and made detailed findings of fact regarding the effect of this statute. These included:

“273. The vast majority of women consult their husbands prior to deciding to terminate their pregnancy....

“279. The ‘bodily injury’ exception could not be invoked by a married woman whose husband, if notified, would, in her reasonable belief, threaten to (a) publicize her intent to have an abortion to family, friends or acquaintances; (b) retaliate against her in future child custody or divorce proceedings; (e) inflict psychological intimidation or emotional harm upon her, her children or other persons; (d) inflict bodily harm on other persons such as children, family members or other loved ones; or (e) use his control over finances to deprive of necessary monies for herself or her children....

“281. Studies reveal that family violence occurs in two million families in the United States.. This figure, however, is a conservative one that substantially understates (because battering is usually not reported until it reaches life-threatening proportions) the actual number of families affected by domestic violence. In fact, researchers estimate that one of every two women will be battered at some time in their life....

“282. A wife may not elect to notify her husband of her intention to have an abortion for a variety of reasons, including the husband’s illness, concern about her own health, the imminent failure of the marriage, or the husband’s absolute opposition to the abortion. ...

“283. The required filing of the spousal consent form would require plaintiff-clinics to change their counseling *889procedures and force women to reveal their most intimate decision-making on pain of criminal sanctions. The confidentiality of these revelations could not be guaranteed, since the woman’s records are not immune from subpoena....

“284. Women of all class levels, educational backgrounds, and racial, ethnic and religious groups are battered....

“285. Wife-battering or abuse can take on many physical and psychological forms. The nature and scope of the battering can cover a broad range of actions and be gruesome and torturous....

“286. Married women, victims of battering, have been killed in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States....

“287. Battering can often involve a substantial amount of sexual abuse, including marital rape and sexual mutilation....

“288. In a domestic abuse situation, it is common for the battering husband to also abuse the children in an attempt to coerce the wife....

“289. Mere notification of pregnancy is frequently a flashpoint for battering and violence within the family. The number of battering incidents is high during the pregnancy and often the worst abuse can be associated with pregnancy. . . . The battering husband may deny parentage and use the pregnancy as an excuse for abuse....

“290. Secrecy typically shrouds abusive families. Family members are instructed not to tell anyone, especially police or doctors, about the abuse and violence. Battering husbands often threaten their wives or her children with further abuse if she tells an outsider of the violence and tells her that nobody will believe her. A battered woman, therefore, is highly unlikely to disclose *890the violence against her for fear of retaliation by the abuser....

“291. Even when confronted directly by medical personnel or other helping professionals, battered women often will not admit to the battering because they have not admitted to themselves that they are battered.. . .

“294. A woman in a shelter or a safe house unknown to her husband is not ‘reasonably likely’ to have bodily harm inflicted upon her by her batterer, however her attempt to notify her husband pursuant to section 3209 could accidentally disclose her whereabouts to her husband. Her fear of future ramifications would be realistic under, the circumstances.

“295. Marital rape is rarely discussed with others or reported to law enforcement authorities, and of those reported only few are prosecuted....

“296. It is common for battered women to have sexual intercourse with their husbands to avoid being battered. While this type of coercive sexual activity would be spousal sexual assault as defined by the Act, many women may not consider it to be so and others would fear disbelief....

“297. The marital rape exception to section 3209 cannot be claimed by women who are victims of coercive sexual behavior other than penetration. The 90-day reporting requirement of the spousal sexual assault statute, 18 Pa. Con. Stat. Ann. § 3218(c), further narrows the class of sexually abused wives who can claim the exception, since many of these women may be psychologically unable to discuss or report the rape for several years after the incident. . ..

“298. Because of the nature of the battering relationship, battered women are unlikely to avail themselves of the exceptions to section 3209 of the Act, regardless of *891whether the section applies to them.” 744 F. Supp., at 1360-1362 (footnote omitted).

These findings are supported by studies of domestic violence. The American Medical Association (AMA) has published a summary of the recent research in this field, which indicates that in an average 12-month period in this country, approximately two million women are the victims of severe assaults by their male partners. In a 1985 survey, women reported that nearly one of every eight husbands had assaulted their wives during the past year. The AMA views these figures as “marked underestimates,” because the nature of these incidents discourages women from reporting them, and because surveys typically exclude the very poor, those who do not speak English well, and women who are homeless or in institutions or hospitals when the survey is conducted. According to the AMA, “[researchers on family violence agree that the true incidence of partner violence is probably double the above estimates; or four million severely assaulted women per year. Studies on prevalence suggest that from one-fifth to one-third of all women will be physically assaulted by a partner or ex-partner during their lifetime.” AMA Council on Scientific Affairs, Violence Against Women 7 (1991) (emphasis in original). Thus on an average day in the United States, nearly 11,000 women are severely assaulted by their male partners. Many of these incidents involve sexual assault. Id., at 3-4; Shields & Hanneke, Battered Wives’ Reactions to Marital Rape, in The Dark Side of Families: Current Family Violence Research 131, 144 (D. Finkelhor, R. Gelles, G. Hataling, & M. Straus eds. 1983). In families where wifebeating takes. place, moreover, child abuse is often present as well. Violence Against Women, supra, at 12.

Other studies fill in the rest of this troubling picture. Physical violence is only the most visible form of abuse. Psychological abuse, particularly forced social and economic isolation of women, is also eommon. L. Walker, The Bat*892tered Woman Syndrome 27-28 (1984). Many victims of domestic violence remain with their abusers, perhaps because they perceive no superior alternative. Herbert, Silver, & Ellard, Coping with an Abusive Relationship: I. How and Why do Women Stay?, 53 J. Marriage & the Family 311 (1991). Many abused women who find temporary refuge in shelters return to their husbands, in large part because they have no other source of income. Aguirre, Why Do They Return? Abused Wives in Shelters, 30 J. Nat. Assn, of Social Workers 350, 352 (1985). Returning to one’s abuser can be dangerous. Recent Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics disclose that 8.8 percent of all homicide victims in the United States are killed by their spouses. Mercy & Saltz-man, Fatal Violence Among Spouses in the United States, 1976-85, 79 Am. J. Public Health 595 (1989). Thirty percent of female homicide victims are killed by their male partners. Domestic Violence: Terrorism in the Home, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Children, Family, Drugs and Alcoholism of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 101st Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (1990).

The limited research that has been conducted with respect to notifying one’s husband about an abortion, although involving samples too small to be representative, also supports the District Court’s findings of fact. The vast majority of women notify their male partners of their decision to obtain an abortion. In many cases in which married women do not notify their husbands, the pregnancy is the result of an extramarital affair. Where the husband is the father, the primary reason women do not notify their husbands is that the husband and wife are experiencing marital difficulties, often accompanied by incidents of violence. Ryan & Plutzer, When Married Women Have Abortions: Spousal Notification and Marital Interaction, 51 J. Marriage & the Family 41, 44 (1989).

This information and the District Court’s findings reinforce what common sense would suggest. In well-*893functioning marriages, spouses discuss important intimate decisions such as whether to bear a child. But there are millions of women in this country who are the victims of regular physical and psychological abuse at the hands of their husbands. Should these women become pregnant, they may have very good reasons for not wishing to inform their husbands of their decision to obtain an abortion. Many may have justifiable fears of physical abuse, but may be no less fearful of the consequences of reporting prior abuse to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Many may have a reasonable fear that notifying their husbands will provoke further instances of child abuse; these women are not exempt from § 3209’s notification requirement. Many may fear devastating forms of psychological abuse from their husbands, including verbal harassment, threats of future violence, the destruction of possessions, physical confinement to the home, the withdrawal of financial support, or the disclosure of the abortion to family and friends. These methods of psychological abuse may act as even more of a deterrent to notification than the possibility of physical violence, but women who are the victims of the abuse are not exempt from § 8209’s notifi-. cation requirement. And many women who are pregnant as a result of sexual assaults by their husbands will be unable to avail themselves of the exception for spousal sexual assault, § 3209(b)(3), because the exception requires that the woman have notified law enforcement authorities within 90 days of the assault, and her husband will be notified of her report once an investigation begins, § 3128(c). If anything in this field is certain, it is that victims of spousal sexual assault are extremely reluctant to report the abuse to the government; hence, a great many spousal rape victims will not be exempt from the notification requirement imposed by §3209.

The spousal notification requirement is thus likely to prevent a significant number of women from obtaining an abortion. It does not merely make abortions a little more difficult or expensive to obtain; for. many women, it will impose *894a substantial obstacle. We must not blind ourselves to the fact that the significant number of women who fear for their safety and the safety of their children are likely to be deterred from procuring an abortion as surely as if the Commonwealth had outlawed abortion in all cases.

Respondents attempt to avoid the conclusion that § 3209 is invalid by pointing out that it imposes almost no burden at all for the vast majority of women seeking abortions. They begin by noting that only about 20 percent of the women who obtain abortions are married. They then note that of these women about 95 percent notify their husbands of their own volition. Thus, respondents argue, the effects of § 3209 are felt by only one percent of the women who obtain abortions. Respondents argue that since some of these women will be able to notify their husbands without adverse consequences or will qualify for one of the exceptions, the statute affects fewer than one percent of women seeking abortions. For this reason, it is asserted, the statute cannot be invalid on its face. See Brief for Respondents 83-86. We disagree with respondents’ basic method of analysis.

The analysis does not end with the one percent of women upon whom the statute operates; it begins there. Legislation is measured for consistency with the Constitution by its impact on those whose conduct it affects. For example, we would not say that a law which requires a newspaper to print a candidate’s reply to an unfavorable editorial is valid on its face because most newspapers would adopt the policy even absent the law. See Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241 (1974). The proper focus of constitutional inquiry is the group for whom the law is a restriction, not the group for whom the law is irrelevant.

Respondents’ argument itself gives implicit recognition to this principle, at one of its critical points. Respondents speak of the one percent of women seeking abortions who are married and would choose not to notify their husbands of their plans. By selecting as the controlling class women *895who wish to obtain abortions, rather than all women or all pregnant women, respondents in effect concede that §3209 must be judged by reference to those for whom it is an actual rather than an irrelevant restriction. Of course, as we have said, §3209’s real target is narrower even than the class of women seeking abortions identified by the State: it is married women seeking abortions who do not wish to notify their husbands of their intentions and who do not qualify for one of the statutory exceptions to the notice requirement. The unfortunate yet persisting conditions we document above will mean that in a large fraction of the cases in which §3209 is relevant, it will operate as a substantial obstacle to a woman’s choice to undergo an abortion. It is an undue burden, and therefore invalid.

This conclusion is in no way inconsistent with our decisions upholding parental notification or consent requirements. See, e. g., Akron II, 497 U. S., at 510-519; Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U. S. 622 (1979) (Bellotti II); Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 74. Those enactments, and our judgment that they are constitutional, are based on the quite reasonable assumption that minors will benefit from consultation with their parents and that children will often not realize that their parents have their best interests at heart. We cannot adopt a parallel assumption about adult women.

We recognize that a husband has a “deep and proper concern and interest ... in his wife’s pregnancy and in the growth and development of the fetus she is' carrying.” Dan-forth, supra, at 69. With regard to the children he has fathered and raised, the Court has recognized his “cognizable and substantial” interest in their custody. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 651-652 (1972); see also Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U. S. 246 (1978); Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U. S. 380 (1979); Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U. S. 248 (1983). If these cases concerned a State’s ability to require the mother to notify the father before taking some action with respect to a living *896child raised by both, therefore, it would be reasonable to conclude as a general matter that the father’s interest in the welfare of the child and the mother’s interest are equal.

Before birth, however, the issue takes on a very different cast. It is an inescapable biological fact that state regulation with respect to the child a woman is carrying will have a far greater impact on the mother’s liberty than on the father’s. The effect of state regulation on a woman’s protected liberty is doubly deserving of scrutiny in such a case, as the State has touched not only upon the private sphere of the family but upon the very bodily integrity of the pregnant woman. Cf. Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S., at 281. The Court has held that “when the wife and the husband disagree on this decision, the view of only one of the two marriage partners can prevail. Inasmuch as it is the woman who physically bears the child and who is the more directly and immediately affected by the pregnancy, as between the two, the balance weighs in her favor.” Danforth, supra, at 71. This conclusion rests upon the basic nature of marriage and the nature of our Constitution: “[T]he marital couple is not an independent entity with a mind and heart of its own, but an association of two individuals each with a separate intellectual and emotional makeup. If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S., at 453 (emphasis in original). The Constitution protects individuals, men and women alike, from unjustified state interference, even when that interference is enacted into law for the benefit of their spouses.

There was a time, not so long ago, when a different understanding of the family and of the Constitution prevailed. In Bradwell v. State, 16 Wall. 130 (1873), three Members of this *897Court reaffirmed the common-law principle that “a woman had no legal existence separate from her husband, who was regarded as her head and representative in the social state; and, notwithstanding some recent modifications of this civil status, many of the special rules of law flowing from and dependent upon this cardinal principle still exist in foil force in most States.” Id., at 141 (Bradley, X, joined by Swayne and Field, JX, concurring in judgment). Only one generation has passed since this Court observed that “woman is still regarded as the center of home and family life,” with attendant “special responsibilities” that precluded full and independent legal status under the Constitution. Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S. 57, 62 (1961). These views, of course, are no longer consistent with our understanding of the family, the individual, or the Constitution.

In keeping with our rejection of the common-law understanding of a woman’s role within the family, the Court held in Danforth that the Constitution does not permit a State to require a married woman to obtain her husband’s consent before undergoing an abortion. 428 U. S., at 69. The principles that guided the Court in Danforth should be our guides today. For the great many women who are victims of abuse inflicted by their husbands, or whose children are the victims of such abuse, a spousal notice requirement enables the husband to wield an effective veto over his wife’s decision. Whether the prospect of notification itself deters such women from seeking abortions, or whether the husband, through physical force or psychological pressure or economic coercion, prevents his wife from obtaining an abortion until it is too late, the notice requirement will often be tantamount to the veto found unconstitutional in Danforth. The women most affected by this.law — those who most reasonably fear the consequences of notifying their husbands that they are pregnant — are in the gravest danger.

*898The husband’s interest in the life of the child his wife is carrying does not permit the State to empower him with this troubling degree of authority over his wife. The contrary view leads to consequences reminiscent of the common law. A husband has no enforceable right to require a wife to advise him before she exercises her personal choices. If a husband’s interest in the potential life of the child outweighs a wife’s liberty, the State could require a married woman to notify her husband before she uses a postfertilization contraceptive. Perhaps next in line would be a statute requiring pregnant married women to notify their husbands before engaging in conduct causing risks to the fetus. After all, if the husband’s interest in the fetus’ safety is a sufficient predicate for state regulation, the State could reasonably conclude that pregnant wives should notify their husbands before drinking alcohol or smoking. Perhaps married women should notify their husbands before using contraceptives or before undergoing any type of surgery that may have complications affecting the husband’s interest in his wife’s reproductive organs. And if a husband’s interest justifies notice in any of these cases, one might reasonably argue that it justifies exactly what the Danforth Court held it did not justify — a requirement of the husband’s consent as well. A State may not give to a man the kind of dominion over his wife that parents exercise over their children.

Section 3209 embodies a view of marriage consonant with the common-law status of married women but repugnant to our present understanding of marriage and of the nature of the rights secured by the Constitution. Women do not lose their constitutionally protected liberty when they marry. The Constitution protects all individuals, male or female, married or unmarried, from the abuse of governmental power, even where that power is employed for the supposed benefit of a member of the individual’s family. These considerations confirm our conclusion that § 3209 is invalid.

*899D

We next consider the parental consent provision. Except in a medical emergency, an unemancipated young woman under 18 may not obtain an abortion unless she and one of her parents (or guardian) provides informed consent as defined above. If neither a parent nor a guardian provides consent, a court may authorize the performance of an abortion upon a determination that the young woman is mature and capable of giving informed consent and has in fact given her informed consent, or that an abortion would be in her best interests.

We have been over most of this ground before. Our cases establish, and we reaffirm today, that a State may require a minor seeking an abortion to obtain the consent of a parent or guardian, provided that there is an adequate judicial bypass procedure. See, e. g., Akron II, 497 U. S., at 510-519; Hodgson, 497 U. S., at 461 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment in part); id., at 497-501 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part); Akron I, 462 U. S., at 440; Bellotti II, 443 U. S., at 643-644 (plurality opinion). Under these precedents, in our view, the one-parent consent requirement and judicial bypass procedure are constitutional.

The only argument made by petitioners respecting this provision and to which our prior decisions do not speak is the contention that the parental consent requirement is invalid because it requires informed parental consent. For the most part, petitioners’ argument is a reprise of their argument with respect to the informed consent requirement in general, and we reject it for the reasons given above. Indeed, some of the provisions regarding informed consent have particular force with respect to minors: the waiting period, for example, may provide the parent or parents of a pregnant young woman the opportunity to consult with her in private, and to discuss the consequences of her decision in *900the context of the values and moral or religious principles of their family. See Hodgson, supra, at 448-449 (opinion of Stevens, J.).

E

Under the recordkeeping and reporting requirements of the statute, every facility which performs abortions is required to file a report stating its name and address as well as the name and address of any related entity, such as a controlling or subsidiary organization. In the case of state-funded institutions, the information becomes public.

For each abortion performed, a report must be filed identifying: the physician (and the second physician where required); the facility; the referring physician or agency; the woman’s age; the number of prior pregnancies and prior abortions she has had;'gestational age; the type of abortion procedure; the date of the abortion; whether there were any pre-existing medical conditions which would complicate pregnancy; medical complications with the abortion; where applicable, the basis for the determination that the abortion was medically necessary; the weight of the aborted fetus; and whether the woman was married, and if so, whether notice was provided or the basis for the failure to give notice. Every abortion facility must also file quarterly reports showing the number of abortions performed broken down by trimester. See 18 Pa. Cons. Stat, §§ 3207, 8214 (1990). In all events, the identity of each woman who has had an abortion remains confidential.

In Danforth, 428 U. S., at 80, we held that recordkeeping and reporting provisions “that are reasonably directed to the preservation of maternal health and that properly respect a patient’s confidentiality and privacy are permissible.” We think that under this standard, all the provisions at issue here, except that relating to spousal notice, are constitutional. Although they do not relate to the State’s interest in informing the woman’s choice, they do relate to health. The collection of information with respect to actual patients *901is a vital element of medical research, and so it cannot be said that the requirements serve no purpose other than to make abortions more difficult. Nor do we find that the requirements impose a substantial obstacle to a woman’s choice. At most they might increase the cost of some abortions by a slight amount. While at some point increased cost could become a substantial obstacle, there is no such showing on the record before us.

Subsection (12) of the reporting provision requires the re-, porting of, among other things, a married woman’s “reason for failure to provide notice” to her husband. § 3214(a)(12). This provision in effeet requires women, as a condition of obtaining an abortion, to provide the Commonwealth with the precise information we have already recognized that many women have pressing reasons not to reveal. Like the spousal notice requirement itself, this provision places an undue burden on a woman’s choice, and must be invalidated for that reason.

VI

Our Constitution is a covenant running from the first generation of Americans to us and then to future generations. It is a coherent succession. Each generation must learn anew that the Constitution’s written terms embody ideas and aspirations that must survive more ages than one. We accept our responsibility not to retreat from interpreting the full meaning of the covenant in light of all of our precedents. We invoke it once again to define the freedom guaranteed by the Constitution’s own promise, the promise of liberty.

* * *

The judgment in No. 91-902 is affirmed. The judgment in No. 91-744 is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion, including consideration of the question of severability.

It is so ordered.

*902APPENDIX TO OPINION OF O’CONNOR, KENNEDY, AND SOUTER, JJ.

Selected Provisions of the 1988 and 1989 Amendments to the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982

18 PA. CONS. STAT. (1990).

Ҥ3203. Definitions.

“ ‘Medical emergency.’ That condition which, on the basis of the physician’s good faith clinical judgment, so complicates the medical condition of a pregnant woman as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of major bodily function.”

Ҥ3205. Informed consent.

“(a) General rule. — No abortion shall be performed or induced except with the voluntary and informed consent of the woman upon whom the abortion is to be performed or induced. Except in the case of a medical emergency, consent to an abortion is voluntary and informed if and only if:

“(1) At least 24 hours prior to the abortion, the physician who is to perform the abortion or the referring physician has orally informed the woman of:

“(i) The nature of the proposed procedure or treatment and of those risks and alternatives to the procedure or treatment that a reasonable patient would consider material to the decision of whether or not to undergo the abortion.

“(ii) The probable gestational age of the unborn child at the time the abortion is to be performed.

“(iii) The medical risks associated with carrying her child to term.

“(2) At least 24 hours prior to the abortion, the physician who is to perform the abortion or the referring physician, or a qualified physician assistant, health care practitioner, technician or social worker to whom the re*903sponsibility has been delegated by either physician, has informed the pregnant woman that:

“(i) The department publishes printed materials which describe the unborn child and list agencies which offer alternatives to abortion and that she has a right to review the printed materials and that a copy will be provided to her free of charge if she chooses to review it.

“(ii) Medical assistance benefits may be available for prenatal care, childbirth and neonatal care, and that more detailed information on the availability of such assistance is contained in the printed materials published by the department.

“(iii) The father of the unborn child is liable to assist in the support of her child, even in instances where he has offered to pay for the abortion. In the case of rape, this information may be omitted.

“(3) A copy of the printed materials has been provided to the woman if she chooses to view these materials.

“(4) The pregnant woman certifies in writing, prior to the abortion, that the information required to be provided under paragraphs (1), (2) and (3) has been provided.

“(b) Emergency. — Where a medical emergency compels the performance of an abortion, the physician shall inform the woman, prior to the abortion if possible, of the medical indications supporting his judgment that an abortion is necessary to avert her death or to avert substantial and irreversible impairment of major bodily function.

“(e) Penalty. — Any physician who violates the provisions of this section is guilty of ‘unprofessional conduct’ and his license for the practice of medicine and surgery shall be subject to suspension or revocation in accordance with procedures provided under the act of October 5,1978 (P. L. 1109, No. 261), known as the Osteopathic Medical Practice Act, the *904act of December 20, 1985 (P. L. 457, No. 112), known as the Medical Practice Act of 1985, or their successor acts. Any physician who performs or induces an abortion without first obtaining the certification required by subsection (a)(4) or with knowledge or reason to know that the informed consent of the woman has not been obtained shall for the first offense be guilty of a summary offense and for each subsequent offense be guilty of a misdemeanor of the third degree. No physician shall be guilty of violating this section for failure to furnish the information required by subsection (a) if he or she can demonstrate, by a preponderance of the evidence, that he or she reasonably believed that furnishing the information would have resulted in a severely adverse effect on the physical or mental health of the patient.

“(d) Limitation on civil liability. — Any physician who complies with the provisions of this section may not be held civilly liable to his patient for failure to obtain informed consent to the abortion within the meaning of that term as defined by the act of October 15, 1975 (P. L. 390, No. Ill), known as the Health Care Services Malpractice Act.”

Ҥ 3206. Parental consent.

“(a) General rule. — Except in the case of a medical emergency or except as provided in this section, if a pregnant woman is less than 18 years of age and not emancipated, or if she has been adjudged an incompetent under 20 Pa. C. S. §5511 (relating to petition and hearing; examination by court-appointed physician), a physician shall not perform an abortion upon her unless, in the case of a woman who is less than 18 years of age, he first obtains the informed consent both of the pregnant woman and of one of her parents; or, in the case of a woman who is incompetent, he first obtains the informed consent of her guardian. In deciding whether to grant such consent, a pregnant woman’s parent or guardian shall consider only their child’s or ward’s best interests. In the case of a pregnancy that is the result of incest, where *905the father is a party to the incestuous act, the pregnant woman need only obtain the consent of her mother.

“(b) Unavailability of parent or guardian. — If both parents have died or are otherwise unavailable to the physician within a reasonable time and in a reasonable manner, consent of the pregnant woman’s guardian or guardians shall be sufficient. If the pregnant woman’s parents are divorced, consent of the parent having custody shall be sufficient. If neither any parent nor a legal guardian is available to the physician within a reasonable time and in a reasonable manner, consent of any adult person standing in loco parentis shall be sufficient.

“(c) Petition to the court for consent. — If both of the parents or guardians of the pregnant woman refuse to consent to the performance of an abortion or if she elects not to seek the consent of either of her parents or of her guardian, the court of common pleas of the judicial district in which the applicant resides or in which the abortion is sought shall, upon petition or motion, after an appropriate hearing, authorize a physician to perform the abortion if the court determines that the pregnant woman is mature and capable of giving informed consent to the proposed abortion, and has, in fact, given such consent.

“(d) Court order. — If the court determines that the pregnant woman is not mature and capable of giving informed consent or if the pregnant woman does not claim to be mature and capable of giving informed consent, the court shall determine whether the performance of an abortion upon her would be in her best interests. If the court determines that the performance of an abortion would be in the best interests of the woman, it shall authorize a physician to perform the abortion.

“(e) Representation in proceedings. — The pregnant woman may participate in proceedings in the court on her own behalf and the court may appoint a guardian ad litem to assist her. The court shall, however, advise her that she has *906a right to court appointed counsel, and shall provide her with such counsel unless she wishes to appear with private counsel or has knowingly and intelligently waived representation by counsel.”

Ҥ3207. Abortion facilities.

“(b) Reports. — Within 30 days after the effective date of this chapter, every facility at which abortions are performed shall file, and update immediately upon any change, a report with the department, containing the following information:

“(1) Name and address of the facility.

“(2) Name and address of any parent, subsidiary or affiliated organizations, corporations or associations.

“(3) Name and address of any parent, subsidiary or affiliated organizations, corporations or associations having contemporaneous commonality of ownership, beneficial interest, directorship or offieership with any other facility.

The information contained in those reports which are filed pursuant to this subsection by facilities which receive State-appropriated funds during the 12-ealendar-month period immediately preceding a request to inspect or copy such reports shall be deemed public information. Reports filed by facilities which do not receive State-appropriated funds shall only be available to law enforcement officials, the State Board of Medicine and the State Board of Osteopathic Medicine for use in the performance of their official duties. Any facility failing to comply with the provisions of this subsection shall be assessed by the department a fine of $500 for each day it is in violation hereof.”

Ҥ 3208. Printed information.

“(a) General rule. — The department shall cause to be published in English, Spanish and Vietnamese, within 60 days after this chapter becomes law, and shall update on an annual basis, the following easily comprehensible printed materials:

*907“(1) Geographically indexed materials designed to inform the woman of public and private agencies and services available to assist a woman through pregnancy, upon childbirth and while the child is dependent, including adoption agencies, which shall include a comprehensive list of the agencies available, a description of the services they offer and a description of the manner, including telephone numbers, in which they might be contacted, or, at the option of the department, printed materials including a toll-free 24-hour a day telephone number which may be called to obtain, orally, such a list and description of agencies in the locality of the caller' and of the services they offer. The materials shall provide information on the availability of medical assistance benefits for prenatal care, childbirth and neonatal care, and state that it is unlawful for any individual to coerce a woman to undergo abortion, that any physician who performs an abortion upon a woman without obtaining her informed consent or without according her a private medical consultation may be liable to her for damages in a civil action at law, that the father of a child is liable to assist in the support of that child, even in instances where the father has offered to pay for an abortion and that the law permits adoptive parents to pay costs of prenatal care, childbirth and neonatal care.

“(2) Materials designed to inform the woman of the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics of the unborn child at two-week gestational increments from fertilization to full term, including pictures representing the development of unborn children at two-week gestational increments, and any relevant information on the possibility of the unborn child’s survival; provided that any such pictures or drawings must contain the dimensions of the fetus and must be realistic and appropriate for the woman’s stage of pregnancy. The materials shall be objective, non-judgmental and designed *908to convey only accurate scientific information about the unborn child at the various gestational ages.' The material shall also contain objective information describing the methods of abortion procedures commonly employed, the medical risks commonly associated with each such procedure, the possible detrimental psychological effects of abortion and the medical risks commonly associated with each such procedure and the medical risks commonly associated with carrying a child to term.

“(b) Format. — The materials shall be printed in a typeface large enough to be clearly legible.

“(e) Free distribution. — The materials required under this section shall be available at no cost from the department upon request and in appropriate number to any person, facility or hospital.”

Ҥ3209. Spousal notice.

“(a) Spousal notice required. — In order to further the Commonwealth’s interest in promoting the integrity of the marital relationship and to protect a spouse’s interests in having children within marriage and in protecting the prenatal life of that spouse’s child, no physician shall perform an abortion on a married woman, except as provided in subsections (b) and (c), unless he or she has received a signed statement, which need not be notarized, from the woman upon whom the abortion is to be performed, that she has notified her spouse that she is about to undergo an abortion. The statement shall bear a notice that any false statement made therein is punishable by law.

“(b) Exceptions. — The statement certifying that the notice required by subsection (a) has been given need not be furnished where the woman provides the physician a signed statement certifying at least one of the following:

“(1) Her spouse is not the father of the child.

“(2) Her spouse, after diligent effort, could not be located.

*909“(3) The pregnancy is a result of spousal sexual assault as described in section 3128 (relating to spousal sexual assault), which has been reported to a law enforcement agency having the requisite jurisdiction.

“(4) The woman has reason to believe that the furnishing of notice to her spouse is likely to result in the infliction of bodily injury upon her by her spouse or by another individual.

Such statement need not be notarized, but shall bear a notice that any false statements made therein are punishable by law.

“(c) Medical emergency. — The requirements of subsection (a) shall not apply in case of a medical emergency.

“(d) Forms. — The department shall cause to be published, forms which may be utilized for purposes of providing the signed statements required by subsections (a) and (b). The department shall distribute an adequate supply of such forms to all abortion facilities in this Commonwealth.

“(e) Penalty; civil action. — Any'physician who violates the provisions of this section is guilty of 'unprofessional conduct,’ and his -or her license for the practice of medicine and surgery shall be subject to suspension or revocation in accordance with procedures provided under the act of October 5, 1978 (P. L. 1109, No. 261), known as the Osteopathic Medical Practice Act, the act of December 20, 1985 (P. L. 457, No. 112), known as the Medical Practice Act of 1985, or their successor acts. In addition, any physician who knowingly violates the provisions of this section shall be civilly liable to the spouse who is the father of the aborted child for any damages caused thereby and for punitive damages in the amount of $5,000, and the court shall award a prevailing plaintiff a reasonable attorney fee as part of costs.”

Ҥ3214. Reporting.

“(a) General rule. — For the purpose of promotion of maternal health and life by adding to the sum of medical and *910public health knowledge through the compilation of relevant data, and to promote the Commonwealth’s interest in protection of the unborn child, a report of each abortion performed shall be made to the department on forms prescribed by it. The report forms shall not identify the individual patient by name and shall include the following information:

“(1) Identification of the physician who performed the abortion, the concurring physician as required by section 3211(c)(2) (relating to abortion on unborn child of 24 or more weeks gestational age), the second physician as required by section 3211(c)(5) and the facility where the abortion was performed and of the referring physician, agency or service, if any.

“(2) The county and state in which the woman resides.

“(3) The woman’s age.

“(4) The number of prior pregnancies and prior abortions of the woman.

“(5) The gestational age of the unborn child at the time of the abortion.

“(6) The type of procedure performed or prescribed and the date of the abortion.

“(7) Pre-existing medical conditions of the woman which would complicate pregnancy, if any, and if known, any medical complication which resulted from the abortion itself.

“(8) The basis for the medical judgment of the physician who performed the abortion that the abortion was necessary to prevent either the death of the pregnant woman or the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the woman, where an abortion has been performed pursuant to section 3211(b)(1).

“(9) The weight of the aborted child for any abortion performed pursuant to section 3211(b)(1).

“(10) Basis for any medical judgment that a medical emergency existed which excused the physician from compliance with any provision of this chapter.

*911“(11) The information required to be reported under section 3210(a) (relating to determination of gestational age).

“(12) Whether the abortion was performed upon a married woman and, if so, whether notice to her spouse was given. If no notice to her spouse was given, the report shall also indicate the reason for failure to provide notice.

“(f) Report by facility. — Every facility in which an abortion is performed within this Commonwealth during any quarter year shall file with the department a report showing the total number of abortions performed within the hospital or other facility during that quarter year. This report shall also show the total abortions performed in each trimester of pregnancy. Any report shall be available for public inspection and copying only if the facility receives State-appropriated funds within the 12-calendar-month period immediately preceding the filing of the report. These reports shall be submitted on a form prescribed by the department which will enable, a facility to indicate whether or not it is receiving State-appropriated funds. If the facility indicates on the form that it is not receiving State-appropriated funds, the department shall regard its report as confidential unless it receives other evidence which causes it to conclude that the facility receives State-appropriated funds.”

Justice Stevens,

concurring in part and dissenting in part.

The portions of the Court’s opinion that I have joined are more important than those with which I disagree. I shall therefore first comment on significant areas of agreement, and then explain the limited character of my disagreement.

*912f-H

The Court is unquestionably correct in concluding that the doctrine of stare decisis has controlling significance in a case of this kind, notwithstanding an individual Justice’s concerns about the merits.1 The central holding of Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), has been a “part of our law” for almost two decades. Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 101 (1976) (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). It was a natural sequel to the protection of individual liberty established in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965). See also Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U. S. 678, 687, 702 (1977) (White, J., concurring in part and concurring in result). The societal costs of overruling Roe at this late date would be enormous. Roe is an integral part of a correct understanding of both the concept of liberty and the basic equality of men and women.

Stare decisis also provides a sufficient basis for my agreement with the joint opinion’s reaffirmation of Roe’s post-viability analysis. Specifically, I accept the proposition that “[i]f the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.” 410 U. S., at 163-164; see ante, at 879.

I also accept what is implicit in the Court’s analysis, namely, a reaffirmation of Roe’s explanation oí-why the State’s obligation to protect the life or health of the mother *913must take precedence over any duty to the unborn. The Court in Roe carefully considered, and rejected, the State’s argument “that the fetus is a ‘person’ within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.” 410 U. S., at 156. After analyzing the usage of “person” in the Constitution, the Court concluded that that word “has application only postnatally.” Id., at 157. Commenting on the contingent property interests of the unborn that are generally represented by guardians ad litem, the Court noted: “Perfection of the interests involved, again, has generally been contingent upon live birth. In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.” Id., at 162. Accordingly, an abortion is not “the termination of life entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection.” Id., at 159. From this holding, there was no dissent, see id., at 173; indeed, no Member of the Court has ever questioned this fundamental proposition. Thus, as a matter of federal constitutional law, a developing organism that is not yet a “person” does not have what is sometimes described as a “right to life.”2 This has been and, by the Court’s holding today, *914remains a fundamental premise of our constitutional law governing reproductive autonomy.

II

My disagreement with the joint opinion begins with its understanding of the trimester framework established in Roe. Contrary to the suggestion of the joint opinion, ante, at 876, it is not a “contradiction” to recognize that the State may have a legitimate interest in potential human life and, at the same time, to conclude that that interest does not justify the regulation of abortion before viability (although other interests, such as maternal health, may). The fact that the State’s interest is legitimate does not tell us when, if ever, that interest outweighs the pregnant woman’s interest in personal liberty. It is appropriate, therefore, to consider more carefully the nature of the interests at stake.

First, it is clear that, in order to be legitimate, the State’s interest must be secular; consistent with the First Amendment the State may not promote a theological or sectarian interest. See Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747, 778 (1986) (Stevens, J., concurring); see generally Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S. 490, 563-572 (1989) (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Moreover, as discussed above, the state interest in potential human life is not an interest in loco parentis, for the fetus is not a person.

Identifying the State’s interests — which the States rarely articulate with any precision — makes clear that the interest in protecting potential life is not grounded in the Constitution. It is, instead, an indirect interest supported by both humanitarian and pragmatic concerns. Many of our citizens believe that any abortion reflects an unacceptable disrespect for potential human life and that the performance of more *915than a million abortions each year is intolerable; many find third-trimester abortions performed when the fetus is approaching personhood particularly offensive. The State has a legitimate interest in minimizing such offense. The State may also have a broader interest in expanding the population,3 believing society would benefit from the services of additional productive citizens — or that the potential human lives might include the occasional Mozart or Curie. These are the kinds of concerns that comprise the State’s interest in potential human life.

In counterpoise is the woman’s constitutional interest in liberty. One aspect of this liberty is a right to bodily integrity, a right to control one’s person. See, e. g., Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165 (1952); Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535 (1942). This right is neutral on the question of abortion: The Constitution would be equally offended by an absolute requirement that all women undergo abortions as by an absolute prohibition on abortions. “Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.” Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, 565 (1969). The same holds true for the power to control women’s bodies.

The woman’s constitutional liberty interest also involves her freedom to decide matters of the highest privacy and the most personal nature. Cf. Whalen v. Roe, 429 U. S. 589, *916598-600 (1977). A woman considering abortion faces “a difficult choice having serious and personal consequences of major importance to her own future — perhaps to the salvation of her own immortal soul.” Thornburgh, 476 U. S., at 781. The authority to make such traumatic and yet empowering decisions is an element of basic human dignity. As the joint opinion so eloquently demonstrates, a woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy is nothing less than a matter of conscience.

Weighing the State’s interest in potential life and the woman’s liberty interest, I agree with the joint opinion that the State may “ ‘ “expres[s] a preference for normal childbirth,”’” that the State may take steps to ensure that a woman’s choice “is thoughtful and informed,” and that “States are free to enact laws to provide a reasonable framework for a woman to make a decision that has such profound and lasting meaning.” Ante, at 872-873. Serious questions arise, however, when a State attempts to “persuade the woman to choose childbirth over abortion.” Ante, at 878. Decisional autonomy must limit the State’s power to inject into a woman’s most personal deliberations its own views of what is best. The State may promote its preferences by funding childbirth, by creating and maintaining alternatives to abortion, and by espousing the virtues of family; but it must respect the individual’s freedom to make such judgments.

This theme runs throughout our decisions concerning reproductive freedom. In general, Roe’s requirement that restrictions on abortions before viability be justified by the State’s interest in maternal health has prevented States from interjecting regulations designed to influence a woman’s decision. Thus, we have upheld regulations of abortion that are not efforts to sway or direct a woman’s choice, but rather are efforts to enhance the deliberative quality of that decision or are neutral regulations on the health aspects of her decision. We have, for example, upheld regulations re*917quiring written informed consent, see Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52 (1976); limited rec-ordkeeping and reporting, see ibid.; and pathology reports, see Planned Parenthood Assn. of Kansas City, Mo., Inc. v. Ashcroft, 462 U. S. 476 (1983); as well as various licensing and qualification provisions, see, e. g., Roe, 410 U. S., at 150; Simopoulos v. Virginia, 462 U. S. 506 (1983). Conversely, we have consistently rejected state efforts to prejudice a woman’s choice, either by limiting the information available to her, see Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U. S. 809 (1975), or by “requiring] the delivery of information designed ‘to influence the woman’s informed choice between abortion or childbirth.’ ” Thornburgh, 476 U. S., at 760; see also Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U. S. 416, 442-449 (1983).

In my opinion, the principles established in this long line of eases and the wisdom reflected in Justice Powell’s opinion for the Court in Akron (and followed by the Court just six years ago in Thornburgh) should govern our decision today. Under these principles, Pa. Cons. Stat. § § 3205(a)(2)(i) — (iii) (1990) of the Pennsylvania statute are unconstitutional. Those sections require a physician or counselor to provide the woman with a range of materials clearly designed to persuade her to choose not to undergo the abortion. While the Commonwealth is free, pursuant to § 3208 of the Pennsylvania law, to produce and disseminate such material, the Commonwealth may not inject such information into the woman’s deliberations just as she is weighing such an important ehoice.

Under this same analysis, §§ 3205(a)(l)(i) and (iii) of the Pennsylvania statute are constitutional. Those sections, which require the physician to inform a woman of the nature and risks of the abortion procedure and the medical risks of carrying to term, are neutral requirements comparable to those imposed in other medical procedures. Those sections indicate no effort by the Commonwealth to influence the *918woman’s choice in any way. If anything, such requirements enhance, rather than skew, the woman’s decisionmaking.

I — I HH

The 24-hour waiting period required by §§ 3205(a)(l)-(2) of the Pennsylvania statute raises even more serious concerns. Such a requirement arguably furthers the Commonwealth’s interests in two ways, neither of which is constitutionally permissible.

First, it may be argued that the 24-hour delay is justified by the mere fact that it is likely to reduce the number of abortions, thus furthering the Commonwealth’s interest in potential life. But such an argument would justify any form of coercion that placed an obstacle in the woman’s path. The Commonwealth cannot further its interests by simply wearing down the ability of the pregnant woman to exercise her constitutional right.

Second, it can more reasonably be argued that the 24-hour delay furthers the Commonwealth’s interest in ensuring that the woman’s decision is informed and thoughtful. But there is no evidence that the mandated delay benefits women or that it is necessary to enable the physician to convey any relevant information to the patient. The mandatory delay thus appears to rest on outmoded and unacceptable assumptions about the decisionmaking capacity of women. While there are well-established and consistently maintained reasons for the Commonwealth to view with skepticism the ability of minors to make decisions, see Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U. S. 417, 449 (1990),4 none of those reasons applies to an *919adult woman’s decisionmaking ability. Just as we have left behind the belief that a woman must consult her husband before undertaking serious matters, see ante, at 895-898, so we must reject the notion that a woman is less capable of deciding matters of gravity. Cf. Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71 (1971).

In the alternative, the delay requirement may be premised on the belief that the decision to terminate a pregnancy is presumptively wrong. This premise is illegitimate. Those who disagree vehemently about the legality and morality of abortion agree about one thing: The decision to terminate a pregnancy is profound and difficult. No person undertakes such a decision lightly — and States may not presume that a woman has failed to reflect adequately merely because her conclusion differs from the State’s preference. A woman who has, in the privacy of her thoughts and conscience, weighed the options and made her decision cannot be forced to reconsider all, simply because the State believes she has come to the wrong conclusion.5

*920Part of the constitutional liberty to choose is the equal dignity to which each of us is entitled. A woman who decides to terminate her pregnancy is entitled to the same respect as a woman who decides to carry the fetus to term. The mandatory waiting period denies women that equal respect.

IV

In my opinion, a correct application of the “undue burden” standard leads to the same conclusion concerning the constitutionality of these requirements. A state-imposed burden on the exercise of a constitutional right is measured both by its effects and by its character: A burden may be “undue” either because the burden is too severe or because it lacks a legitimate, rational justification.6

The 24-hour delay requirement fails both parts of this test. The findings of the District Court establish the severity of *921the burden that the 24-hour delay imposes on many pregnant women. Yet even in those cases in which the delay is not especially onerous, it is, in my opinion, “undue” because there is no evidence that such a delay serves a useful and legitimate purpose. As indicated above, there is no legitimate reason to require a woman who has agonized over her decision to leave the clinic or hospital and return again another day. While a general requirement that a physician notify her patients about the risks of a proposed medical procedure is appropriate, a rigid requirement that all patients wait 24 hours or (what is true in practice) much longer to evaluate the significance of information that is either common knowledge or irrelevant is an irrational and, therefore, “undue” burden.

The counseling provisions are similarly infirm. Whenever government commands private citizens to speak or to listen, careful review of the justification for that command is particularly appropriate. In these eases, the Pennsylvania statute directs that counselors provide women seeking abortions with information concerning alternatives to abortion, the availability of medical assistance benefits, and the possibility of child-support payments. §§ 3205(a)(2)(i) — (iii). The statute requires that this information be given to all women seeking abortions, including those for whom such information is clearly useless, such as those who are married, those who have undergone the procedure in the past and are fully aware of the options, and those who are fully convinced that abortion is their only reasonable option. Moreover, the statute requires physicians to inform all of their patients of “[t]he probable gestational age of the unborn child.” §3205(a)(l)(ii). This information is of little decisional value in most cases, because 90% of all abortions are performed during the first trimester7 when fetal age has less relevance than when the fetus nears viability. Nor can the informa*922tion required by the statute be justified as relevant to any “philosophic” or “social” argument, ante, at 872, either favoring or disfavoring the abortion decision in a particular ease. In light of all of these facts, I conclude that the information requirements in §3205(a)(l)(ii) and §§ 3205(a)(2)(i)-(iii) do not serve a useful purpose and thus constitute an unnecessary— and therefore undue — burden on the woman’s constitutional liberty to decide to terminate her pregnancy.

Accordingly, while I disagree with Parts IV, V-B, and V-D of the joint opinion,8 I join the remainder of the Court’s opinion.

Justice Blackmun,

concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part.

I join Parts I, II, III, V-A, V-C, and VI of the joint opinion of Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, ante.

Three years ago, in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S. 490 (1989), four Members of this Court appeared poised to “cas[t] into darkness the hopes and visions of every woman in this country” who had come to believe that the Constitution guaranteed her the right to reproductive choice. Id., at 557 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). See id., at 499 (plurality opinion of Rehnquist, C. J., joined by White and Kennedy, JJ.); id., at 532 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). All that remained between the promise of Roe and the darkness of the plurality was a single, flickering flame. Decisions since Webster gave little reason to hope that this flame would cast much light. See, e. g., Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U. S. 502, 524 (1990) (Blackmun, J., dissenting). But now, just when so many expected the darkness to fall, the flame has grown bright.

*923I do not underestimate the significance of today’s joint opinion. Yet I remain steadfast in my belief that the right to reproductive choice is entitled to the full protection afforded by this Court before Webster. And I fear for the darkness as four Justices anxiously await the single vote necessary to extinguish the light.

I — i

Make no mistake, the joint opinion of Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter is an act of personal courage and constitutional principle. In contrast to previous decisions in which Justices O’Connor and Kennedy postponed reconsideration of Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), the authors of the joint opinion today join Justice Stevens and me in concluding that “the essential holding of Roe v. Wade should be retained and once again reaffirmed.” Ante, at 846. In brief, five Members of this Court today recognize that “the Constitution protects a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy in its early stages.” Ante, at 844.

A fervent view of individual liberty and the force of stare decisis have led the Court to this conclusion. Ante, at 853. Today a majority reaffirms that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment establishes “a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter,” ante, at 847— a realm whose outer limits cannot be determined by interpretations of the Constitution that focus only on the specific practices of States at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. See ante, at 848-849. Included within this realm of liberty is “The right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.’ ” Ante, at 851, quoting Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 453 (1972) (emphasis in original). “These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the *924liberty 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 *925for evaluating abortion regulations that responds to the social context of women facing issues of reproductive choice.1 In determining the burden imposed by the challenged regulation, the Court inquires whether the regulation’s “purpose or effect is to plaee a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.” Ante, at 878 (emphasis added). The Court reaffirms: “The proper focus of constitutional inquiry is the group for whom the law is a restriction, not the group for whom the law is irrelevant.” Ante, at 894. Looking at this group, the Court inquires, based on expert testimony, empirical studies, and common sense, whether “in a large fraction of the cases in which [the restriction] is relevant, it will operate as a substantial obstacle to a woman’s choice to undergo an abortion.” Ante, at 895. “A statute with this purpose is invalid because the means chosen by the State to further the interest in potential life must be calculated to inform the woman’s free choice, not hinder it.” Ante, at 877. And in applying its test, the Court remains sensitive to the unique role of women in the decisionmaking process. Whatever may have been the practice when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, the Court observes, “[w]omen do not lose their constitutionally protected liberty when they marry. The Constitution protects all individuals, male or female, married or unmarried, from the abuse of governmental power, even where that power is employed for the supposed benefit of a member of the individual’s, family.” Ante, at 898.2

*926Lastly, while I believe that the joint opinion errs in failing to invalidate the other regulations, I am pleased that the joint opinion has not ruled out the possibility that these regulations may be shown to impose an unconstitutional burden. The joint opinion makes clear that its specific holdings are based on the insufficiency of the record before it. See, e. g., ante, at 885-886. I am confident that in the future evidence will be produced to show that “in a large fraction of the cases in which [these regulations are] relevant, [they] will operate as a substantial obstacle to a woman’s choice to undergo an abortion.” Ante, at 895.

II

Today, no less than yesterday, the Constitution and decisions of this Court require that a State’s abortion restrictions be subjected to the strictest judicial scrutiny. Our precedents and the joint opinion’s principles require us to subject all non-de-minimis abortion regulations to strict scrutiny. Under this standard, the Pennsylvania statute’s provisions requiring content-based counseling, a 24-hour delay, informed parental consent, and reporting of abortion-related information must be invalidated.

A

The Court today reaffirms the long recognized rights of privacy and bodily integrity. As early as 1891, the Court held, “[n]o right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others ... .” Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U. S. 250, 251 (1891). Throughout this century, this Court also has held that the fundamental right of privacy protects citizens against governmental in-*927trusión in such intimate family matters as procreation, child-rearing, marriage, and contraceptive choice. See ante, at 847-849. These eases embody the principle that personal decisions that profoundly affeet bodily integrity, identity, and destiny should be largely beyond the reach of government. Eisenstadt, 405 U. S., at 453. In Roe v. Wade, this Court correctly applied these principles to a woman’s right to choose abortion.

State restrictions on abortion violate a woman’s right of privacy in two ways. First, compelled continuation of a pregnancy infringes upon a woman’s right to bodily integrity by imposing substantial physical intrusions and significant risks of physical harm. During pregnancy, women experience dramatic physical changes and a wide range of health consequences. Labor and delivery pose additional health risks and physical demands. In short, restrictive abortion laws force women to endure physical invasions far more substantial than those this Court has held to violate the constitutional principle of bodily integrity in other contexts. See, e. g., Winston v. Lee, 470 U. S. 753 (1985) (invalidating surgical removal of bullet from murder suspect); Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165 (1952) (invalidating stomach pumping).3

Further, when the State restricts a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy, it deprives a woman of the right to make her own decision about reproduction and family planning — critical life choices that this Court long has deemed central to the right to privacy. The decision to terminate or continue a pregnancy has no less an impact on a woman’s life than decisions about contraception or marriage. 410 U. S., *928at 153. Because motherhood has a dramatic impact on a woman’s educational prospects, employment opportunities, and self-determination, restrictive abortion laws deprive her of basic control over her life.- For these reasons, “the decision whether or not to beget or bear a child” lies at “the very heart of this cluster of constitutionally protected choices.” Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U. S. 678, 685 (1977).

A State’s restrictions on a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy also implicate constitutional guarantees of gender equality. State restrictions on abortion compel women to continue pregnancies they otherwise might terminate. By restricting the right to terminate pregnancies, the State conscripts women’s bodies into its service, forcing women to continue their pregnancies, suffer the pains of childbirth, and in most instances, provide years of maternal care. The State does not compensate women for their services; instead, it assumes that they owe this duty as a matter of course. This assumption — that women can simply be forced to accept the “natural” status and incidents of motherhood — appears to rest upon a conception of women’s role that -has triggered the protection of the Equal Protection Clause. See, e.g., Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U. S. 718, 724-726 (1982); Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190, 198-199 (1976).4 The joint opinion recognizes that these assumptions about women’s place in society “are no longer consistent with our *929understanding of the family, the individual, or the Constitution.” Ante, at 897.

B

The Court has held that limitations on the right of privacy are permissible only if they survive “strict” constitutional scrutiny — that is, only if the governmental entity imposing the restriction can demonstrate that the limitation is both necessary and narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 485 (1965). We have applied this principle specifically in the context of abortion regulations. Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S., at 155.5

Roe implemented these principles through a framework that was designed “to ensure that the woman’s right to choose not become so subordinate to the State’s interest in promoting fetal life that her choice exists in theory but not in fact,” ante, at 872. Roe identified two relevant state interests: “an interest in preserving and protecting the health of the pregnant woman” and an interest in “protecting the potentiality of human life.” 410 U. S., at 162. With respect to the State’s interest in the health of the mother, “the ‘compelling’ point ... is at approximately the end of the first trimester,” because it is at that point that the mortality rate in abortion approaches that in childbirth. Id., at 163. With respect to the State’s interest in potential life, “the ‘compelling’ point is at viability,” because it is at that point that the *930fetus “presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb.” Ibid. In order to fulfill the requirement of narrow tailoring, “the State is obligated to make a reasonable effort to limit the effect of its regulations to the period in the trimester during which its health interest will be furthered.” Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U. S. 416, 434 (1983).

In my view, application of this analytical framework is no less warranted than when it was approved by seven Members of this Court in Roe. Strict scrutiny of state limitations on reproductive choice still offers the most secure protection of the woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions, free from state coercion. No majority of this Court has ever agreed upon an alternative approach. The factual premises of the trimester framework have not been undermined, see Webster, 492 U. S., at 553 (Blackmun, J., dissenting), and the Roe framework is far more administra-ble, and far less manipulate, than the “undue burden” standard adopted by the joint opinion.

Nonetheless, three criticisms of the trimester framework continue to be uttered. First, the trimester framework is attacked because its key elements do not appear in the text of the Constitution. My response to this attack remains the same as it was in Webster:

“Were this a true concern, we would have to abandon most of our constitutional jurisprudence. [Tjhe ‘critical elements’ of countless constitutional doctrines nowhere appear in the Constitution’s text.... The Constitution makes no mention, for example, of the First Amendment’s ‘actual malice’ standard for proving certain libels, see New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964). ... Similarly, the Constitution makes no mention of the rational-basis test, or the specific verbal formulations of intermediate and strict scrutiny by which this Court evaluates claims under the Equal Protection Clause. The reason is simple. Like the Roe framework, these *931tests or standards are not, and do not purport to be, rights protected by the Constitution. Rather, they are judge-made methods for evaluating and measuring the strength and scope of constitutional rights or for balancing the constitutional rights of individuals against the competing interests of government.” Id., at 548.

The second criticism is that the framework more closely resembles a regulatory code than a body of constitutional doctrine. Again, my answer remains the same as in Webster:

“[I]f this were a true and genuine concern, we would have to abandon vast areas of our constitutional jurisprudence. . . . Are [the distinctions entailed in the trimester framework] any finer, or more ‘regulatory,’ than the distinctions we have often drawn in our First Amendment jurisprudence, where, for example, we have held that a ‘release time’ program permitting public-school students to leave school grounds during school hours to receive religious instruction does not violate the Establishment Clause, even though a release-time program permitting religious instruction on school grounds does violate the Clause? Compare Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306 (1952), with Illinois ex rel. Mc-Collum v. Board of Education of School Dist. No. 71, Champaign County, 333 U. S. 203 (1948)... . Similarly, in a Sixth Amendment case, the Court held that although an overnight ban on attorney-client communication violated the constitutionally guaranteed right to counsel, Geders v. United States, 425 U. S. 80 (1976), that right was not violated when a trial judge separated a defendant from his lawyer during a 15-minute recess after the defendant’s direct testimony. Perry v. Leeke, 488 U. S. 272 (1989).

“That numerous constitutional doctrines result in narrow differentiations between similar circumstances does *932not mean that this Court has abandoned adjudication in favor of regulation.” Id., at 549-550.

The final, and more genuine, criticism of the trimester framework is that it fails to find the State’s interest in potential human life compelling throughout pregnancy. No Member of this Court — nor for that matter, the Solicitor General, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 42 — has ever questioned our holding in Roe that an abortion is not “the termination of life entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection.” 410 U. S., at 159. Accordingly, a State’s interest in protecting fetal life is not grounded in the Constitution. Nor, consistent with our Establishment Clause, can it be a theological or sectarian interest. See Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747, 778 (1986) (Stevens, J., concurring). It is, instead, a legitimate interest grounded in humanitarian or pragmatic concerns. See ante, at 914-915 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

But while a State has “legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in protecting the health of the worn an and the life of the fetus that may become a child,” ante, at 846, legitimate interests are not enough. To overcome the burden of strict scrutiny, the interests must be compelling. The question then is how best to accommodate the State’s interest in potential human life with the constitutional liberties of pregnant women. Again, I stand by the views I expressed in Webster:

“I remain convinced, as six other Members of this Court 16 years ago were convinced, that the Roe framework, and the viability standard in particular, fairly, sensibly, and effectively functions to safeguard the constitutional liberties of pregnant women while recognizing and accommodating the State’s interest in potential human life. The viability line reflects the biological facts and truths of fetal development; it marks that threshold moment prior to which a fetus cannot survive separate from the *933woman and cannot reasonably and objectively be regarded as a subject of rights or interests distinct from, or paramount to, those of the pregnant woman. At the same time, the viability standard takes account of the undeniable fact that as the fetus evolves into its postnatal form, and as it loses its dependence on the uterine environment, the State’s interest in the fetus’ potential human life, and in fostering a regard for human life in general, becomes compelling. As a practical matter, because viability follows ‘quickening’ — the point at which. a woman feels movement in her womb — and because viability occurs no earlier than 23 weeks gestational age, it establishes an easily applicable standard for regulating abortion while providing a pregnant woman ample time to exercise her fundamental right with her responsible physician to terminate her pregnancy.” 492 U. S., at 553-554.6

Roe’s trimester framework does not ignore the State’s interest in prenatal life. Like Justice Stevens, ante, at 916,

I agree that the State may take steps to ensure that a woman’s choice “is thoughtful and informed,” ante, at 872, and that “States are free to enact laws to provide a reasonable framework for a woman to make a decision that has such profound and lasting meaning.” Ante, at 873. But

“[sjerious questions- arise ... when a State attempts to persuade the woman to choose childbirth over abortion. Ante, at 878. Decisional autonomy must limit the State’s power to inject into a woman’s most personal deliberations its own views of what is best. The State may promote its preferences by funding childbirth, by creating and maintaining alternatives to abortion, and by espousing the virtues of family; but it must respect *934the individual’s freedom to make such judgments.” Ante, at 916 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (internal quotation marks omitted).

As the joint opinion recognizes, “the means chosen by the State to further the interest in potential life must be calculated to inform the woman’s free choice, not hinder it.” Ante, at 877.

In sum, .Roe’s requirement of strict scrutiny as implemented through a trimester framework should not be disturbed. No other approach has gained a majority, and no other is more protective of the woman’s fundamental right. Lastly, no other approach properly accommodates the woman’s constitutional right with the State’s legitimate interests.

C

Application of the strict scrutiny standard results in the invalidation of all the challenged provisions. Indeed, as this Court has invalidated virtually identical provisions in prior cases, stare decisis requires that we again strike them down.

This Court has upheld informed- and written-consent requirements only where the State has demonstrated that they genuinely further important health-related state concerns. See Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 65-67 (1976). A State may not, under the guise of securing informed consent, “require the delivery of information ‘designed to influence the woman’s informed choice between abortion or childbirth.’ ” Thornburgh, 476 U. S., at 760, quoting Akron, 462 U. S., at 443-444. Rigid requirements that a specific body of information be imparted to a woman in all cases, regardless of the needs of the patient, improperly intrude upon the discretion of the pregnant woman’s physician and thereby impose an “‘undesired and uncomfortable straitjacket.’ ” Thornburgh, 476 U. S., at 762, quoting Danforth, 428 U. S., at 67, n. 8.

Measured against these principles, some aspects of the Pennsylvania informed-consent scheme are unconstitutional. *935While it is unobjectionable for the Commonwealth to require that the patient be informed of the nature of the procedure, the health risks of the abortion and of childbirth, and the probable gestational age of the unborn child, compare Pa. Cons. Stat. §§3205(a)(i)-(iii) (1990) with Akron, 462 U. S., at 446, n. 37, I remain unconvinced that there is a vital state need for insisting that the information be provided by a physician rather than a counselor. Id., at 448. The District Court found that the physician-only requirement necessarily would increase costs to the plaintiff clinics, costs that undoubtedly would be passed on to patients. And because trained women counselors are often more understanding than physicians, and generally havé more time to spend with patients, see App. 366-387, the physician-only disclosure requirement is not narrowly tailored to serve the Commonwealth’s interest in protecting maternal health.

Sections 3205(a)(2)(i)~(iii) of the Act further requires that the physician or a qualified nonphysieian inform the woman that printed materials are available from the Commonwealth that describe the fetus and provide information about medical assistance for childbirth, information about child support from the father, and a list of agencies offering adoption and other services as alternatives to abortion. Thornburgh invalidated biased patient-counseling requirements virtually identical to the one at issue here. What we said of those requirements fully applies in these cases:

“[T]he listing of agencies in the printed Pennsylvania form presents serious problems; it contains names of agencies that well may be out of step with the needs of the particular woman and thus places the physician in an awkward position and infringes upon his or her professional responsibilities. Forcing the physician or counselor to present the materials and the list to the woman makes him or her in effect an agent of the State in treating the woman and places his or her imprimatur upon both the materials and the list. All this is, or *936comes close to being, state medicine imposed upon the woman, not the professional medical guidance she seeks, and it officially structures — as it obviously was intended to do — the dialogue between the woman and her physician.

“The requirements . . . that the woman be advised that medical assistance benefits may be available, and that the father is responsible for financial assistance in the support of the child similarly are poorly disguised elements of discouragement for the abortion decision. Much of this ..., for many patients, would be irrelevant and inappropriate. For a patient with a life-threatening pregnancy, the ‘information’ in its very rendition may be cruel as well as destructive of the physician-patient relationship. As any experienced social worker or other counselor knows, theoretical financial responsibility often does not equate with fulfillment.... Under the guise of informed consent, the Act requires the dissemination of information that is not relevant to such consent, and, thus, it advances no legitimate state interest.” 476 U' S., at 762-763 (citation omitted).

“This type of compelled information is the antithesis of informed consent,” id., at 764, and goes far beyond merely describing the general subject matter relevant to the woman’s decision. “That the Commonwealth does not, and surely would not, compel similar disclosure of every possible peril of necessary surgery or of simple vaccination, reveals the anti-abortion character of the statute and its real purpose.” Ibid.7

*937The 24-hour waiting period following the provision of the foregoing information is also clearly unconstitutional. The District Court found that the mandatory 24-hour delay could lead to delays in excess of 24 hours, thus increasing health risks, and that it would require two visits to the abortion provider, thereby increasing travel time, exposure to further harassment, and financial cost. Finally, the District Court found that the requirement would pose especially significant burdens on women living in rural areas and those women that have difficulty explaining their whereabouts. 744 F. Supp. 1328,1378-1379 (ED Pa. 1990). In Akron this Court invalidated a similarly arbitrary or inflexible waiting period because, as here, it fiirthered no legitimate state interest.8

As Justice Stevens insightfully concludes, the mandatory delay rests either on outmoded or unacceptable assumptions about the decisionmaking capacity of women or the belief that the decision to terminate the pregnancy is *938presumptively wrong. Ante, at 918-919. The requirement that women consider this obvious and slanted information for an additional 24 hours contained in these provisions will only influence the womán’s decision in improper ways. The vast majority of women will know this information — of the few that do not, it is less likely that their minds will be changed by this information than it will be either by the realization that the State opposes their choice or the need once again to endure abuse and harassment on return to the clinic.9

Except in the case of a medical emergency, § 3206 requires a physician to obtain the informed consent of a parent or guardian before performing an abortion on an unemanci-pated minor or an incompetent woman. Based on evidence in the record, the District Court concluded that, in order to fulfill the informed-consent requirement, generally accepted medical principles would require an in-person visit by the parent to the facility. 744 F. Supp., at 1382. Although the Court “has recognized that the State has somewhat broader authority to regulate the activities of children than of adults,” the State nevertheless must demonstrate that there is a “significant state interest in conditioning an abortion... that is not present in the case of an adult.” Danforth, 428 U. S., at 74-75 (emphasis added). The requirement of an in-person visit would carry with it the risk of a delay of several days or possibly weeks, even where the parent is willing to consent. While the State has an interest in encouraging parental involvement-in the minor’s abortion decision, §3206 is not narrowly drawn to serve that interest.10

*939Finally, the Pennsylvania statute requires every facility performing abortions to report its activities to the Commonwealth. Pennsylvania contends that this requirement is valid under Danforth, in which this Court held that record-keeping and reporting requirements that are reasonably directed to the preservation of maternal health and that properly respect a patient’s confidentiality are permissible. Id., at 79-81. The Commonwealth attempts to justify its required reports on the ground that the public has a right to know how its tax dollars are spent. A regulation designed to inform the public about public expenditures does not further the Commonwealth’s interest in protecting maternal health. Accordingly, such a regulation cannot justify a legally significant burden on a woman’s right to obtain an abortion.

The confidential reports concerning the identities and medical judgment of physicians involved in abortions at first glance may seem valid, given the Commonwealth’s interest in maternal health and enforcement of the Act. The District Court found, however, that, notwithstanding the confidentiality protections, many physicians, particularly those who have previously discontinued performing abortions because of harassment, would refuse to refer patients to abortion clinics if their names were to appear on these reports. 744 F. Supp., at 1392. The Commonwealth has failed to show that the name of the referring physician either adds to the pool of scientific knowledge concerning abortion or is reasonably related to the Commonwealth’s interest in maternal health. I therefore agree with the District Court’s conclusion that the confidential reporting requirements are uneon-*940stitutional insofar as they require the name of the referring physician and the basis for his or her medical judgment.

In sum, I would affirm the judgment in No. 91-902 and reverse the judgment in No. 91-744 and remand the eases for further proceedings.

Ill

At long last, The ChieF Justice and those who have joined him admit it. Gone are the contentions that the issue need not be (or has not been) considered. There, on the first page, for all to see, is what was expected: “We believe that Roe was wrongly decided, and that it can and should be overruled consistently with our traditional approach to stare de-cisis in constitutional cases.” Post, at 944. If there is much reason to applaud the advances made by the joint opinion today, there is far more to fear from The ChieF Justice’s opinion.

The ChieF Justice’s criticism of Roe follows from his stunted conception of individual liberty. While recognizing that the Due Process Clause protects more than simple physical liberty, he then goes on to construe this Court’s personal-liberty cases as establishing only a laundry list of particular rights, rather than a principled account of how these particular rights are grounded in a more general right of privacy. Post, at 951. This constricted view is reinforced by The Chief Justice’s exclusive reliance on tradition as a source of fundamental rights. He argues that the record in favor of a right to abortion is no stronger than the record in Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U. S. 110 (1989), where the plurality found no fundamental right to visitation privileges by an adulterous father, or in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U. S. 186 (1986), where the Court found no fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy, or in a ease involving the “ ‘firing [of] a gun . . . into another person’s body.’” Post, at 951-952. In The Chief Justice’s world, a woman considering whether to terminate a pregnancy is entitled to no more protection than adulterers, murderers, and so-called sexual *941deviates.11 Given The ChieF Justice’s exclusive reliance on tradition, people using contraceptives seem the next likely candidate for his list of outcasts.

Even more shocking than The Chief Justice’s cramped notion of individual liberty is his complete omission of any discussion of the effects that compelled childbirth and motherhood have on women’s lives. The only expression of concern with women’s health is purely instrumental — for The CHIEF Justice, only women’s 'psychological health is a concern, and only to the extent that he assumes that every woman who decides to have an abortion does so without serious consideration of the moral implications of her decision. Post, at 967-968. In short, The Chief Justice’s view of the State’s compelling interest in maternal health has less to do with health than it does with compelling women to be maternal.

Nor does. The Chief Justice give any serious consideration to the doctrine of stare decisis. For The Chief Justice, the facts, that gave rise to Roe are surprisingly simple: “women become pregnant, there is a point somewhere, depending on medical technology, where a fetus becomes viable, and women give birth to children.” Post, at 965. This characterization of the issue thus allows The Chief Justice quickly to discard the joint opinion’s reliance argument by asserting that “reproductive planning could take virtually immediate account of” a decision overruling Roe. Post, at 956 (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Chief Justice’s narrow conception of individual liberty and stare decisis leads him to propose the same standard of review proposed by the plurality in Webster. “States may regulate abortion procedures in ways rationally related to a legitimate state interest. Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc., 348 U. S. 483, 491 (1955); cf. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651-653 (1972).” Post, at 966. The *942CHIEF Justice then further weakens the test by providing an insurmountable requirement for facial challenges: Petitioners must “‘show that no set of circumstances exists under which the [provision] would be valid.’ ” Post, at 973, quoting Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U. S., at 514. In short, in his view, petitioners must prove that the statute cannot constitutionally be applied to anyone. Finally, in applying his standard to the spousal-notification provision, The Chief Justice contends that the record lacks any “hard evidence” to support the joint opinion’s contention that a “large fraction” of women who prefer not to notify their husbands involve situations of battered women and unreported spousal assault. Post, at 974, n. 2. Yet throughout the explication of his standard, The Chief Justice never explains what hard evidence is, how large a fraction is required, or how a battered woman is supposed to pursue an as-applied challenge.

Under his standard, States can ban abortion if that ban is rationally related to a legitimate state interest — a standard which the United States calls “deferential, but not toothless.” Yet when' pressed at oral argument to describe the teeth, the best protection that the Solicitor General could offer to women was that a prohibition, enforced by criminal penalties, with no exception for the life of the mother, “could raise very serious questions.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 48. Perhaps, the Solicitor General offered, the failure to include an exemption for the life of the mother would be “arbitrary and capricious.” Id., at 49. If, as The Chief Justice contends, the undue burden test is made out of whole cloth, the so-called “arbitrary and capricious” limit is the Solicitor General’s “new clothes.”

Even if it is somehow “irrational” for a State to require a woman to risk her life for her child, what protection is offered for women who become pregnant through rape or incest? Is there anything arbitrary or capricious about a *943State’s prohibiting the sins of the father from being visited upon his offspring?12

But, we are reassured, there is always the protection of the democratic process. While there is much to be'praised about our democracy, our country since its founding has recognized that there are certain fundamental liberties that are not to be left to the whims of an election. A woman’s right to reproductive choice is one of those fundamental liberties. Accordingly, that liberty need not seek refuge at the ballot box.

IV

In one sense, the Court’s approach is worlds apart from that of The Chief Justice and Justíce Scalia. And yet, in another sense, the distance between the two approaches is short — the distance is but a single vote.

I am 83 years old. I cannot remain on this Court forever, and when I do step down, the confirmation process for my successor well may focus on the issue before us today. That, I regret, may be exactly where the choice between the two worlds will be made.

*944ChieF Justice Rehnquist,

with whom Justice White, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas join,

concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.

The joint opinion, following its newly minted variation on stare decisis, retains the outer shell of Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), but beats a wholesale retreat from the substance of that case. We believe that Roe was wrongly decided, and that it can and should be overruled consistently with our traditional approach to stare decisis in constitutional cases. We would adopt the approach of the plurality in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S. 490 (1989), and uphold the challenged provisions of the Pennsylvania statute in their entirety.

I

In ruling on this litigation below, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit first observed that “this appeal does not directly implicate Roe; this case involves the regulation of abortions rather than their outright prohibition.” 947 F. 2d 682, 687 (1991). Accordingly, the court directed its attention to the question of the standard of review for abortion regulations. In attempting to settle on the correct standard, however, the court confronted the confused state of this Court’s abortion jurisprudence. After considering the several opinions in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, supra, and Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U. S. 417 (1990), the Court of Appeals concluded that Justice O’Connor’s “undue burden” test was controlling, as that was the narrowest ground on which we had upheld recent abortion regulations. 947 F. 2d, at 693-697 (“When a fragmented court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds” (quoting Marks v. United States, 430 U. S. 188, 193 (1977) (internal quotation marks omitted))). Applying this standard, the Court of Appeals upheld all of the challenged regulations except the one *945requiring a woman to notify her spouse of an intended abortion.

In arguing that this Court should invalidate each of the provisions at issue, petitioners insist that we reaffirm our decision in Roe v. Wade, supra, in which we held unconstitutional a Texas statute making it a crime to procure an abortion except to save the life of the mother.1 We agree with the Court of Appeals that our decision in Roe is not directly implicated by the Pennsylvania statute, which does not prohibit, but simply regulates, abortion. But, as the Court of Appeals found, the state of our post-ftoe decisional law dealing with the regulation of abortion is confusing and uncertain, indicating that a reexamination of that line of eases is in order. Unfortunately for those who must apply this Court’s decisions, the reexamination undertaken today leaves the Court no less divided than beforehand. Although they reject the trimester framework that formed the underpinning of Roe, Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter adopt a revised undue burden standard to analyze the challenged regulations. We conclude, however, that such an outcome is an unjustified constitutional compromise, one which leaves the Court in a position to closely scrutinize all types of abortion regulations despite the fact that it lacks the power to do so under the Constitution.

In Roe, the Court opined that the State “does have an important and legitimate interest in preserving and protecting the health of the pregnant woman, . . . and that it has still another important and legitimate interest in protecting *946the potentiality of human life.” 410 U. S., at 162 (emphasis omitted). In the companion case of Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973), the Court referred to its conclusion in Roe “that a pregnant woman does not have an absolute constitutional right to an abortion on her demand.” 410 U. S., at 189. But while the language and holdings of these cases appeared to leave States free to regulate abortion procedures in a variety of ways, later decisions based on them have found considerably less latitude for such regulations than might have been expected.

For example, after Roe, many States have sought to protect their young citizens by requiring that a minor seeking an abortion involve her parents in the decision. Some States have simply required notification of the parents, while others have required a minor to obtain the consent of her parents. In a number of decisions, however, the Court has substantially limited the States in their ability to impose such requirements. With regard to parental notice requirements, we initially held that a State could require a minor to notify her parents before proceeding with an abortion. H. L. v. Matheson, 460 U. S. 398, 407-410 (1981). Recently, however, we indicated that a State’s ability to impose a notice requirement actually depends on whether it requires notice of one or both parents. We concluded that although the Constitution might allow a State to demand that notice be given to one parent prior to an abortion, it may not require that similar notice be given to two parents, unless the State incorporates a judicial bypass procedure in that two-parent requirement. Hodgson v. Minnesota, supra.

We have treated parental consent provisions even more harshly. Three years after Roe, we invalidated a Missouri regulation requiring that an unmarried woman under the age of 18 obtain the consent of one of her parents before proceeding with an abortion. We held that our abortion jurisprudence prohibited the State from imposing such a “blanket provision ... requiring the consent of a parent.” Planned Parenthood *947of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 74 (1976). In Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U. S. 622 (1979), the Court struck down a similar Massachusetts parental consent statute. A majority of the Court indicated, however, that a State could constitutionally require parental consent, if it alternatively allowed a pregnant minor to obtain an abortion without parental consent by showing either that she was mature enough to make her own decision, or that the abortion would be in her best interests. See id., at 643-644 (plurality opinion); id., at 656-657 (White, J., dissenting). In light of Bellotti, we have upheld one parental consent regulation which incorporated a judicial bypass option we viewed as sufficient, see Planned Parenthood Assn. of Kansas City, Mo., Inc. v. Ashcroft, 462 U. S. 476 (1983), but have invalidated another because of our belief that the judicial procedure did not satisfy the dictates of Bellotti, see Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U. S. 416, 439-442 (1983). We have never had occasion, as we have in the parental notice context, to further parse our parental consent jurisprudence into one-parent and two-parent components.

In Roe, the Court observed that certain States recognized the right of the father to participate in the abortion decision in certain circumstances. Because neither Roe nor Doe involved the assertion of any paternal right, the Court expressly stated that the case did not disturb the validity of regulations that protected such a right. Roe v. Wade, supra, at 165, n. 67. But three years later, in Danforth, the Court extended its abortion jurisprudence and held that a State could not require that.a woman obtain the consent of her spouse before proceeding with an abortion. Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 69-71.

States have also regularly tried to ensure that a woman’s decision to have an abortion is an informed and well-considered one. In Danforth, we upheld a requirement that a woman sign a consent form prior to her abortion, and observed that “it is desirable and imperative that [the decision] *948be made with full knowledge of its nature and consequences.” Id., at 67. Since that case, however, we have twice invalidated state statutes designed to impart such knowledge to a woman seeking an abortion. In Akron, we held unconstitutional a regulation requiring a physician to inform a woman seeking an abortion of the status of her pregnancy, the development of her fetus, the date of possible viability, the complications that could result from an abortion, and the availability of agencies providing assistance and information with respect to adoption and childbirth. Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, supra, at 442-445. More recently, in Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747 (1986), we struck down a more limited Pennsylvania regulation requiring that a woman be informed of the risks associated with the abortion procedure and the assistance available to her if she decided to proceed with her pregnancy, because we saw the compelled information as “the antithesis of informed consent.” Id., at 764. Even when a State has sought only to provide information that, in our view, was consistent with the Roe framework, we concluded that the State could not require that a physician furnish the information, but instead had to alternatively allow nonphysician counselors to provide it. Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 462 U. S., at 448-449. In Akron as well, we went further and held that a State may not require a physician to wait 24 hours to perform an abortion after receiving the consent of a woman. Although the State sought to ensure that the' woman’s decision was carefully considered, the Court concluded that the Constitution forbade the State to impose any sort of delay. Id., at 449-451.

We have not allowed States much leeway to regulate even the actual abortion procedure. Although a State can require that second-trimester abortions be performed in outpatient clinics, see Simopoulos v. Virginia, 462 U. S. 506 (1983), we concluded in Akron and Ashcroft that a State could not *949require that such abortions be performed only in hospitals. See Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, supra, at 437-439; Planned Parenthood Assn. of Kansas City, Mo., Inc. v. Ashcroft, supra, at 481-482. Despite the fact that Roe expressly allowed regulation after the first trimester in furtherance of maternal health, “‘present medical knowledge,’” in our view, could not justify such a hospitalization requirement under the trimester framework. Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, supra, at 437 (quoting Roe v. Wade, supra, at 163). And in Danforth, the Court held that Missouri could not outlaw the saline amniocentesis method of abortion, concluding that the Missouri Legislature had “failed to appreciate and to consider several significant facts” in making its decision. 428 U. S., at 77.

Although Roe allowed state regulation after the point of viability to protect the potential life of the fetus, the Court subsequently rejected attempts to regulate in this manner. In Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U. S. 379 (1979), the Court struck down a statute that governed the determination of viability. Id., at 390-397. In the process, we made clear that the trimester framework incorporated only one definition of viability — ours—as we forbade States to decide that a certain objective indicator — “be it weeks of gestation or fetal weight or any other single factor” — should govern the definition of viability. Id., at 389. In that same case, we also invalidated a regulation requiring a physician to use the abortion technique offering the best chance for fetal survival when performing postviability abortions. See id., at 397-401; see also Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 768-769 (invalidating a similar regulation). In Thornburgh, the Court struck down Pennsylvania’s requirement that a second physician be present at postviability abortions to help preserve the health of the unborn child, on the ground that it did not incorporate a sufficient medical emergency exception. Id., at 769-771. Regulations governing the treatment of aborted fetuses have *950met a similar fate. In Akron, we invalidated a provision requiring physicians performing abortions to “insure that the remains of the unborn child are disposed of in a humane and sanitary manner.” 462 U. S., at 451 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Dissents in these cases expressed the view that the Court was expanding upon Roe in imposing ever greater restrictions on the States. See Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 783 (Burger, C. J., dissenting) (“The extent to which the Court has departed from the limitations expressed in Roe is readily apparent”); id., at 814 (White, J., dissenting) (“[T]he majority indiscriminately strikes down statutory provisions that in no way contravene the right recognized in Roe”). And, when confronted with state regulations of this type in past years, the Court has become increasingly more divided: The three most recent abortion cases have not commanded a Court opinion. See Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U. S. 502 (1990); Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U. S. 417 (1990); Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S. 490 (1989).

The task of the Court of Appeals in the present eases was obviously complicated by this confusion and uncertainty. Following Marks v. United States, 480 U. S. 188 (1977), • it concluded that in light of Webster and Hodgson, the strict scrutiny standard enunciated in Roe was no longer applicable, and that the “undue burden” standard adopted by Justice O’Connor was the governing principle. This state of confusion and disagreement warrants reexamination of the “fundamental right” accorded to a woman’s decision to abort a fetus in Roe, with its concomitant requirement that any state regulation of abortion survive “strict scrutiny.” See Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 827-828 (1991) (observing that reexamination of constitutional decisions is appropriate when those decisions have generated uncertainty and failed to provide clear guidance, because “correction through legis*951lative action is practically impossible” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 546-547, 557 (1985).

We have held that a liberty interest protected under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment will be deemed fundamental if it is “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 325 (1937). Three years earlier, in Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97 (1934), we referred to a “principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.” Id., at 105; see also Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U. S. 110, 122 (1989) (plurality opinion) (citing the language from Snyder). These expressions are admittedly not precise, but our decisions implementing this notion of “fonda-mental” rights do not afford any more elaborate basis on which to base such a classification.

In construing the phrase “liberty” incorporated in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, we have recognized that its meaning extends beyond freedom from physical restraint. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510 (1925), we held that it included a parent’s right to send a child to private school; in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 (1923), we held that it included a right to teach a foreign language in a parochial school. Building on these cases, we have held that the term “liberty” includes a right to marry, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967); a right to procreate, Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535 (1942); and a right to use contraceptives, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438 (1972). But a reading of these opinions makes clear that they do not endorse any all-encompassing “right of privacy.”

In Roe v. Wade, the Court recognized a “guarantee of personal privacy” which “is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” 410 U S., at 152-153. We are now of the view that, in terming this right fundamental, the Court in Roe read the earlier *952opinions upon which it based its decision much too broadly. Unlike marriage, procreation, and contraception, abortion “involves the purposeful termination of a potential life.” Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297, 325 (1980). The abortion decision must therefore “be recognized as sui generis, different in kind from the others that the Court has protected under the rubric of personal or family privacy and autonomy.” Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, supra, at 792 (White, J., dissenting). One cannot ignore the fact that a woman is not isolated in her pregnancy, and that the decision to abort necessarily involves the destruction of a fetus. See Michael H. v. Gerald D., supra, at 124, n. 4 (To look “at the act which is assertedly the subject of a liberty interest in isolation from its effect upon other people [is] like inquiring whether there is a liberty interest in firing a gun where the case at hand happens to involve its discharge into another person’s body”).

Nor do the historical traditions of the American people support the view that the right to terminate one’s pregnancy is “fundamental.” The common - law which we inherited from England made abortion after “quickening” an offense. At the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, statutory prohibitions or restrictions on abortion were commonplace; in 1868, at least 28 of the then-87 States and 8 Territories had statutes banning or limiting abortion. J. Mohr, Abortion in America 200 (1978). By the turn of the century virtually every State had a law prohibiting or restricting abortion on its books. By the middle of the present century, a liberalization trend had set in. But 21 of the restrictive abortion laws in effect in 1868 were still in effect in 1973 when Roe was decided, and an overwhelming majority of the States prohibited abortion unless necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother. Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S., at 139-140; id., at 176-177, n. 2 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). On this record, it can scarcely be said that any deeply rooted tradition of relatively unrestricted abortion in our his*953tory supported the classification of the right to abortion as “fundamental” under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

We think, therefore, both in view of this history and of our decided cases dealing with substantive liberty under the Due Process Clause, that the Court was mistaken in Roe when it classified a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy as a “fundamental right” that could be abridged only in a manner which withstood “strict scrutiny.” In so concluding, we repeat the observation made in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U. S. 186 (1986):

“Nor are we inclined to take a more expansive view of our authority to discover new fundamental rights imbedded in the Due Process Clause. The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little ■ or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution.” Id., at 194.

We believe that the sort of constitutionally imposed abortion code of the type illustrated by our decisions following Roe is inconsistent “with the notion of a Constitution cast in general terms, as ours is, and usually speaking in general principles, as ours does.” Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S., at 518 (plurality opinion). The Court in Roe reached too far when it analogized the right to abort a fetus to the rights involved in Pierce, Meyer, Loving, and Griswold, and thereby deemed the right to abortion fundamental.

II

The joint opinion of Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter cannot bring itself to say that Roe was correct as an original matter, but the authors are of the view that “the immediate question is not the soundness of Roe’s resolution of the issue, but the precedential force that must be aceorded to its holding.” Ante, at 871. Instead of claiming that Roe *954was correct as a matter of original constitutional interpretation, the opinion therefore contains an elaborate discussion of stare decisis. This discussion of the principle of stare decisis appears to be almost entirely dicta, because the joint opinion does not apply that principle in dealing with Roe. Roe decided that a woman had a fundamental right to an abortion. The joint opinion rejects that view. Roe decided that abortion regulations were to be subjected to “strict scrutiny” and could be justified only in the light of “compelling state interests.” The joint opinion rejects that view. Ante, at 872-873; see Roe v. Wade, supra, at 162-164. Roe analyzed abortion regulation under a rigid trimester framework, a framework which has guided this Court’s decisionmaking for 19 years. The joint opinion rejects that framework. Ante, at 873.

Stare decisis is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary as meaning “to abide by, or adhere to, decided cases.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1406 (6th ed. 1990). Whatever the “central holding” of Roe that is left after the joint opinion finishes dissecting it is surely not the result of that principle. While purporting to adhere to precedent, the joint opinion instead revises it. Roe continues to exist, but only in the way a storefront on a western movie set exists: a mere facade to give the illusion of reality. Decisions following Roe, such as Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U. S. 416 (1983), and Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747 (1986), are frankly overruled in part under the “undue burden” standard expounded in the joint opinion. Ante, at 881-884.

In our view, authentic principles of stare decisis do not require that any portion of the reasoning in Roe be kept intact. “Stare decisis is not... a universal, inexorable command,” especially in eases involving the interpretation of the Federal Constitution. Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U. S. 393, 405 (1932) (Brandéis, J., dissenting). Erroneous decisions in such constitutional cases are uniquely durable, because correction through legislative action, save for *955constitutional amendment, is impossible. It is therefore our duty to reconsider constitutional interpretations that “depart] from a proper understanding” of the Constitution. Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S., at 557; see United States v. Scott, 437 U. S. 82, 101 (1978) (“ ‘[I]n cases involving the Federal Constitution, . . . [t]he Court bows to the lessons of experience and the force of better reasoning, recognizing that the process of trial and error, so fruitful in the physical sciences, is appropriate also in the judicial function’” (quoting Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., supra, at 406-408 (Brandeis, J., dissenting))); Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, 665 (1944). Our constitutional watch does not cease merely because we have spoken before on an issue; when it becomes clear that a prior constitutional interpretation is unsound we are obliged to reexamine the question. See, e. g., West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 642 (1943); Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64, 74-78 (1938).

The joint opinion discusses several stare decisis factors which, it asserts, point toward retaining a portion of Roe. Two of these factors are that the main “factual underpinning” of Roe has remained the same, and that its doctrinal foundation is no weaker now than it was in 1973. Ante, at 857-860. Of course, what might be called the basic facts which gave rise to Roe have remained the same — women become pregnant, there is a point somewhere, depending on medical technology, where a fetus becomes viable, and women give birth to children. But this is only to say that the same facts which gave rise to Roe will continue to give rise to similar cases. It is not a reason, in and of itself, why those cases must be decided in the same incorrect manner as was the first case to deal with the question. And surely there is no requirement, in considering whether to depart from stare decisis in a constitutional case, that a decision be more wrong now than it was at the time it was rendered. If that were true, the most outlandish constitutional decision could sur*956vive forever, based simply on the fact that it was no more outlandish later than it was when originally rendered.

Nor does the joint opinion faithfully follow this alleged requirement. The opinion frankly concludes that Roe and its progeny were wrong in failing to recognize that the State’s interests in maternal health and in the protection of unborn human life exist throughout pregnancy. Ante, at 871-873. But there is no indication that these components of Roe are any more incorrect at this juncture than they were at its inception.

The joint opinion also points to the reliance interests involved in this context in its effort to explain why precedent must be followed for precedent’s sake. Certainly it is true that where reliance is truly at issue, as in the case of judicial decisions that have formed the basis for private decisions, “[Considerations in favor of stare decisis are at their acme.” Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S., at 828. But, as the joint opinion apparently agrees, ante, at 855-856, any traditional notion of reliance is not applicable here. The Court today cuts back on the protection afforded by Roe, and no one claims that this action defeats any reliance interest in the disavowed trimester framework. Similarly, reliance interests would not be diminished were the Court to go further and acknowledge the full error of Roe, as “reproductive planning could take virtually immediate account. of” this action. Ante, at 856.

The joint opinion thus turns to what can only be described as an unconventional — and unconvincing — notion of reliance, a view based on the surmise that the availability of abortion since Roe has led to “two deeades of economic and social developments” that would be undercut if the error of Roe were recognized. Ante, at 856. The joint opinion’s assertion of this fact is undeveloped and totally conclusory. In fact, one cannot be sure to what economic and social developments the opinion is referring. Surely it is dubious to suggest that women have reached their “places in society” in *957reliance upon Roe, rather than as a result of their determination to obtain higher education and compete with men in the job market, and of society’s increasing recognition of their ability to fill positions that were previously thought to be reserved only for men. Ante, at 856.

In the end, having failed to put forth any evidence to prove any true reliance, the joint opinion’s argument is based solely on generalized assertions about the national psyche, on a belief that the people of this country have grown accustomed to the Roe decision over the last 19 years and have “ordered their thinking and living around” it. Ante, at 856, As an initial matter, one might inquire how the joint opinion can view the “central holding” of Roe as so deeply rooted in our constitutional culture, when it so casually uproots and disposes of that same decision’s trimester framework. Furthermore, at various points in the past, the same could have been said about this Court’s erroneous decisions that the Constitution allowed “separate but equal” treatment of minorities, see Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537 (1896), or that “liberty” under the Due Process Clause protected “freedom of contract,” see Adkins v. Children’s Hospital of District of Columbia, 261 U. S. 525 (1923); Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45 (1905). The “separate but equal” doctrine lasted 58 years after Plessy, and Lochner’s protection of contractual freedom lasted 32 years. However, the simple fact that a generation or more had grown used to these major decisions did not prevent the Court from correcting its errors in those cases, nor should it prevent us from correctly interpreting the Constitution here. See Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954) (rejecting the “separate but equal” doctrine); West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379 (1937) (overruling Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, supra, in upholding Washington’s minimum wage law).

Apparently realizing that conventional stare decisis principles do not support its position, the joint opinion advances a belief that retaining a portion of Roe is necessary to protect *958the “legitimacy” of this Court. Ante, at 861-869. Because the Court must take care to render decisions “grounded truly in principle,” and not simply as political and social compromises, ante, at 865, the joint opinion properly declares it to be this Court’s duty to ignore the public criticism and protest that may arise as a result of a decision. New would quarrel with this statement, although it may be doubted that Members of this Court, holding their tenure as they do during constitutional “good behavior,” are at all likely to be intimidated by such public protests.

But the joint opinion goes on to state that when the Court “resolve[s] the sort of intensely divisive controversy reflected in Roe and those rare, comparable cases,” its decision is exempt from reconsideration under established principles of stare decisis in constitutional eases. Ante, at 866. This is so, the joint opinion contends, because in those “intensely divisive” cases the Court has “eall[ed] the contending sides of a national controversy to end their national division by accepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitution,” and must therefore take special care not to be perceived as “surrendering] to political pressure” and continued opposition. Ante, at 866, 867. This is a truly novel principle, one which is contrary to both the Court’s historical practice and to the Court’s traditional willingness to tolerate criticism of its opinions. Under this principle, when the Court has ruled on a divisive issue, it is apparently prevented from overruling that decision for the sole reason that it was incorrect, unless opposition to the original decision has died away.

The first difficulty with this principle lies in its assumption that cases that are “intensely divisive” can be readily distinguished from those that are not. The question of whether a particular issue is “intensely divisive” enough to qualify for special protection is entirely subjective and dependent on the individual assumptions of the Members of this Court. In addition, because the Court’s duty is to ignore public opinion and criticism on issues that come before it, its Members are *959in perhaps the worst position to judge whether a decision divides the Nation deeply enough to justify such uncommon protection. Although many of the Court’s decisions divide the populace to a large degree, we have not previously on that account shied away from applying normal rules of stare decisis when urged to reconsider earlier decisions. Over the past 21 years, for example, the Court has overruled in whole or in part 34 of its previous constitutional decisions. See Payne v. Tennessee, supra, at 828-830, and n. 1 (listing eases).

The joint opinion picks out and discusses two prior Court rulings that it believes are of the “intensely divisive” variety, and concludes that they are of comparable dimension to Roe. Ante, at 861-864 (discussing Lochner v. New York, supra, and Plessy v. Ferguson, supra). It appears to us very odd indeed that the joint opinion chooses as benchmarks two cases in which the Court chose not to adhere to erroneous constitutional precedent, but instead enhanced its stature by acknowledging and correcting its error, apparently in violation of the joint opinion’s “legitimacy” principle. See West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, supra; Brown v. Board of Education, supra. One might also wonder how it is that the joint opinion puts these, and not others, in the “intensely divisive” category, and how it assumes that these are the only two lines of cases of comparable dimension to Roe. There is no reason to think that either Plessy or Lochner produced the sort of public protest when they were decided that Roe did. There were undoubtedly large segments of the bench and bar who agreed with the dissenting views in those cases, but surely that cannot be what the Court means when it uses the term “intensely divisive,” or many other cases would have to be added to the list. In terms of public protest, however, Roe, so far as we know, was unique. But just as the Court should not respond to that sort of protest by retreating from the decision simply to allay the concerns of the protesters, it should likewise not respond by determining to adhere to the *960decision at all costs lest it seem to be retreating under fire. Public protests should not alter the normal application of stare decisis, lest perfectly lawful protest activity be penalized by the Court itself.

Taking the joint opinion on its own terms, we doubt that its distinction between Roe, on the one hand, and Plessy and Lochner, on the other, withstands analysis. The joint opinion acknowledges that the Court improved its stature by overruling Plessy in Brown on a deeply divisive issue. And our decision in West Coast Hotel, which overruled Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, supra, and Lochner, was rendered at a time when Congress was considering President Franklin Roosevelt’s proposal to “reorganize” this Court and enable him to name six additional Justices in the event that any Member of the Court over the age of 70 did not elect to retire. It is difficult to imagine a situation in which the Court would face more intense opposition to a prior ruling than it did at that time, and, under the general principle proclaimed in the joint opinion, the Court seemingly should have responded to this opposition by stubbornly refusing to reexamine the Lochner rationale, lest it lose legitimacy by appearing to “overrule under fire.” Ante, at 867.

The joint opinion agrees that the Court’s stature would have been seriously damaged if in Brown and West Coast Hotel it had dug in its heels and refused to apply normal principles of stare decisis to the earlier decisions. But the opinion contends that the Court was entitled to overrule Plessy and Lochner in those eases, despite the existence of opposition to the original decisions, only because both the Nation and the Court had learned new lessons in the interim. This is at best a feebly supported, post hoc rationalization for those decisions.

For example, the opinion asserts that the Court could justifiably overrule its decision in Lochner only because the Depression had convinced “most people” that constitutional protection of contractual freedom contributed to an economy *961that failed to protect the welfare of all. Ante, at 861. Surely the joint opinion does not mean to suggest that people saw this Court’s failure to uphold minimum wage statutes as the cause of the Great Depression! In any event, the Loch-ner Court did not base its rule upon the policy judgment that an unregulated market was fundamental to a stable economy; it simple believed, erroneously, that “liberty” under the Due Process Clause protected the “right to make a contract.” Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S., at 53. Nor is it the case that the people of this Nation only discovered the dangers of extreme laissez-faire economies because of the Depression. State laws regulating maximum hours and minimum wages were in existence well before that time. A Utah statute of that sort enacted in 1896 was involved in our decision in Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366 (1898), and other States followed suit shortly afterwards, see, e. g., Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412 (1908); Bunting v. Oregon, 243 U. S. 426 (1917). These statutes were indeed enacted because of a belief on the part of their sponsors that “freedom of contract” did not protect the welfare of workers, demonstrating that that belief manifested itself more than a generation before the Great Depression. Whether “most people” had come to share it in the hard times of the 1930’s is, insofar as anything the joint opinion advances, entirely speculative. The crucial failing at that time was not that workers were not paid a fair wage, but that there was no work available at any wage.

When the Court finally recognized its error in West Coast Hotel, it did not engage in the post hoc rationalization that the joint opinion attributes to it today; it did not state that Lochner had been based on an economic view that had fallen into disfavor, and that it therefore should be overruled. Chief Justice Hughes in his opinion for the Court simply recognized what Justice Holmes had previously recognized in his Lochner dissent, that “[t]he Constitution does not speak of freedom of contract.” West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S., at 391; Lochner v. New York, supra, at 75 (Holmes, *962J., dissenting) (“[A] constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the State or of laissez faire”). Although the Court did acknowledge in the last paragraph of its opinion the state of affairs during the then-current Depression, the theme of the opinion is that the Court had been mistaken as a matter of constitutional law when it embraced “freedom of contract” 32 years previously.

The joint opinion also agrees that the Court acted properly in rejecting the doctrine of “separate but equal” in Brown. In fact, the opinion lauds Brown in comparing it to Roe. Ante, at 867. This is strange, in that under the opinion’s “legitimacy” principle the Court would seemingly have been forced to adhere to its erroneous decision in Plessy because of its “intensely divisive” character. To us, adherence to Roe today under the guise of “legitimacy” would seem to resemble more closely adherence to Plessy on the same ground. Fortunately, the Court did not choose that option in Brown, and instead frankly repudiated Plessy. The joint opinion concludes that such repudiation was justified only because of newly discovered evidence that segregation had the effect of treating one race as inferior to another. But it can hardly be argued that this was not urged upon those who decided Plessy, as Justice Harlan observed in his dissent that the law at issue “puts the brand of servitude and degradation upon a large class of our fellow-citizens, our equals before the law.” Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S., at 562. It is clear that the same arguments made before the Court in Brown were made in Plessy as well. The Court in Brown simply recognized, as Justice Harlan had recognized beforehand, that the Fourteenth Amendment does not permit racial segregation. The rule of Brown is not tied to popular opinion about the evils of segregation; it is a judgment that the Equal Protection Clause does not permit racial segregation, no matter whether the public might come to believe that it is beneficial. On that ground it stands, and on that ground *963alone the Court was justified in properly concluding that the Plessy' Court had erred.

There is also a suggestion in the joint opinion that the propriety of overruling a “divisive” decision depends in part on whether “iftost people” would now agree that it should be overruled. Either the demise of opposition or its progression to substantial popular agreement apparently is required to allow the Court to reconsider a divisive decision. How such agreement would be ascertained, short of a public opinion poll, the joint opinion does not say. But surely even the suggestion is totally at war with the idea of “legitimacy” in whose name it is invoked. The Judicial Branch derives its legitimacy, not from following public opinion, but from deciding by its best lights whether legislative enactments of the popular branches of Government comport with the Constitution. The doctrine of stare decisis is an adjunct of this duty, and should be no more subject to the vagaries of public opinion than is the basic judicial task.

There are other reasons why the joint opinion’s discussion of legitimacy is unconvincing as well. In assuming that the Court is perceived as “surrendering] to political pressure” when it overrules a controversial decision, ante, at 867, the joint opinion forgets that there are two sides to any controversy. The joint opinion asserts that, in order to protect its legitimacy, the Court must refrain from overruling a controversial decision lest it be viewed as favoring those who oppose the decision. But a decision to adhere to prior precedent is subject to the same criticism, for in such a case one can easily argue that the Court is responding to those who have demonstrated in favor of the original decision. The decision in Roe has engendered large demonstrations, including repeated marches on this Court and on Congress, both in opposition to and in support of that opinion. A decision either way on Roe can therefore be perceived as favoring one group or the other. But this perceived dilemma arises only if one assumes, as the joint opinion does, that the Court *964should make its decisions with a view toward speculative public perceptions. If one assumes instead, as the Court surely did in both Brown and West Coast Hotel, that the Court’s legitimacy is enhanced by faithful interpretation of the Constitution irrespective of public opposition, such self-engendered difficulties may be put to one side.

Roe is not this Court’s only decision to generate conflict. Our decisions in some recent capital eases, and in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U. S. 186 (1986), have also engendered demonstrations in opposition. The joint opinion’s message to such protesters appears to be that they must cease their activities in order to serve their cause, because their protests will only cement in place a decision which by normal standards of stare decisis should be reconsidered. Nearly a century ago, Justice David J. Brewer of this Court, in an article discussing criticism of its decisions, observed that “many criticisms may be, like their authors, devoid of good taste, but better all sorts of criticism than no criticism at all.” Justice Brewer on “The Nation’s Anchor,” 57 Albany L. J. 166, 169 (1898). This was good advice to the Court then, as it is today. Strong and often misguided criticism of a decision should not render the decision immune from reconsideration, lest a fetish for legitimacy penalize freedom of expression.

The end result of the joint opinion’s paeans of praise for legitimacy is the enunciation of a brand new standard for evaluating state regulation of a woman’s right to abortion— the “undue burden” standard. As indicated above, Roe v. Wade adopted a “fundamental right” standard under which state regulations could survive only if they met the requirement of “strict scrutiny.” While we disagree with that standard, it at least had a recognized basis in constitutional law at the time Roe was decided. The same cannot be said for the “undue burden” standard, which is created largely out of whole cloth by the authors of the joint opinion. It is a standard which even today does not command the support of a majority of this Gourt. And it will not, we believe, re-*965suit in the sort of “simple limitation,” easily applied, which the joint opinion anticipates. Ante, at 855. In sum, it is a standard which is not built to last.

In evaluating abortion regulations under that standard, judges will have to decide whether they place a “substantial obstacle” in the path of a woman seeking an abortion. • Ante, at 877. In that this standard is based even more on a judge’s subjective determinations than was the trimester framework, the standard will do nothing to prevent “judges from roaming at large in the constitutional field” guided only by their personal views. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S., at 502 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment). Because the undue burden standard is plucked from nowhere, the question of what is a “substantial obstacle” to abortion will undoubtedly engender a variety of conflicting views. For example, in the very matter before us now, the authors of the joint opinion would uphold Pennsylvania’s 24-hour waiting period, concluding that a “particular burden” on some women is not a substantial obstacle. Ante, at 887. But the authors would at the same time strike down Pennsylvania’s spousal notice provision, after finding that in a “large fraction” of cases the provision will be a substantial obstacle. Ante, at 895. And, while the authors conclude that the informed consent provisions do not constitute an “undue burden,” Justice Stevens would hold that they do. Ante, at 920-922.

Furthermore, while striking down the spousal notice regulation, the joint opinion would uphold a parental consent restriction that certainly places very substantial obstacles in the path of a minor’s abortion choice. The joint opinion is forthright in admitting that it draws this distinction based on a policy judgment that parents will have the best interests of their children at heart, while the same is not necessarily true of husbands as to their wives. Ante, at 895. This may or may not be a correct judgment, but it is quintessentially a legislative one. The “undue burden” inquiry does not in any way supply the distinction between parental consent and *966spousal consent which the joint opinion adopts. Despite the efforts of the joint opinion, the undue burden standard presents nothing more workable than the trimester framework which it discards today. Under the guise of the Constitution, this Court will still impart its own preferences on the States in the form of a complex abortion code.

The sum of the joint opinion’s labors in the name of stare decisis and “legitimacy” is this: Roe v. Wade stands as a sort of judicial Potemkin Village, which may be pointed out to passers-by as a monument to the importance of adhering to precedent. But behind the facade, an entirely new method of analysis, without any roots in constitutional law, is imported to decide the constitutionality of state laws regulating abortion. Neither stare decisis nor “legitimacy” are truly served by such an effort.

We have stated above our belief that the Constitution does not subject state abortion regulations to heightened scrutiny. Accordingly, we think that the correct analysis is that set forth by the plurality opinion in Webster. A woman’s interest in having an abortion is a form of liberty protected by the Due Process Clause, but States may regulate abortion procedures in ways rationally related to a legitimate state interest. Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc., 348 U. S. 483, 491 (1955); cf. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 651-653 (1972). With this rule in mind, we examine each of the challenged provisions.

Ill

'A

Section 3205 of the Act imposes certain requirements related to the informed consent of a woman seeking an abortion. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §3205 (1990). Section 3205(a)(1) requires that the referring or performing physician must inform a woman contemplating an abortion of (i) the nature of the procedure and the risks and alternatives that a reasonable patient would find material; (ii) the fetus’ probable ges*967tational age; and (iii) the medical risks involved in carrying her pregnancy to term. Section 3205(a)(2) requires a physician or a nonphysician counselor to inform the woman that (i) the state health department publishes free materials describing the fetus at different stages and listing abortion alternatives; (ii) medical assistance benefits may be available for prenatal, childbirth, and neonatal care; and (iii) the child’s father is liable for child support. The Act also imposes a 24-hour waiting period between the time that the woman receives the required information and the time that the physician is allowed to perform the abortion. See Appendix to opinion of O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ., ante, at 902-904.

This Court has held that it is certainly within the province of the States to require a woman’s voluntary and informed consent to an abortion. See Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 760. Here, Pennsylvania seeks to further its legitimate interest in obtaining informed consent by ensuring that each woman “is aware not only of the reasons for having an abortion, but also of the risks associated with an abortion and the availability of assistance that might make the alternative of normal childbirth more attractive than it might otherwise appear.” Id., at 798-799 (White, J., dissenting).

We conclude that this provision of the statute is rationally related to the State’s interest in assuring that a woman’s consent to an abortion be a fully informed decision.

Section 3205(a)(1) requires a physician to disclose certain information about the abortion procedure and its risks and alternatives. This requirement is certainly no large burden, as the Court of Appeals found that “the record shows that the clinics, without exception, insist on providing this information to women before an abortion is performed.” 947 F. 2d, at 703. We are of the view that this information “elearly is related to maternal health and to the State’s legitimate purpose in requiring informed consent.” Akron v. *968Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U. S., at 446. An accurate description of the gestational age of the fetus and of the risks involved in carrying a child to term helps to further both those interests and the State’s legitimate interest in unborn human life. See id., at 445-446, n. 37 (required disclosure of gestational age of the fetus “certainly is not objectionable”). Although petitioners contend that it is unreasonable for the State to require that a physician, as opposed to a nonphysician counselor, disclose this information, we agree with the Court of Appeals that a State “may rationally decide that physicians are better qualified than counselors to impart this information and answer questions about the medical aspects of the available alternatives.” 947 F. 2d, at 704.

Section 3205(a)(2) compels the disclosure, by a physician or a counselor, of information concerning the availability of paternal child support and state-funded alternatives if the woman decides to proceed with her pregnancy. Here again, the Court of Appeals observed that “the record indicates that most clinics already require that a counselor consult in person with the woman about alternatives to abortion before the abortion is performed.” Id., at 704-705. And petitioners do not claim that the information required to be disclosed by statute is in any way false or inaccurate; indeed, the Court of Appeals found it to be “relevant, accurate, and noninflammatory.” Id., at 705. We conclude that this required presentation of “balanced information” is rationally related to the State’s legitimate interest in ensuring that the woman’s consent is truly informed, Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 830 (O’Connor, J., dissenting), and in addition furthers the State’s interest in preserving unborn life. That the information might create some uncertainty and persuade some women to forgo abortions does not lead to the conclusion that the Constitution forbids the provision of such information. Indeed, it only demonstrates that this information might *969very well make a difference, and that it is therefore relevant to a woman’s informed choice. Cf. id., at 801 (White, J., dissenting) (“[T]he ostensible objective of Roe v. Wade is not maximizing the number of abortions, but maximizing choice”). We acknowledge that in Thornburgh this Court struck down informed consent requirements similar to the ones at issue here. See id., at 760-764. It is clear, however, that while the detailed framework of Roe led to the Court’s invalidation of those informational requirements, they “would have been sustained under any traditional standard of judicial review, ... or for any other surgical procedure except abortion.” Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S., at 517 (plurality opinion) (citing Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 802 (White, J., dissenting); id., at 783 (Burger, C. J., dissenting)). In light of our rejection of Roe’s “fundamental right” approach to this subject, we do not regard Thornburgh as controlling.

For the same reason, we do not feel bound to follow this Court’s previous holding that a State’s 24-hour mandatory waiting period is unconstitutional. See Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., supra, at 449-451. Petitioners are correct that such a provision will result in delays for some women that might not otherwise exist, therefore placing a burden on their liberty. But the provision in no way prohibits abortions, and the informed consent and waiting period requirements do not apply in the ease of a medical emergency. See 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 3205(a), (b) (1990). We are of the view that, in providing time for reflection and reconsideration, the waiting period helps ensure that a woman’s decision to abort is a well-considered one, and reasonably furthers the State’s legitimate interest in maternal health and in the unborn life of the fetus. It “is surely a small cost to impose to ensure that the woman’s decision is well considered in light of its certain and irreparable conse-*970quenees on fetal life, and the possible effects on her own.” 462 U. S., at 474 (O’Connor, J., dissenting).

B

In addition to providing her own informed consent, before an unemaneipated woman under the age of 18 may obtain an abortion she must either furnish the consent of one of her parents, or must opt for the judicial procedure that allows her to bypass the consent requirement. Under the judicial bypass option, a minor can obtain an abortion if a state court finds that she is capable of giving her informed consent and has indeed given such consent, or determines that an abortion is in her best interests. Records of these court proceedings are kept confidential. The Act directs the state trial court to render a decision within three days of the woman’s application, and the entire procedure, including appeal to Pennsylvania Superior Court, is to last no longer than eight business days. The parental consent requirement does not apply in the case of a medical emergency. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §3206 (1990). See Appendix to opinion of O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ., ante, at 904-906.

This provision is entirely consistent with this Court’s previous decisions involving parental consent requirements. See Planned Parenthood Assn. of Kansas City, Mo., Inc. v. Ashcroft, 462 U. S. 476 (1983) (upholding parental consent requirement with a similar judicial bypass option); Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., supra, at 439-440 (approving of parental consent statutes that include a judicial bypass option allowing a pregnant minor to “demonstrate that she is sufficiently mature to make the abortion decision herself or that, despite her immaturity, an abortion would be in her best interests”); Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U. S. 622 (1979).

We think it beyond dispute that a State “has a strong and legitimate interest in the welfare of its young citizens, whose immaturity, inexperience, and lack of judgment may some*971times impair their ability to exercise their rights wisely.” Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U. S., at 444 (opinion of Stevens, J.). A requirement of parental consent to abortion, like myriad other restrictions placed upon minors in other contexts, is reasonably designed to further this important and legitimate state interest. In our view, it is entirely “rational and fair for the State to conclude that, in most instances, the family will strive to give a lonely or even terrified minor advice that is both compassionate and mature.” Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U. S., at 520 (opinion of Kennedy, J.); see also Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 91 (Stewart, J., concurring) (“There can be little doubt that the State furthers a constitutionally permissible end by encouraging an unmarried pregnant minor to seek the help and advice of her parents in making the very important decision whether or not to bear a child”). We thus conclude that Pennsylvania’s parental consent requirement should be upheld.

C

Section 3209 of the Act contains the spousal notification provision. It requires that, before a physician may perform an abortion on a married woman, the woman must sign a statement indicating that she has notified her husband of her planned abortion. A woman is not required to notify her husband if (1) her husband is not the father, (2) her husband, after diligent effort, cannot be located, (3) the pregnancy is the result of a spousal sexual assault that has been reported to the authorities, or (4) the woman has reason to believe that notifying her husband is likely to result in the infliction of bodily injury upon her by him or by another individual. In addition, a woman is exempted from the notification requirement in the case of a medical emergency. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §3209 (1990). See Appendix to opinion of O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ., ante, at 908-909.

*972We first emphasize that Pennsylvania has not imposed a spousal consent requirement of the type the Court struck down in Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 67-72. Missouri’s spousal consent provision was invalidated in that case because of the Court’s view that it unconstitutionally granted to the husband “a veto power exercisable for any reason whatsoever or for no reason at all.” Id., at 71. But the provision here involves a much less intrusive requirement of spousal notification, not consent. Such a law requiring only notice to the husband “does not give any third party the legal right to make the [woman’s] decision for her, or to prevent her from obtaining an abortion should she choose to have one performed.” Hodgson v. Minnesota, supra, at 496 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part); see H. L. v. Matheson, 450 U. S., at 411, n. 17. Danforth thus does not control our analysis. Petitioners contend that it should, however; they argue that the real effect of such a notice requirement is to give the power to husbands to veto a woman’s abortion choice. The District Court indeed found that the notification provision created a risk that some woman who would otherwise have an abortion will be prevented from having one. 947 F. 2d, at 712. For example, petitioners argue, many notified husbands will prevent abortions through physical force, psychological coercion, and other types of threats. But Pennsylvania has incorporated exceptions in the notice provision in an attempt to deal with these problems. For instance, a woman need not notify her husband if the pregnancy is the result of a reported sexual assault, or if she has reason to believe that she would suffer bodily injury as a result of the notification. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3209(b) (1990). Furthermore, because this is a facial challenge to the Act, it is insufficient for petitioners to show that the notification provision “might operate unconstitutionally under some conceivable set of circumstances.” United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 745 (1987). Thus, it is not enough for petition*973ers to show that, in some “worst ease” circumstances, the notice provision will operate as a grant of veto power to husbands. Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U. S., at 514. Because they are making a facial challenge to the provision, they must “show that no set of circumstances exists under which the [provision] would be valid.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). This they have failed to do.2

*974The question before us is therefore whether the spousal notification requirement rationally furthers any legitimate state interests. We conclude that it does. First, a husband’s interests in procreation within marriage and in the potential life of his unborn child are certainly substantial ones. See Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 69 (“We are not unaware of the deep and proper concern and interest that a devoted and protective husband has in his wife’s pregnancy and in the growth and development of the fetus she is carrying”); id., at 93 (White, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S., at 541. The State itself has legitimate interests both in protecting these interests of the father and in protecting the potential life of the fetus, and the spousal notification requirement is reasonably related to advancing those state interests. By providing that a husband will usually know of his spouse’s intent to have an abortion, the provision makes it more likely that the husband will participate in deciding the fate of his unborn child, a possibility that might otherwise have been denied him. This participation might in some cases result in a decision to proceed with the pregnancy. As Judge Alito observed in his dissent below, “[t]he Pennsylvania legislature eould have rationally believed that some married women are initially inclined to obtain an abortion without their husbands’ knowledge because of perceived problems — such as economic constraints, future plans, or the husbands’ previously expressed *975opposition — that may be obviated by discussion prior to the abortion.” 947 F. 2d, at 726 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part).

The State also has a legitimate interest in promoting “the integrity of the marital relationship.” 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3209(a) (1990). This Court has previously recognized “the importance of the marital relationship in our society.” Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, supra, at 69. In our view, the spousal notice requirement is a rational attempt by the State to improve truthful communication between spouses and encourage collaborative decisionmaking, and thereby fosters marital integrity. See Labine v. Vincent, 401 U. S. 532, 538 (1971) (“[T]he power to make rules to establish, protect, and strengthen family life” is committed to the state legislatures). Petitioners argue that the notification requirement does not further any such interest; they assert that the majority of wives already notify their husbands of their abortion decisions, and the remainder have excellent reasons for keeping their decisions a secret. In the first ease, they argue, the law is unnecessary, and in the second ease it will only serve to foster marital discord and threats of harm. Thus, petitioners see the law as a totally irrational means of furthering whatever legitimate interest the State might have. But, in our view, it is unrealistic to assume that every husband-wife relationship is either (1) so perfect that this type of truthful and important communication will take place as a matter of course, or (2) so imperfect that, upon notice, the husband will react selfishly, violently, or contrary to the best interests of his wife. See Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, supra, at 103-104 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (making a similar point in the context of a parental consent statute). The spousal notice provision will admittedly be unnecessary in some circumstances, and possibly harmful in others, but “the existence of particular cases in which a feature of a statute performs no function (or is even counterpro-*976duetive) ordinarily does not render the statute unconstitutional or even constitutionally suspect.” Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 800 (White, J., dissenting). The Pennsylvania Legislature was in a position to weigh the likely benefits of the provision against its likely adverse effects, and presumably concluded, on balance, that the provision would be beneficial. Whether this was a wise decision or not, we cannot say that it was irrational. We therefore conclude that the spousal notice provision comports with the Constitution. See Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S., at 325-326 (“It is not the mission of this Court or any other to decide whether the balance of competing interests ... is wise social policy”).

D

The Act also imposes various reporting requirements. Section 3214(a) requires that abortion facilities file a report on each abortion performed. The reports do not include the identity of the women on whom abortions are performed, but they do contain a variety of information about the abortions. For example, each report must include the identities of the performing and referring physicians, the gestational age of the fetus at the time of abortion, and the basis for any medical judgment that a medical emergency existed. See 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 3214(a)(1), (5), (10) (1990). See Appendix to opinion of O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ., ante, at 909-911. The District Court found that these reports are kept completely confidential. 947 F. 2d, at 716. We further conclude that these reporting requirements rationally farther the State’s legitimate interests in advancing the state of medical knowledge concerning maternal health and prenatal life, in gathering statistical information with respect to patients, and in ensuring compliance with other provisions of the Act.

Section 3207 of the Act requires each abortion facility to file a report with its name and address, as well as the names *977and addresses of any parent, subsidiary, or affiliated organizations. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3207(b) (1990). Section 3214(f) further requires each facility to file quarterly reports stating the total number of abortions performed, broken down by trimester. Both of these reports are available to the public only if the facility received state funds within the preceding 12 months. See Appendix to opinion of O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ., ante, at 906,911. Petitioners do not challenge the requirement that facilities provide this information. They contend, however, that the forced public disclosure of the information given by facilities receiving public funds serves no legitimate state interest. We disagree. Records relating to the expenditure of public funds are generally available to the public under Pennsylvania law. See Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 65, §§66.1, 66.2 (Purdon 1959 and Supp. 1991-1992). As the Court of Appeals observed, “[w]hen a state provides money to a private commercial enterprise, there is a legitimate public interest in informing taxpayers who the funds are benefiting and what services the funds are supporting.” 947 F. 2d, at 718. These reporting requirements rationally further this legitimate state interest.

E

Finally, petitioners challenge the medical emergency exception provided for by the Act. The existence of a medical emergency exempts compliance with the Act’s informed consent, parental consent, and spousal notice requirements. See 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 3205(a), 3206(a), 3209(c) (1990). The Act defines a "medical emergency” as

“[t]hat condition which, on the basis of the physician’s good faith clinical judgment, so complicates the medical condition of a pregnant woman as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial *978and irreversible impairment of major bodily function.” §3203.

Petitioners argued before the District Court that the statutory definition was inadequate because it did not cover three serious conditions that pregnant women can suffer— preeelampsia, inevitable abortion, and prematurely ruptured membrane. The District Court agreed with petitioners that the medical emergency exception was inadequate, but the Court of Appeals reversed this holding. In construing the medical emergency provision, the Court of Appeals first observed that all three conditions do indeed present the risk of serious injury .or death when an abortion is not performed, and noted that the medical profession’s uniformly prescribed treatment for each of the three conditions is an immediate abortion. See 947 F. 2d, at 700-701. Finding that “[t]he Pennsylvania legislature did not choose the wording of its medical emergency exception in a vacuum,” the court read the exception as intended “to assure that compliance with its abortion regulations would not in any way pose a significant threat to the life or health of a woman.” Id., at 701. It thus concluded that the exception encompassed each of the three dangerous conditions pointed to by petitioners.

We observe that Pennsylvania’s present definition of medical emergency is almost an exact copy of that State’s definition at the time of this Court’s ruling in Thornburgh, one which the Court made reference to with apparent approval. 476 U. S., at 771 (“It is clear that the Pennsylvania Legislature knows how to provide a medieal-emergency exception when it chooses to do so”).3 We find that the interpretation *979of the Court of Appeals in these eases is eminently reasonable, and that the provision thus should be upheld. When a woman is faced with any condition that poses a “significant threat to [her] life or health,” she is exempted from the Act’s consent and notice requirements and may proceed immediately with her abortion.

IV

For the reasons stated, we therefore would hold that each of the challenged provisions of the Pennsylvania statute is consistent with the Constitution. It bears emphasis that our conclusion in this regard does not carry with it any necessary approval of these regulations. Our task is, as always, to decide only whether the challenged provisions of a law comport with the United States Constitution. If, as we believe, these do, their wisdom as a matter of public policy is for the people of Pennsylvania to decide.

Justice Scalia,

with whom The ChieF Justice, Justice White, and Justice Thomas join,

concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.

My views on this matter are unchanged from those I set forth in my separate opinions in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S. 490, 532 (1989) (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment), and Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U. S. 502, 520 (1990) (Akron II) (concurring opinion). The States may, if they wish, permit abortion on demand, but the Constitution does not require them to do so. The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting. As the Court acknowledges, “where reasonable people disagree the government can adopt one position or the other.”. Ante, at 851. The Court is correct in adding the qualification that this “assumes a state of affairs in which the choice does not intrude upon a protected liberty,” ibid. — but the crucial part of that quali*980fication is the penultimate word. A State’s choice between two positions on which reasonable people can disagree is constitutional even when (as is often the ease) it intrudes upon a “liberty” in the absolute sense. Laws against bigamy, for example — with which entire societies of reasonable people disagree — intrude upon men and women’s liberty to marry and live with one another. But bigamy happens not to be a liberty specially “protected” by the Constitution.

That is, quite simply, the issue in these eases: not whether the power of a woman to abort her unborn child is a “liberty” in the absolute sense; or even whether it is a liberty of great importance to many women. Of course it is both. The issue is whether it is a liberty protected by the Constitution of the United States. I am sure it is not. I reach that conclusion not because of anything so exalted as my views concerning the “concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Ibid. Rather, I reach it for the same reason I reach the conclusion that bigamy is not constitutionally protected — because of two simple facts: (1) the Constitution says absolutely nothing about it, and (2) the longstanding traditions of American society have permitted it to be legally proscribed.1 Akron II, supra, at 520 (Scalia, J., concurring).

*981The Court destroys the proposition, evidently meant to represent my position, that “liberty” includes “only those practices, defined at the most specific level, that were protected against government interference by other rules of law when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified,” ante, at 847 (citing Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U. S. 110, 127, n. 6 (1989) (opinion of Scalia, J.)). That is not, however, what Michael H. says; it merely observes that, in defining “liberty,” we may not disregard a specific, “relevant tradition protecting, or denying protection to, the asserted right,” ibid. But the Court does not wish to be fettered by any such limitations on its preferences. The Court’s statement that it is “tempting” to acknowledge the authoritativeness of tradition in order to “cur[b] the discretion of federal judges,” ante, at 847, is of course rhetoric rather than reality; no government official is “tempted” to place restraints upon his own freedom of action, which is why Lord Acton did not say “Power tends to purify.” The Court’s temptation is in the quite opposite and more natural direction — towards systematically eliminating checks upon its own power; and it succumbs.

Beyond that brief summary of the essence of my position, I will not swell the United States Reports with repetition of what I have said before; and applying the rational basis test, I would uphold the Pennsylvania statute in its entirety. I must, however, respond to a few of the more outrageous arguments in today’s opinion, which it is beyond human nature to leave unanswered. I shall discuss each of them under a quotation from the Court’s opinion to which they pertain.

“The inescapable fact is that adjudication of substantive due process claims may call upon the Court *982in interpreting the Constitution to exercise that same capacity which by tradition courts always have exercised: reasoned judgment.” Ante, at 849.

Assuming that the question before us is to be resolved at such a level of philosophical abstraction, in such isolation from the traditions of American society, as by simply applying “reasoned judgment,” I do not see how that could possibly have produced the answer the Court arrived at in Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973). Today’s opinion describes the methodology of Roe, quite accurately, as weighing against the woman’s interest the State’s “ 'important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life.’” Ante, at 871 (quoting Roe, supra, at 162). But “reasoned judgment” does not begin by begging the question, as Roe and subsequent eases unquestionably did by assuming that what the State is protecting is the mere “potentiality of human life.” See, e. g., Roe, supra, at 162; Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 61 (1976); Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U. S. 379, 386 (1979); Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U. S. 416, 428 (1983) (Akron I); Planned Parenthood Assn. of Kansas City, Mo., Inc. v. Ashcroft, 462 U. S. 476, 482 (1983). The whole argument of abortion opponents is that what the Court calls the fetus and what others call the unborn child is a human life. Thus, whatever answer Roe came up with after conducting its “balancing” is bound to be wrong, unless it is correct that the human fetus is in some critical sense merely potentially human. There is of course no way to determine that as a legal matter; it is in fact a value judgment. Some societies have considered newborn children not yet human, or the incompetent elderly no longer so.

The authors of the joint opinion, of course, do not squarely contend that Roe, v. Wade was a correct application of “reasoned judgment”; merely that it must be followed, because of stare decisis. Ante, at 853, 861, 871. But in their exhaustive discussion of all the factors that go into the determi*983nation 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 eases upholding abortion rights in this Court, and after dozens upon dozens of amicus briefs submitted in these and other eases, 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 choie[ej,” ante, at 851; it is “central to personal dignity and autonomy,” ibid.; it “originate^] 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 858; 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 *984obvious to anyone applying “reasoned judgment” that the same adjectives can be applied to many forms of conduct that this Court (including one of the Justices in today’s majority, see Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U. S. 186 (1986)) has held are not entitled to constitutional protection — because, like abortion, they are forms of conduct that have long been criminalized in American society. Those adjectives might be applied, for example, to homosexual sodomy, polygamy, adult incest, and suicide, all of which are equally “intimate” and “deep[ly] personal” decisions involving “personal autonomy and bodily integrity,” and all of which can constitutionally be proscribed because it is our unquestionable constitutional tradition that they are proseribable. It is not reasoned judgment that supports the Court’s decision; only personal predilection. Justice Curtis’s warning is as timely today as it was 135 years ago:

“[W]hen a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought to mean.” Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 621 (1857) (dissenting opinion).

“Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt.” Ante, at 844.

One might have feared to encounter this august and sonorous phrase in an opinion defending the real Roe v. Wade, rather than the revised version fabricated today by the au*985thors of the joint opinion. The shortcomings of Roe did not include lack of clarity: Virtually all regulation of abortion before the third trimester was invalid. But to come across this phrase in the joint opinion — which calls upon federal district judges to apply an “undue burden” standard as doubtful in application as it is unprincipled in origin — is really more than one should have to bear.

The joint opinion frankly concedes that the amorphous concept of “undue burden” has been inconsistently applied by the Members of this Court in the few brief years since that “test” was first explicitly propounded by Justice O’Connor in her dissent in Akron I, 462 U. S. 416 (1983). See ante, at 876.3 Because the three Justices now wish to “set forth a standard of general application,” the joint opinion announces that “it is important to clarify what is meant by an undue burden.” Ibid. I certainly agree with that, but I do not agree that the joint'opinion succeeds in the announced endeavor. To the contrary, its efforts at clarifica*986tion make elear only that the standard is inherently manipulable and will prove hopelessly unworkable in practice.

The joint opinion explains that a state regulation imposes an “undue burden” if it “has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus.” Ante, at 877; see also ante, at 877-879. An obstacle is “substantial,” we are told, if it is “calculated^] [not] to inform the woman’s free choice, [but to] hinder it.” Ante, at 877.4 This latter statement cannot *987possibly mean what it says. Any regulation of abortion that is intended to advance what the joint opinion concedes is the State’s “substantial” interest in protecting unborn life will be “calculated [to] hinder” a decision to have an abortion. It thus seems more accurate to say that the joint opinion would uphold abortion regulations only if they do not unduly hinder the woman’s decision. That, of course, brings us right back to square one: Defining an “undue burden” as an “undue hindrance” (or a “substantial obstacle”) hardly “clarifies” the test. Consciously or not, the joint opinion’s verbal shell game will conceal raw judicial policy choices concerning what is “appropriate” abortion legislation.

The ultimately standardless nature of the “undue burden” inquiry is a reflection of the underlying fact that the concept has no principled or coherent legal basis. As The ChieF Justice points out, Roe’s strict-scrutiny standard “at least had a recognized basis in constitutional law at the time Roe was decided,” ante, at 964, while “[t]he same cannot be said for the ‘undue burden’ standard, which is created largely out of whole cloth by the authors of the joint opinion,” ibid. The joint opinion is flatly wrong in asserting that “our jurisprudence relating to all liberties save perhaps abortion has recognized” the permissibility of laws that do not impose an “undue burden.” Ante, at 873. It argues that the abortion right is similar to other rights in that a law “not designed to strike at the right itself, [but which] has the incidental effect of making it more difficult or more expensive to [exercise the right,]” is not invalid. Ante, at 874. I agree, indeed I have *988forcefully urged, that a law of general applicability which places only an incidental burden on a fundamental right does not infringe that right, see R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 389-390 (1992); Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872, 878-882 (1990), but that principle does not establish the quite different (and quite dangerous) proposition that a law which directly regulates a fundamental right will not be found to violate the Constitution unless it imposes an “undue burden.” It is that, of course, which is at issue here: Pennsylvania has consciously and directly regulated conduct that our cases have held is constitutionally protected. The appropriate analogy, therefore, is that of a state law requiring purchasers of religious books to endure a 24-hour waiting period, or to pay a nominal additional tax of 10. The joint opinion cannot possibly be correct in suggesting that we would uphold such legislation on the ground that it does not impose a “substantial obstacle” to the exercise of First Amendment rights. The “undue burden” standard is not at all the generally applicable principle the joint opinion pretends it to be; rather, it is a unique concept created specially for these cases, to preserve some judicial foothold in this ill-gotten territory. In claiming otherwise, the three Justices show their willingness to place all constitutional rights at risk in an effort to preserve what they deem the “central holding in Roe.” Ante, at 873.

The rootless nature of the “undue burden”, standard, a phrase plucked out of context from our earlier abortion decisions, see n. 3, supra, is further reflected in the fact that the joint opinion finds it necessary expressly to repudiate the more narrow formulations used in Justice O’Connor’s earlier opinions. Ante, at 876-877. Those opinions stated that a statute imposes an “undue burden” if it imposes “absolute obstacles or severe limitations on the abortion decision,” Akron I, 462 U. S., at 464 (dissenting opinion) (emphasis added); see also Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747, 828 (1986) (dissent*989ing opinion). Those strong adjectives are conspicuously missing from the joint opinion, whose authors have for some unexplained reason now determined that a burden is “undue” if it merely imposes a “substantial” obstacle to abortion decisions. See, e. g., ante, at 895, 901. Justice O’Connor has also abandoned (again without explanation) the view she expressed in Planned Parenthood Assn. of Kansas City, Mo., Inc. v. Ashcroft, 462 U. S. 476 (1983) (dissenting opinion), that a medical regulation which imposes an “undue burden” could nevertheless be upheld if it “reasonably relate[s] to the preservation and protection of maternal health,” id., at 505 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In today’s version, even health measures will be upheld only “if they do not constitute an undue burden,” ante, at 878 (emphasis added). Gone too is Justice O’Connor’s statement that “the State possesses compelling interests in the protection of potential human life . . . throughout pregnancy,” Akron I, supra, at 461 (dissenting opinion) (emphasis added); see also Ashcroft, supra, at 505 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part); Thornburgh, supra, at 828 (O’Con-nor, J., dissenting); instead, the State’s interest in unborn human life is stealthily downgraded to a merely “substantial” or “profound” interest, ante, at 876, 878. (That had to be done, of course, since designating the interest as “compelling” throughout pregnancy would have been, shall we say, a “substantial obstacle” to the joint opinion’s determined effort to reaffirm what it views as the “central holding” of Roe. See Akron I, 462 U. S., at 420, n. 1.) And “viability” is no longer the “arbitrary” dividing line previously decried by Justice O’Connor in Akron I, id., at 461; the Court now announces that “the attainment of viability may continue to serve as the critical fact,” ante, at 860.5 It is difficult to *990maintain the illusion that we are interpreting a Constitution rather than inventing one, when we amend its provisions so breezily.

Because the portion of the joint opinion adopting and describing the undue burden test provides no more useful guidance than the empty phrases discussed above, one must turn to the 23 pages applying that standard to the present facts for further guidance. In evaluating Pennsylvania’s abortion law, the joint opinion relies extensively on the factual findings of the District Court, and repeatedly qualifies its conclusions by noting that they are contingent upon the record developed in these cases. Thus, the joint opinion would uphold the 24-hour waiting period contained in the Pennsylvania statute’s informed consent provision, 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3205 (1990), because “the record evidence shows that in the vast majority of eases, a 24-hour delay does not create any appreciable health risk,” ante, at 885. The three Justices therefore conclude that “on the record before us,. .. we are not convinced that the 24-hour waiting period constitutes an undue burden.” Ante, at 887. The requirement that a doctor provide the information pertinent to informed consent would also be upheld because “there is no evidence on this record that [this requirement] would amount in practical terms to a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking- an abortion.” Ante, at 884. Similarly, the joint opinion would uphold the reporting requirements of the Act, §§3207, 3214, because “there is no . . . showing on the record before us” that these requirements constitute a “substantial obstacle” *991to abortion decisions. Ante, at 901. But at the same time the opinion pointedly observes that these reporting requirements may increase the costs of abortions and that “at some point [that fact] could become a substantial obstacle.” Ibid. Most significantly, the joint opinion’s conclusion that the spousal notice requirement of the Act, see § 3209, imposes an “undue burden” is based in large measure on the District Court’s “detailed findings of fact,” which the joint opinion sets out at great length, ante, at 888-891.

I do not, of course, have any objection to the notion that, in applying legal principles, one should rely only upon the facts that are contained in the record or that are properly subject to judicial notice.6 But what is remarkable about the joint opinion’s fact-intensive analysis is that it does not result in any measurable clarification of the “undue burden” standard. Rather, the approach of the joint opinion is, for the most part, simply to highlight certain facts in the record that apparently strike the three Justices as particularly significant in establishing (or refuting) the existence of an undue burden; after describing these facts, the opinion then simply announces that the provision either does or does not impose a “substantial obstacle” or an “undue burden.” See, e. g., ante, at 880, 884-885, 887, 893-894, 895, 901. We do not know whether the same conclusions could have been reached on a different record, or in what respects the record would have had to differ before an opposite conclusion would have been *992appropriate. The inherently standardless nature of this inquiry invites the district judge to give effect to his personal preferences about abortion. By finding and relying upon the right facts, he can invalidate, it would seem, almost any abortion restriction that strikes him as “undue” — subject, of course, to the possibility of being reversed by a court of appeals or Supreme Court that is as unconstrained in reviewing his decision as he was in making it.

To the extent I can discern any meaningful content in the “undue burden” standard as applied in the joint opinion, it appears' to be that a State may not regulate abortion in such a way as to reduce significantly its incidence. The joint opinion repeatedly emphasizes that an important factor in the “undue burden” analysis is whether the regulation “prevent[s] a significant number of women from obtaining an abortion,” ante, at 893; whether a “significant number of women . . . are likely to be deterred from procuring an abortion,” ante, at 894; and whether the regulation often “deters” women from seeking abortions, ante, at 897. We are not told, however, what forms of “deterrence” are impermissible or what degree of success in deterrence is too much to be tolerated. If, for example, a State required a woman to read a pamphlet describing, with illustrations, the facts of fetal development before she could obtain an abortion, the effect of such legislation might be to “deter” a “significant number of women” from procuring abortions, thereby seemingly allowing a district judge to invalidate it as an undue burden. Thus, despite flowery rhetoric about the State’s “substantial” and “profound” interest in “potential human life,” and criticism of Roe for undervaluing that interest, the joint opinion permits the State to pursue that interest only so long as it is not too successful. As Justice Blackmun recognizes (with evident hope), ante, at 926, the “undue burden” standard may ultimately require the invalidation of each provision upheld today if it can be shown, on a better record, that the State is too effectively “expressing] a pref-*993erenee for childbirth over abortion,” ante, at 883. Reason finds no refuge in this jurisprudence of confusion.

“While we appreciate the weight of the arguments . . . that Roe should be overruled, the reservations any of us may have in reaffirming the central holding of Roe are outweighed by the explication of individual liberty we have given combined with the force of stare decisis.” Ante, at 853.

The Court’s reliance upon stare decisis ean best be described as contrived. It insists upon the necessity of adhering not to all of Roe, but only to what it calls the “central holding.” It seems to me that stare decisis ought to be applied even to the doctrine of stare decisis, and I confess never to have heard of this new, keep-what-you-want-and-throwaway-the-rest version. I wonder whether, as applied to Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803), for example, the new version of stare decisis would be satisfied if we allowed courts to review the constitutionality of only those statutes that (like the one in Marbury) pertain to the jurisdiction of the courts.

I am certainly not in a good position to dispute that the Court has saved the “central holding” of Roe, since to do that effectively I would have to know what the Court has saved, which in turn would require me to understand (as I do not) what the “undue burden” test means. I must confess, however, that I have always thought, and I think a lot of other people have always thought, that the arbitrary trimester framework, which the Court today discards, was quite as central to Roe as the arbitrary viability test, which the Court today retains. It seems particularly ungrateful to carve the trimester framework out of the core of Roe, since its very rigidity (in sharp contrast to the utter indeterminability of the “undue burden” test) is probably the only reason the Court is able to say, in urging stare decisis, that Roe “has in no sense proven ‘unworkable/ ” ante, at 855. I suppose the *994Court is entitled to call a “central holding” whatever it wants to call a “central holding” — which is, come to think of it, perhaps one of the difficulties with this modified version of stare decisis. I thought I might note, however, that the following portions of Roe have not been saved:

• Under Roe, requiring that a woman seeking an abortion be provided truthful information about abortion before giving informed written consent is unconstitutional, if the information is designed to influence her choice. Thornburgh, 476 U. S., at 759-765; Akron I, 462 U. S., at 442-445. Under the joint opinion’s “undue burden” regime (as applied today, at least) such a requirement is constitutional. Ante, at 881-885.

• Under Roe, requiring that information be provided by a doctor, rather than by nonphysieian counselors, is unconstitutional. Akron I, supra, at 446-449. Under the “undue burden” regime (as applied today, at least) it is not. Ante, at 884-885.

• Under Roe, requiring a 24-hour waiting period between the time the woman gives her informed consent and the time of the abortion is unconstitutional. Akron I, supra, at 449-451. Under the “undue burden” regime (as applied today, at least) it is not. Ante, at 885-887.

• Under Roe, requiring detailed reports that include demographic data about each woman who seeks an abortion and various information about each abortion is unconstitutional. Thornburgh, supra, at 765-768. Under the “undue burden” regime (as applied today, at least) it generally is not. Ante, at 900-901.

“Where, in the performance of its judicial duties, the Court decides a case in such a way as to resolve the sort of intensely divisive controversy reflected in Roe ..., its decision has a dimension that the resolution of the normal case does not carry. It is the dimension present whenever the Court’s interpretation of the Constitution calls the contending sides of a *995national controversy to end their national division by accepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitution.” Ante, at 866-867.

The Court’s description of the place of Roe in the social history of the United States is unrecognizable. Not only did Roe not, as the Court suggests, resolve the deeply divisive issue of abortion; it did more than anything else to nourish it, by elevating it to the national level where it is infinitely more difficult to resolve. National politics were not plagued by abortion protests, national abortion lobbying, or abortion marches on Congress before Roe v. Wade was decided. Profound disagreement existed among our citizens over the issue — as it does over other issues, such as the death penalty — but that disagreement was being worked out at the state level. As with many other issues, the division of sentiment within each State was not as closely balanced as it was among the population of the Nation as a whole, meaning not only that more people would be satisfied with the results of state-by-state resolution, but also that those results would be more stable. Pr e-Roe, moreover, political compromise was possible.

Roe’s mandate for abortion on demand destroyed the compromises of the past, rendered compromise impossible for the future, and required the entire issue to be resolved'uniformly, at the national level. At the same time, Roe created a vast new class of abortion consumers and abortion proponents by eliminating the moral opprobrium that had attached to the act. (“If the Constitution guarantees abortion, how can it be bad?” — not an accurate line of thought, but a natural one.) Many favor all of those developments, and it is not for me to say that they are wrong. But to portray Roe as the statesmanlike “settlement” of a divisive issue, a jurisprudential Peace of Westphalia that is worth preserving, is nothing less than Orwellian. Roe fanned into life an issue that has inflamed our national polities in general, and has obscured with its smoke the selection of Justices to this Court *996in particular, ever since. And by keeping us in the abortion-umpiring business, it is the perpetuation of that disruption, rather than of any Pax Boeana, that the Court’s new majority decrees.

“[T]o overrule under fire . . . would subvert the Court’s legitimacy....

“... To all those who will be ... tested by following, the Court implicitly undertakes to remain steadfast .... The promise of constancy, once given, binds its maker for as long as the power to stand by the decision survives and ... the commitment [is not] obsolete....

“[The American people’s] belief in themselves as ... a people [who aspire to live according to the rule of law] is not readily separable from their understanding of the Court invested with the authority to decide their constitutional cases and speak before all others for their constitutional ideals. If the Court’s legitimacy should be undermined, then, so would the country be in its very ability to see itself through its constitutional ideals.” Ante, at 867-868.

The Imperial Judiciary lives. It is instructive to compare this Nietzschean vision of us uneleeted, life-tenured judges— leading a Yolk who will be “tested by following,” and whose very “belief in themselves” is mystically bound up in their “understanding” of a Court that “speak[s] before all others for their constitutional ideals” — with the somewhat more modest role envisioned for these lawyers by the Founders.

“The judiciary . . . has ... no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society, and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment....” The Federalist No. 78, pp. 393-394 (G. Wills ed. 1982).

Or, again, to compare this ecstasy of a Supreme Court in which there is, especially on controversial matters, no *997shadow of change or hint of alteration (“There is a limit to the amount of error that can plausibly be imputed to prior Courts,” ante, at 866), with the more democratic views of a more humble man:

“[Tjhe candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,... the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.” A. Lincoln, First Inaugural Address (Mar. 4,1861), reprinted in Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, S. Doc. No. 101-10, p. 139 (1989).

It is particularly difficult, in the circumstances of the present decision, to sit still for the Court’s lengthy lecture upon the virtues of “constancy,” ante, at 868, of “remaining] steadfast,” ibid., and adhering to “principle,” ante, passim. Among the five Justices who purportedly adhere to Roe, at most three agree upon the principle that constitutes adherence (the joint opinion’s “undue burden” standard) — and that principle is inconsistent with Roe. See 410 U. S., at 154-156.7 To make matters worse, two of the three, in order thus to remain steadfast, had to abandon previously stated positions. See n. 4, supra; see supra, at 988-990. . It is beyond me how the Court expects these accommodations to be accepted “as grounded truly in principle, not as compromises with social and political pressures having, as such, no bearing on the principled choices that the Court is obliged to make.” Ante, at 865-866. The only principle the Court “adheres” *998to, it seems to me, is the principle that the Court must be seen as standing by Roe. That is not a principle of law (which is what I thought the Court was talking about), but a principle of Realpolitik — and a wrong one at that.

I cannot agree with, indeed I am appalled by, the Court’s suggestion that the decision whether to stand by an erroneous constitutional decision must be strongly influenced— against overruling, no less — by the substantial and continuing public opposition the decision has generated. The Court’s judgment that any other course would “subvert the Court’s legitimacy” must be another consequence of reading the error-filled history book that described the deeply divided country brought together by Roe. In my history book, the Court was covered with dishonor and deprived of legitimacy by Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857), an erroneous (and widely opposed) opinion that it did not abandon, rather than by West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379 (1937), which produced the famous “switch in time” from the Court’s erroneous (and widely opposed) constitutional opposition to the social measures of the New Deal. (Both Dred Scott and one line of the cases resisting the New Deal rested upon the concept of “substantive due process” that the Court praises and employs today. Indeed, Dred Scott was “very possibly the first application of substantive due process in the Supreme Court, the original precedent for Lochner v. New York and Roe v. Wade.” D. Currie, The Constitution in the Supreme Court 271 (1985) (footnotes omitted).)

But whether it would “subvert the Court’s legitimacy” or not, the notion that we would decide a ease differently from the way we otherwise would have in order to show that we can stand firm against public disapproval is frightening. It is a bad enough idea, even in the head of someone like me, who believes that the text of the Constitution, and our traditions, say what they say and there is no fiddling with them. But when it is in the mind of a Court that believes the Con*999stitution has an evolving meaning, see ante, at 848; that the Ninth Amendment’s reference to “othe[r]” rights is not a disclaimer, but a charter for action, ibid.; and that the function of this Court is to “speak before all others for [the people’s] constitutional ideals” unrestrained by meaningful text or tradition — then the notion that the Court must adhere to a decision for as long as the decision faces “great opposition” and the Court is “under fire” acquires a character of almost ezarist arrogance. We are offended by these marchers who descend upon us, every year on the anniversary of Roe, to protest our saying that the Constitution requires what our society has never thought the Constitution requires. These people who refuse to be “tested by following” must be taught a lesson. We have no Cossacks, but at least we can stubbornly refuse to abandon an erroneous opinion that we might otherwise change — to show how little they intimidate us.

Of course, as The Chief Justice points out, we have been subjected to what the Court calls “‘political pressure’” by both sides of this issue. Ante, at 963. Maybe today’s decision not to overrule Roe will be seen as buckling to pressure from that direction. Instead of engaging in the hopeless task of predicting public perception — a job not for lawyers but for political campaign managers — the Justices should do what is legally right by asking two questions: (1) Was Roe correctly decided? (2) Has Roe succeeded in producing a settled body of law? If the answer to both questions is no, Roe should undoubtedly be overruled.

In truth, I am as distressed as the Court is — and expressed my distress several years ago, see Webster, 492 U. S., at 535 — about the “political pressure” directed to the Court: the marches, the mail, the protests aimed at inducing us to change our opinions. How upsetting it is, that so many of our citizens (good people, not lawless ones, on both sides of this abortion issue, and on various sides of other issues as well) think that we Justices should properly take into ac*1000count their views, as though we were engaged not in ascertaining an objective law but in determining some kind of social consensus. The Court would profit, I think, from giving less attention to the fact of this distressing phenomenon, and more attention to the cause of it. That cause permeates today’s opinion: a new mode of constitutional adjudication that relies not upon text and traditional practice to determine the law, but upon what the Court calls “reasoned judgment,” ante, at 849, which turns out to be nothing but philosophical predilection and moral intuition. All manner of “liberties,” the Court tells us, inhere in the Constitution and are enforceable by this Court — notjust those mentioned in the text or established in the traditions of our society. Ante, at 847-849. Why even the Ninth Amendment — which says only that “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” — is, despite our contrary understanding for almost 200 years, a literally boundless source of additional, unnamed, unhinted-at “rights,” definable and enforceable by us, through “reasoned judgment.” Ante, at 848-849.

What makes all this relevant to the bothersome application of “political pressure” against the Court are the twin facts that the American people love democracy and the American people are not fools. As long as this Court thought (and the people thought) that we Justices were doing essentially lawyers’ work up here — reading text and discerning our society’s traditional understanding of that text — the public pretty much left us alone. Texts and traditions are facts to study, not convictions to demonstrate about. But if in reality our process of constitutional adjudication consists primarily of making value judgments; if we can ignore a long and clear tradition clarifying an ambiguous text, as we did, for example, five days ago in declaring unconstitutional invocations and benedictions at public high school graduation ceremonies, Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577 (1992); if, as I say, our pronouncement of constitutional law rests primarily on value *1001judgments, then a free and intelligent people’s attitude towards us can be expected to be (ought to be) quite different. The people know that their value judgments are quite as good as those taught in any law school — maybe better. If, indeed, the “liberties” protected by the Constitution are, as the Court says, undefined and unbounded, then the people should demonstrate, to protest that we do not implement their values instead of ours. Not only that, but confirmation hearings for new Justices should deteriorate into question- and-answer sessions in which Senators go through a list of their constituents’ most favored and most disfavored alleged constitutional rights, and seek the nominee’s commitment to support or oppose them. Value judgments, after all, should be voted on, not dictated; and if our Constitution has somehow accidently committed them to the Supreme Court, at least we can have a sort of plebiscite each time a new nominee to that body is put forward. Justice Blackmun not only regards this prospect with equanimity, he solicits it. Ante, at 943.

* * *

There is a poignant aspect to today’s opinion. Its length, and what might be called its epic tone, suggest that its authors believe they are bringing to an end a troublesome era in the history of our Nation and of our Court. “It is the dimension” of authority, they say, to “eal[l] the contending sides of national controversy to end their national division by accepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitution.” Ante, at 867.

There comes vividly to mind a portrait by Emanuel Leutze that hangs in the Harvard Law School: Roger Brooke Taney, painted in 1859, the 82d year of his life, the 24th of his Chief Justiceship, the second after his opinion in Dred Scott. He is all in black, sitting in a shadowed red armchair, left hand resting upon a pad of paper in his lap, right hand hanging limply, almost lifelessly, beside the inner arm of the chair. He sits facing the viewer and staring straight out. There *1002seems to be on his face, and in his deep-set eyes, an expression of profound sadness and disillusionment. Perhaps he always looked that way, even when dwelling upon the happiest of thoughts. But those of us who know how the lustre of his great Chief Justiceship came to be eclipsed by Dred Scott cannot help believing that he had that ease — its already apparent consequences for the Court and its soon-to-be-played-out consequences for the Nation — burning on his mind. I expect that two years earlier he, too, had thought himself “eall[ing] the contending sides of national controversy to end their national division by accepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitution.”

It is no more realistic for us in this litigation, than it was for him in that, to think that an issue of the sort they both involved — an issue involving life and death, freedom and subjugation — can be “speedily and finally settled” by the Supreme Court, as President James Buchanan in his inaugural address said the issue of slavery in the territories would be. See Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, S. Doc. No. 101-10, p. 126 (1989). Quite to the contrary, by foreclosing all democratic outlet for the deep passions this issue arouses, by banishing the issue from the political forum that gives all participants, even the losers, the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight, by continuing the imposition of a rigid national rule instead of allowing for regional differences, the Court merely prolongs and intensifies the anguish.

We should get out of this area, where we have no right to be, and where we do neither ourselves nor the country any good by remaining.

*920Justice Breyer

delivered the opinion of the Court.

We again consider the right to an abortion. We understand the controversial nature of the problem. Millions of Americans believe that life begins at conception and consequently that an abortion is akin to causing the death of an innocent child; they recoil at the thought of a law that would permit it. Other millions fear that a law that forbids abortion would condemn many American women to lives that lack dignity, depriving them of equal liberty and leading those with least resources to undergo illegal abortions with the attendant risks of death and suffering. Taking account of *921these virtually irreconcilable points of view, aware that constitutional law must govern a society whose different members sincerely hold directly opposing views, and considering the matter in light of the Constitution’s guarantees of fundamental individual liberty, this Court, in the course of a generation, has determined and then redetermined that the Constitution offers basic protection to the woman’s right to choose. Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973); Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992). We shall not revisit those legal principles. Rather, we apply them to the circumstances of this case.

Three established principles determine the issue before us. We shall set them forth in the language of the joint opinion in Casey. First, before "viability... the woman has a right to choose to terminate her pregnancy.” Id., at 870 (plurality opinion).

Second, "a law designed to further the State’s interest in fetal life which imposes an undue burden on the woman’s decision before fetal viability” is unconstitutional. Id., at 877. An "undue burden is ... shorthand for the conclusion that a state regulation has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus.” Ibid.

Third, “ ‘subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.’ ” Id., at 879 (quoting Roe v. Wade, supra, at 164-165).

We apply these principles to a Nebraska law banning “partial birth abortion.” The statute reads as follows:

“No partial birth abortion shall be performed in this state, unless such procedure is neeessary to save the life of the mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or aris*922ing from the pregnancy itself.” Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-328(1) (Supp. 1999).

The statute defines “partial birth abortion” as:

“an abortion procedure in which the person performing the abortion partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child and completing the delivery.” § 28-326(9).

It further defines “partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child” to mean

“deliberately and intentionally delivering into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof, for the purpose of performing a procedure that the person performing such procedure knows will kill the unborn child and does kill the unborn child.” Ibid.

The law classifies violation of the statute as a “Class III felony” carrying a prison term of up to 20 years, and a fine of up to $25,000. §§28-328(2), 28-105. It also provides for the automatic revocation of a doctor’s license to practice medicine in Nebraska. § 28-328(4).

We hold that this statute violates the Constitution.

HH

<j

Dr. Leroy Carhart is a Nebraska physician who performs abortions in a clinical setting. He brought this lawsuit in Federal District Court seeking a declaration that the Nebraska statute violates the Federal Constitution, and asking for an injunction forbidding its enforcement. After a trial on the merits, during which both sides presented several expert witnesses, the District Court held the statute unconstitutional. 11F. Supp. 2d 1099 (Neb. 1998). On appeal, the Eighth Circuit affirmed. 192 F. 3d 1142 (1999); cf. Hope Clinic v. Ryan, 195 F. 3d 857 (CA7 1999) (en banc) (consider*923ing a similar statute, but reaching a different legal conclusion). We granted certiorari to consider the matter.

B

Because Nebraska law seeks to ban one method of aborting a pregnancy, we must describe and then discuss several different abortion procedures. Considering the fact that those procedures seek to terminate a potential human life, our discussion may seem clinically cold or callous to some, perhaps horrifying to others. There is no alternative way, however, to acquaint the reader with the technical distinctions among different abortion methods and related factual matters, upon which the outcome of this ease depends. For that reason, drawing upon the findings of the trial court, underlying testimony, and related medical texts, we shall describe the relevant methods of performing abortions in technical detail.

The evidence before the trial court, as supported or supplemented in the literature, indicates the following:

1. About 90% of all abortions performed in the United States take place during the first trimester of pregnancy, before 12 weeks of gestational age. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Abortion Surveillance — United States, 1996, p. 41 (July 30, 1999) (hereinafter Abortion Surveillance). During the first trimester, the predominant abortion method is “vacuum aspiration," which involves insertion of a vacuum tube (cannula) into the uterus to evacuate the contents. Such an abortion is typically performed on an outpatient basis under local anesthesia. 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1102; Obstetrics: Normal & Problem Pregnancies 1253-1254 (S. Gabbe, J. Niebyl, & J. Simpson eds. 3d ed. 1996). Vacuum aspiration is considered particularly safe. The procedure’s mortality rates for first trimester abortion ai'e, for example, 5 to 10 times lower than those associated with carrying the fetus to term. Complication rates are also low. Id., at 1251; Lawson et al., Abortion Mortality, United *924States, 1972 through 1987, 171 Am. J. Obstet. Gynecol. 1365, 1368 (1994); M. Paul et al., A Clinicians Guide to Medical and Surgical Abortion 108-109 (1999) (hereinafter Medical and Surgical Abortion). As the fetus grows in size, however, the vacuum aspiration method becomes increasingly difficult to use. 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1102-1103; Obstetrics: Normal & Problem Pregnancies, supra, at 1268.

2. Approximately 10% of all abortions are performed during the second trimester of pregnancy (12 to 24 weeks). Abortion Surveillance 41. In the early 1970’s, inducing labor through the injection of saline into the uterus was the predominant method of second trimester abortion. Id., at 8; Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 76 (1976). Today, however, the medical profession has switched from medical induction of labor to surgical procedures for most second trimester abortions. The most commonly used procedure is called “dilation and evacuation” (D&E). That procedure (together with a modified form of vacuum aspiration used in the early second trimester) accounts for about 95% of all abortions performed from 12 to 20 weeks of gestational age. Abortion Surveillance 41.

3. D&E “refers generically to transcervieal procedures performed at 13 weeks gestation or later.” American Medical Association, Report of Board of Trustees on Late-Term Abortion, App. 490 (hereinafter AMA Report). The AMA Report, adopted by the District Court, describes the process as follows.

Between 13 and 15 weeks of gestation:

“D&E is similar to vacuum aspiration except that the cervix must be dilated more widely because surgical instruments are used to remove larger pieces of tissue. Osmotic dilators are usually used. Intravenous fluids and an analgesic or sedative may be administered. A local anesthetic such as a paracervical block may be administered, dilating agents, if used, are removed and instruments are inserted through the cervix into the *925uterus to removal fetal and placental tissue. Because fetal tissue is friable and easily broken, the fetus may not be removed intact. The walls of the uterus are scraped with a curette to ensure that no tissue remains.” Id., at 490-491.

After 15 weeks:

“Because the fetus is larger at this stage of gestation (particularly the head), and because bones are more rigid, dismemberment or other destructive procedures are more likely to be required than at earlier gestational ages to remove fetal and placental tissue.” Id., at 491.

After 20 weeks:

“Some physicians use intrafetal potassium chloride or digoxin to induce fetal demise prior to a late D&E (after 20 weeks), to facilitate evacuation.” Id., at 491-492.

There are variations in D&E operative strategy; compare ibid, with W. Hern, Abortion Practice 146-156 (1984), and Medical and Surgical Abortion 133-185. However, the common points are that D&E involves (1) dilation of the cervix; (2) removal of at least some fetal tissue using nonvacuum instruments; and (3) (after the 15th week) the potential need for instrumental disarticulation or dismemberment of the fetus or the collapse of fetal parts to facilitate evacuation from the uterus.

4. When instrumental disarticulation incident to D&E is necessary, it typically occurs as the doctor pulls a portion of the fetus through the cervix into the birth canal. Dr. Car-hart testified at trial as follows:

“Dr. Carhart:.. . ‘The dismemberment occurs between the traction of ... my instrument and the counter-traction of the internal os of the cervix....

“Counsel: ‘So the dismemberment occurs after you pulled a part of the fetus through the cervix, is that correct?

*926“Dr. Carhart: ‘Exactly. Because you’re using — The cervix has two strictures or two rings, the internal os and the external os . . . that’s what’s actually doing the dismembering....

“Counsel: ‘When we talked before or talked before about a D&E, that is not — where there is not intention to do it intact, do you, in that situation, dismember the fetus in útero first, then remove portions?

“Dr. Carhart: T don’t think so.... I don’t know of any way that one could go in and intentionally dismember the fetus in the uterus. ... It takes something that restricts the motion of the fetus against what you’re doing before you’re going to get dismemberment.’ ” 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1104.

Dr. Carhart’s specification of the location of fetal disarticulation is consistent with other sources. See Medical and Surgical Abortion 135; App. in Nos. 98-3245 and 98-3300 (CA8), p. 683, (testimony of Dr. Phillip Stubblefield) (“Q: So you don’t actually dismember the fetus in útero, then take the pieces out? A: No”).

5. The D&E procedure carries certain risks. The use of instruments within the uterus creates a danger of accidental perforation and damage to neighboring organs. Sharp fetal bone fragments create similar dangers. And fetal tissue accidentally left behind can cause infection and various other complications. See 11F. Supp. 2d, at 1110; Gynecologic, Obstetric, and Related Surgery 1045 (D. Nichols & D. Clarke-Pearson eds. 2d ed. 2000); F. Cunningham et al., Williams Obstetrics 598 (20th ed. 1997). Nonetheless studies show that the risks of mortality and complication that accompany the D&E procedure between the 12th and 20th weeks of gestation are significantly lower than those accompanying induced labor procedures (the next safest midseeond trimester procedures). See Gynecologic, Obstetric, and Related Surgery, supra, at 1046; AMA Report, App. 495, 496; Medical *927and Surgical Abortion 139,142; Lawson, 171 Am. J. Obstet. Gynecol., at 1368.

6. At trial, Dr. Carhart and Dr. Stubblefield described a variation of the D&E procedure, which they referred to as an “intact D&E.” See 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1105, lili. Like other versions of the D&E technique, it begins with induced dilation of the cervix. The procedure then involves removing the fetus from the uterus through the cervix “intact,” i. e., in one pass, rather than in several passes. Ibid. It is used after 16 weeks at the earliest, as vacuum aspiration becomes ineffective and the fetal skull becomes too large to pass through the cervix. Id., at 1105. The intact D&E proceeds in one of two ways, depending on the presentation of the fetus. If the fetus presents head first (a vertex presentation), the doctor collapses the skull; and the doctor then extracts the entire fetus through the cervix. If the fetus presents feet first (a breech presentation), the doctor pulls the fetal body through the cervix, collapses the skull, and extracts the fetus through the cervix. Ibid. The breech extraction version of the intact D&E is also known commonly as “dilation and extraction,” or D&X. Id., at 1112. In the late second trimester, vertex, breech, and traverse/ compound (sideways) presentations occur in roughly similar proportions. Medical and Surgical Abortion 135; 11F. Supp. 2d, at 1108.

7. The intact D&E procedure can also be found described in certain obstetric and abortion clinical textbooks, where two variations are recognized. The first, as just described, calls for the physician to adapt his method for extracting the intact fetus depending on fetal presentation. See Gynecologic, Obstetric, and Related Surgery, supra, at 1043; Medical and Surgical Abortion 136-137. This is the method used by Dr. Carhart. See 11F. Supp. 2d, at 1105. A slightly different version of the intact D&E procedure, associated with Dr. Martin Haskell, calls for conversion to a breech presentation in all cases. See Gynecologic, Obstetric, and Related *928Surgery, supra, at 1043 (citing M. Haskell, Dilation and Extraction for Late Second Trimester Abortion (1992), in 139 Cong. Ree. 8605 (1993)).

8. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists describes the D&X procedure in a manner corresponding to a breech-conversion intact D&E, including the following steps:

"1. deliberate dilatation of the cervix, usually over a sequence of days;

“2. instrumental conversion of the fetus to a footling breech;

“3. breech extraction of the body excepting the head; and

“4. partial evacuation of the intracranial contents of a living fetus to effect vaginal delivery of a dead but otherwise intact fetus.” American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Executive Board, Statement on Intact Dilation and Extraction (Jan. 12, 1997) (hereinafter ACOG Statement), App. 599-560.

Despite the technical differences we have just described, intact D&E and D&X are sufficiently similar for us to use the terms interchangeably.

9. Dr. Carhart testified he attempts to use the intact D&E procedure during weeks 16 to 20 because (1) it reduces the dangers from sharp bone fragments passing through the cervix, (2) minimizes the number of instrument passes needed for extraction and lessens the likelihood of uterine perforations caused by those instruments, (3) reduces the likelihood of leaving infection-causing fetal and placental tissue in the uterus, and (4) could help to prevent potentially fatal absorption of fetal tissue into the maternal circulation. See 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1107. The District Court made no findings about the D&X procedure’s overall safety. Id., at 1126, n. 39. The District Court concluded, however, that “the evidence is both clear and convincing that Carhart’s *929D&X procedure is superior to, and safer than, the ... other abortion procedures used during the relevant gestational period in the 10 to 20 eases a year that present to Dr. Garhart ” Id., at 1126.

10. The materials presented at trial referred to the potential benefits of the D&X procedure in circumstances involving nonviable fetuses, such as fetuses with abnormal fluid accumulation in the brain (hydrocephaly). See 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1107 (quoting AMA Report, App. 492 (“ ‘Intact D&X may be preferred by some physicians, particularly when the fetus has been diagnosed with hydrocephaly or other anomalies incompatible with life outside the womb’ ”)); see also Grimes, The Continuing Need for Late Abortions, 280 JAMA 747, 748 (Aug. 26, 1998) (D&X “may be especially useful in the presence of fetal anomalies, such as hydrocephalus,” because its reduction of the cranium allows “a smaller diameter to pass through the cervix, thus reducing risk of cervical injury”). Others have emphasized its potential for women with prior uterine sears, or for women for whom induction of labor would be particularly dangerous. See Women’s Medical Professional Corp. v. Voinovich, 911 F. Supp. 2d 1051, 1067 (SD Ohio 1995); Evans v. Kelley, 977 F. Supp. 2d 1283, 1296 (ED Mich. 1997).

11. There are no reliable data on the number of D&X abortions performed annually. Estimates have ranged between 640 and 5,000 per year. Compare Henshaw, Abortion Incidence and Services in the United States, 1995-1996,30 Family Planning Perspectives 263,268 (1998), with Joint Hearing on S. 6 and H. R. 929 before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 105th Cong., 1st Sess., 46 (1997).

II

The question before us is whether Nebraska’s statute, making criminal the performance of a “partial birth abortion,” violates the Federal Constitution, as interpreted in *930Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992), and Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973). We conclude that it does for at least two independent reasons. First, the law lacks any exception “ ‘for the preservation of the... health of the mother.’ ” Casey, 505 U. S., at 879 (plurality opinion). Second, it “imposes an undue burden on a woman’s ability” to choose a D&E abortion, thereby unduly burdening the right to choose abortion itself. Id., at 874. We shall discuss each of these reasons in turn.

A

The Casey plurality opinion reiterated what the Court held in Roe; that “ ‘subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.’” 505 U. S., at 879 (quoting Roe, supra, at 164-165) (emphasis added).

The fact that Nebraska’s law applies both previability and postviability aggravates the constitutional problem presented. The State’s interest in regulating abortion previa-bility is considerably weaker than postviability. See Casey, supra, at 870. Since the law requires a health exception in order to validate even a postviability abortion regulation, it at a minimum requires the same in respect to previability regulation. See Casey, supra, at 880 (majority opinion) (assuming need for health exception previability); see also Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297, 316 (1980).

The quoted standard also depends on the state regulations “promoting [the State’s] interest in the potentiality of human life.” The Nebraska law, of course, does not directly further an interest “in the potentiality of human life” by saving the fetus in question from destruction, as it regulates only a method of performing abortion. Nebraska describes its interests differently It says the law “ ‘show[s] concern for the life of the unborn,’ ” “prevents] cruelty to partially born chil*931dren,” and “preserved] the integrity of the medical profession.” Brief for Petitioners 48. But we cannot see how the interest-related differences could make any difference to the question at hand, namely, the application of the “health” requirement.

Consequently, the governing standard requires an exception “where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment for the preservation of the life or health of the mother,” Casey, supra, at 879, for this Court has made clear that a State may promote but not endanger a woman’s health when it regulates the methods of abortion. Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747, 768-769 (1986); Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U. S. 379, 400 (1979); Danforth, 428 U. S., at 76-79; Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179, 197 (1973).

Justice Thomas says that the cases just cited limit this principle to situations where the pregnancy itself creates a threat to health. See post, at 1010. He is wrong. The cited eases, reaffirmed in Casey, recognize that a State cannot subject women’s health to significant risks both in that context, and also where state regulations force women to use riskier methods of abortion. Our cases have repeatedly invalidated statutes that in the process of regulating the methods of abortion, imposed significant health risks. They make clear that a risk to a women’s health is the same whether it happens to arise from regulating a particular method of abortion, or from barring abortion entirely. Our holding does not go beyond those cases, as ratified in Casey.

1

Nebraska responds that the law does not require a health exception unless there is a need for such an exception. And here there is no such need, it says. It argues that “safe alternatives remain available” and “a ban on partial-birth abortion/D&X would create no risk to the health of women.” Brief for Petitioners 29, 40. The problem for Nebraska is *932that the parties strongly contested this factual question in the trial court below; and the findings and evidence support Dr. Carhart. The State fails to demonstrate that banning D&X without a health exception may not create significant health risks for women, because the record shows that significant medical authority supports the proposition that in some circumstances, D&X would be the safest procedure.

We shall reiterate in summary form the relevant findings and evidence. On the basis of medical testimony the District Court concluded that “Carhart’s D&X procedure is ... safer tha[n] the D&E and other abortion procedures used during the relevant gestational period in the 10 to 20 eases a year that present to Dr. Carhart.” 11F. Supp. 2d, at 1126. It found that the D&X procedure permits the fetus to pass through the cervix with a minimum of instrumentation. Ibid. It thereby

“reduces operating time, blood loss and risk of infection; reduces complications from bony fragments; reduces instrument-inflicted damage to the uterus and cervix; prevents the most common causes of maternal mortality (DIC and amniotie fluid embolus); and eliminates the possibility of ‘horrible complications’ arising from retained fetal parts.” Ibid.

The District Court also noted that a select panel of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists concluded that D&X “ ‘may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman.’ ” Id., at 1105, n. 10 (quoting ACOG Statement, App. 600-601) (but see an important qualification, infra, at 934). With one exception, the federal trial courts that have heard expert evidence on the matter have reached similar factual conclusions. See Rhode Island Medical Soc. v. Whitehouse, 66 F. Supp. 2d 288, 314 (RI . 1999); A Choice for Women v. Butterworth, 54 F. Supp. 2d 1148, 1153, 1156 (SD Fla. 1998); Causeway Medical Suite v. Foster, 48 F. Supp. 2d 604, 613-614 (ED La. 1999); Richmond *933Medical Center for Women v. Gilmore, 11 F. Supp. 2d 795, 827, n. 40 (ED Va. 1998); Hope Clinic v. Ryan, 995 F. Supp. 2d 847, 852 (ND Ill. 1998), vacated, 195 F. 8d 857 (CA7 1999), cert. pending, No. 99-1152; Voinovich, 911 F. Supp. 2d, at 1069-1070; Kelley, 977 F. Supp. 2d, at 1296; but see Planned Parenthood of Wis. v. Doyle, 44 F. Supp. 2d 975, 980 (WD Wis.), vacated, 195 F. 3d 857 (CA7 1999).

2

Nebraska, along with supporting amici, replies that these findings are irrelevant, wrong, or applicable only in a tiny number of instances. It says (1) that the D&X procedure is “little-used,” (2) by only “a handful of doctors.” Brief for Petitioners 32. It argues (3) that D&E and labor induction are at all times “safe alternative procedures.” Id., at 36. It refers to the testimony of petitioners’ medical expert, who testified (4) that the ban would not increase a woman’s risk of several rare abortion complications (disseminated intra-vascular coagulopathy and amniotie fluid embolus), id., at 37; App. 642-644.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons et al., amici supporting Nebraska, argue (5) that elements of the D&X procedure may create special risks, including cervical incompetence caused by overdilitation, injury caused by conversion of the fetal presentation, and dangers arising from the “blind” use of instrumentation to pierce the fetal skull while lodged in the birth canal. See Brief for Association of American Physicians and Surgeons et al. as Amici Curiae 21-23; see also Sprang & Neerhof, Rationale for Banning Abortions Late in Pregnancy, 280 JAMA 744,746 (Aug. 26,1998).

Nebraska further emphasizes (6) that there are no medical studies “establishing the safety of the partial-birth abortion/ D&X procedure,” Brief for Petitioners 39, and “no medical studies comparing the safety of partial-birth abortion/D&X to other abortion procedures,” ibid. It points to, id., at 35, *934(7) an American Medical Association policy statement that “‘there does not appear to be any identified situation in which intact D&X is the only appropriate procedure to induce abortion,’” Late Term Pregnancy Termination Techniques, AMA Policy H-5.982 (1997). And it points out (8) that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists qualified its statement that D&X “may be the best or most appropriate procedure,” by adding that the panel “could identify no circumstances under which [the D&X] procedure . . . would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.” App. 600-601.

3

We find these eight arguments insufficient to demonstrate that Nebraska’s law needs no health exception. For one thing, certain of the arguments are beside the point. The D&X procedure’s relative rarity (argument (1)) is not highly relevant. The D&X is an infrequently used abortion procedure; but the health exception question is whether protecting women’s health requires an exception for those infrequent occasions. A rarely used treatment might be necessary to treat a rarely occurring disease that could strike anyone — the State cannot prohibit a person from obtaining treatment simply by pointing out that most people do not need it. Nor can we know whether the fact that only a “handful” of doctors use the procedure (argument (2)) reflects the comparative rarity of late second term abortions, the procedure’s recent development, Gynecologic, Obstetric, and Related Surgery, at 1043, the controversy surrounding it, or, as Nebraska suggests, the procedure’s lack of utility.

For another thing, the record responds to Nebraska’s (and amici’s) medically based arguments. In respect to argument (3), for example, the District Court agreed that alternatives, such as D&E and induced labor, are “safe” but found that the D&X method was significantly safer in certain circumstances. 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1125-1126. In respect to *935argument (4), the District Court simply- relied on different expert testimony — testimony stating that “ ‘[a]nother advantage of the Intact D&E is that it eliminates the risk of embolism of cerebral tissue into the woman’s blood stream.’ ” Id., at 1124 (quoting Hearing on H. R. 1833 before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 104th Cong., 1st Sess., 260 (1995) (statement of W. Hern).

In response to amici’s argument (5), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, in its own amici brief, denies that D&X generally poses risks greater than the alternatives. It says that the suggested alternative procedures involve similar or greater risks of cervical and. uterine injury, for “D&E procedures, involve similar amounts of dili-tation” and “of course childbirth involves even greater cervical dilitation.” Brief for American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists et al. as Amici Curiae 23. The College points out that Dr. Carhart does not reposition the fetus thereby avoiding any risks stemming from conversion to breech presentation, and that, as compared with D&X, D&E involves the same, if not greater, “blind” use of sharp instruments in the uterine cavity. Id., at 23-24.

We do not quarrel with Nebraska’s argument (6), for Nebraska is right. There are no general medical studies documenting comparative safety. Neither do we deny the import of the American Medical Association’s statement (argument (7)) — even though the State does omit the remainder of that statement: “The AMA recommends that the procedure not be used unless alternative procedures pose materially greater risk to the woman.” Late Term Pregnancy Termination Techniques, AMA Policy H-5.982 (emphasis added).

We cannot, however, read the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists panel’s qualification (that it could not “identify” a circumstance where D&X was the “only” life- or health-preserving option) as if, according to Nebraska’s argument (8), it denied the potential health-related need *936for D&X. That is because the College writes the following in its amici brief:

“Depending on the physician’s skill and experience, the D&X procedure ean be the most appropriate abortion procedure for some women in some circumstances. D&X presents a variety of potential safety advantages over other abortion procedures used during the same gestational period. Compared to D&Bs involving dismemberment, D&X involves less risk of uterine perforation or cervical laceration because it requires the physician to make fewer passes into the uterus with sharp instruments and reduces the presence of sharp fetal bone fragments that ean injure the uterus and cervix. There is also considerable evidence that D&X reduces the risk of retained fetal tissue, a serious abortion complication that ean cause maternal death, and that D&X reduces the incidence of a 'free floating’ fetal head that can be difficult for a physician to grasp and remove and ean thus cause maternal injury. That D&X procedures usually take less time than other abortion methods used at a comparable stage of pregnancy can also have health advantages. The shorter the procedure, the less blood loss, trauma, and exposure to anesthesia. The intuitive safety advantages of intact D&E are supported by clinical experience. Especially for women with particular health conditions, there is medical evidence that D&X may be safer than available alternatives.” Brief for American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists et al. as Amici Curiae 21-22 (citation and footnotes omitted).

4

The upshot is a District Court finding that D&X significantly obviates health risks in certain circumstances, a highly plausible reeord-based explanation of why that might be so, a division of opinion among some medical experts over *937whether D&X is generally safer, and an absence of controlled medical studies that would help answer these medical questions. Given these medically related evidentiary circumstances, we believe the law requires a health exception.

The word “necessary5’ in Casey’s phrase “necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother,” 505 U. S., at 879 (internal quotation marks omitted), cannot refer to an absolute necessity or to absolute proof. Medical treatments and procedures are often considered appropriate (or inappropriate) in light of estimated comparative health risks (and health benefits) in particular cases. Neither can that phrase require unanimity of medical opinion. Doctors often differ in their estimation of comparative health risks and appropriate treatment. And Casey’s words “appropriate medical judgment” must embody the judicial need to tolerate responsible differences of medical opinion — differences of a sort that the American Medical Association and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ statements together indicate are present here.

For another thing, the division of medical opinion about the matter at most means uncertainty, a factor that signals the presence of risk, not its absence. That division here involves highly qualified knowledgeable experts on both sides of the issue. Where a significant body of medical opinion believes a procedure may bring with it greater safety for some patients and explains the medical reasons supporting that view, we cannot say that the presence of a different view by itself proves the contrary. Rather, the uncertainty means a significant likelihood that those who believe that D&X is a safer abortion method in certain circumstances may turn out to be right. If so, then the absence of a health exception will place women at an unnecessary risk of tragic health consequences. If they are wrong, the exception will simply turn out to have been unnecessary.

In sum, Nebraska has not convinced us that a health exception is “never necessary to preserve the health of *938women.” Reply Brief for Petitioners 4. Rather, a statute that altogether forbids D&X creates a significant health risk. The statute consequently must contain a health exception. This is not to say, as Justice Thomas and Justice Kennedy claim, that a State is prohibited from proscribing an abortion procedure whenever a particular physician deems the procedure preferable. By no means must a State grant physicians “unfettered discretion” in their selection of abortion methods. Post, at 969 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). But where substantial medical authority supports the proposition that banning a particular abortion procedure could endanger women’s health, Casey requires the statute to include a health exception when the procedure is “'necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.’” 505 U.S., at 879. Requiring such an exception in this ease is no departure from Casey, but simply a straightforward application of its holding.

B

The Eighth Circuit found the Nebraska statute unconstitutional because, in Casey’s words, it has the “effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus.” Id., at 877. It thereby places an “undue burden” upon a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy before viability. Ibid. Nebraska does not deny that the statute imposes an “undue burden” if it applies to the more commonly used D&E procedure as well as to D&X. And we agree with the Eighth Circuit that it does so apply.

Our earlier discussion of the D&E procedure, supra, at 924-926, shows that it falls within the statutory prohibition. The statute forbids “deliberately and intentionally delivering into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof, for the purpose of performing a procedure that the person performing such procedure knows will kill the unborn child.” Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-326(9) (Supp. 1999). We *939do not understand how one could distinguish, using this language, between D&E (where a foot or arm is drawn through the cervix) and D&X (where the body up to the head is drawn through the cervix). Evidence before the trial court makes clear that D&E will often involve a physician pulling a “substantial portion” of a still living fetus, say, an arm or leg, into the vagina prior to the death of the fetus. 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1128; id., at 1128-1130. Indeed D&E involves dismemberment that commonly occurs only when the fetus meets resistance that restricts the motion of the fetus: “The dismemberment occurs between the traction of... [the] instrument and the counter-traction of the internal os of the cervix.” Id., at 1128. And these events often do not occur until after a portion of a living fetus has been pulled into the vagina. Id., at 1104; see also Medical and Surgical Abortion 135 (“During the mid-second trimester, separation of the fetal corpus may occur when the fetus is drawn into the lower uterine segment, where compression and traction against the endoeervix facilitates disarticulation”).

Even if the statute’s basic aim is to ban D&X, its language makes clear that it also covers a much broader category of procedures. The language does not track the medical differences between D&E and D&X — though it would have been a simple matter, for example, to provide an exception for the performance of D&E and other abortion procedures. E. g., Kan. Stat. Ann. §65-6721(b)(l) (Supp. 1999). Nor does the statute anywhere suggest that its application turns on whether a'portion of the fetus’ body is drawn into the vagina as part of a process to extract an intact fetus after collapsing the head as opposed to a process that would dismember the fetus. Thus, the dissenters’ argument that the law was generally intended to bar D&X can be both correct and irrelevant. The relevant question is not whether the legislature wanted to ban D&X; it is whether the law was intended to apply only to D&X. The plain language covers both procedures. A rereading of this opinion, supra, at 924-929, as *940well as Justice Thomas’ dissent, post, at 984-987, will make clear why we can find no difference, in terms of this statute, between the D&X procedure as described and the D&E procedure as it might be performed. (In particular, compare post, at 984-986 (THOMAS, J., dissenting), with post, at 986-989 (Thomas, J., dissenting).) Both procedures can involve the introduction of a “substantial portion” of a still living fetus, through the cervix, into the vagina — the very feature of an abortion that leads Justice Thomas to characterize such a procedure as involving “partial birth.”

The Nebraska State Attorney General argues that the statute does differentiate between the two procedures. He says that the statutory words “substantial portion” mean “the child up to the head.” He consequently denies the statute’s application where the physician introduces into the birth canal a fetal arm or leg or anything less than the entire fetal body. Brief for Petitioners 20. He argues further that we must defer to his views about the meaning of the state statute. Id., at 12-13.

We cannot accept the Attorney General’s narrowing interpretation of the Nebraska statute. This Court’s case law makes clear that we are not to give the Attorney General’s interpretative views controlling weight. For one thing, this Court normally follows lower federal-court interpretations of state law. McMillian v. Monroe County, 520 U. S. 781, 786 (1997); Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U. S. 491, 500, n. 9 (1985). It “rarely reviews a construction of state law agreed upon by the two lower federal courts.” Virginia v. American Booksellers Assn., Inc., 484 U. S. 383, 395 (1988). In this ease, the two lower courts have both rejected the Attorney General’s narrowing interpretation.

For another, our precedent warns against accepting as “authoritative” an Attorney General’s interpretation of state law when “the Attorney General does not bind the state courts or local law enforcement authorities.” Ibid. *941Under Nebraska law, the Attorney General’s interpretative views do not bind the state courts. State v. Coffman, 213 Neb. 560, 561, 330 N. W. 2d 727, 728 (1983) (Attorney General’s issued opinions, while entitled to “substantial weight” and “to be respectfully considered,” are of “no controlling authority”). Nor apparently do they bind elected county attorneys, to whom Nebraska gives an independent authority to initiate criminal prosecutions. Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§23-1201(1), 28-328(5), 84-205(3) (Supp. 1999); cf. Crandon v. United States, 494 U. S. 152, 177 (1990) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (“[W]e have never thought that the interpretation of those charged with prosecuting criminal statutes is entitled to deference”).

Nor can we say that the lower courts used the wrong legal standard in assessing the Attorney General’s interpretation. The Eighth Circuit recognized its “duty to give [the law] a construction . . . that would avoid constitutional doubts.” 192 F. 3d, at 1150. It nonetheless concluded that the Attorney General’s interpretation would “twist the words of the law and give them a meaning they cannot reasonably bear.” Ibid. The Eighth Circuit is far from alone in rejecting such a narrowing interpretation. The language in question is based on model statutory language (though some States omit any further definition of “partial birth abortion”), which 10 lower federal courts have considered on the merits. All 10 of those courts (including the Eighth Circuit) have found the language potentially applicable to other abortion procedures. See Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa, Inc. v. Miller, 195 F. 3d 386 (CA8 1999); Little Rock Family Planning Services v. Jegley, 192 F. 3d 794, 797-798 (CA8 1999); Hope Clinic, 195 F. 3d, at 865-871 (imposing precautionary injunction to prevent application beyond D&X); id., at 885-889 (Posner, C. J., dissenting); Rhode Island Medical Soc., 66 F. Supp. 2d, at 309-310; Richmond Medical Center for Women, 55 *942F. Supp. 2d, at 471; A Choice for Women, 54 F. Supp. 2d, at 1155; Causeway Medical Suite, 43 F. Supp. 2d, at 614-615; Planned Parenthood of Central N. J. v. Verniero, 41 F. Supp. 2d 478, 503-504 (NJ 1998); Eubanks v. Stengel, 28 F. Supp. 2d 1024, 1034-1035 (WD Ky. 1998); Planned Parenthood of Southern Ariz., Inc. v. Woods, 982 F. Supp. 2d 1369, 1378 (Ariz. 1997); Kelley, 977 F. Supp. 2d, at 1317; but ef. Richmond Medical Center v. Gilmore, 144 F. 3d 326, 330-332 (CA4 1998) (Luttig, J., granting stay).

Regardless, even were we to grant the Attorney General’s views "substantial weight,” we still have to reject his interpretation, for it conflicts with the statutory language discussed supra, at 940. The Attorney General, echoed by the dissents, tries to overcome that language by relying on other language in the statute; in particular, the words "partial birth abortion,” a term ordinarily associated with the D&X procedure, and the words “partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child.” Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-326(9) (Supp. 1999). But these words cannot help the Attorney General. They are subject to the statute’s further explicit statutory definition, specifying that both terms include “delivering into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof.” Ibid. When a statute includes an explicit definition, we must follow that definition, even if it varies from that term’s ordinary meaning. Meese v. Keene, 481 U. S. 465, 484-485 (1987) (“It is axiomatic that the statutory definition of the term excludes unstated meanings of that term”); Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U. S., at 392-393, n. 10 (“As a rule, ‘a definition which declares what a term “means” . . . excludes any meaning that is not stated’”); Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Lenroot, 323 U. S. 490, 502 (1945); Fox v. Standard Oil Co. of N. J., 294 U. S. 87, 95-96 (1935) (Cardozo, J.); see also 2A N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutes and Statutory Construction §47.07, p. 152, and n. 10 (5th ed. 1992) (collecting eases). That is to say, the statute, read “as a whole,” post, at 998 *943(Thomas, J., dissenting), leads the reader to a definition. That definition does not include the Attorney General’s restriction — “the child up to the head.” Its words, “substantial portion,” indicate the contrary.

The Attorney General also points to the Nebraska Legislature’s debates, where the term “partial birth abortion” appeared frequently. But those debates hurt his argument more than they help it. Nebraska’s legislators focused directly upon the meaning of the word “substantial.” One senator asked the bill’s sponsor, “[Y]ou said that as small a portion of the fetus as a foot would constitute a substantial portion in your opinion. Is that correct?.” The sponsoring senator replied, “Yes, I believe that’s correct.” App. 452-453; see also id., at 442-443 (same senator explaining “substantial” would “indicate that more than a little bit has been delivered into the vagina,” i. e., “[e]nough that would allow for the procedure to end up with the killing of the unborn child”); id., at 404 (rejecting amendment to limit law to D&X). The legislature seems to have wanted to avoid more limiting language lest it become too easy to evade the statute’s strictures — a motive that Justice Thomas well explains. Post, at 1001-1003. That goal, however, exacerbates the problem.

The Attorney General, again echoed by the dissents, further argues that the statute “distinguishes between the overall ‘abortion procedure’ itself and the separate ‘procedure’ used to kill the unborn child.” Brief for Petitioners 16-18; post, at 991-992 (opinion of Thomas, J.), 975-976 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). Even assuming that the distinction would help the Attorney General make the D&E/ D&X distinction he seeks, however, we cannot find any language in the statute that supports it. He wants us to read “procedure” in the statute’s last sentence to mean “separate procedure,” i. e., the killing of the fetus, as opposed to a whole procedure, i. e., a D&E or D&X abortion. But the critical word “separate” is missing. And the same *944word “procedure,” in the same subsection and throughout the statute, is used to refer to an entire abortion procedure. Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§28-326(9), 28—328(1)—(4) (Supp. 1999); cf. Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U. S. 561, 579 (1995) (“[Ijdentieal words used in different parts of the same act are intended to have the same meaning” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

The dissenters add that the statutory words “partially delivers” can be read to exclude B&E. Post, at 990-991 (opinion of Thomas, J.), 974 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). They say that introduction of, say, a limb or both limbs into the vagina does not involve “delivery.” But obstetric textbooks and even dictionaries routinely use that term to describe any facilitated removal of tissue from the uterus, not only the removal of an intact fetus. E. g., Obstetrics: Normal & Problem Pregnancies, at 388 (describing “delivery” of fetal membranes, placenta, and umbilical cord in the third stage of labor); B. Maloy, Medical Dictionary for Lawyers 221 (3d ed. 1960) (“Also, the removal of a [fetal] part such as the placenta”); 4 Oxford English Dictionary 422 (2d ed. 1989) (to “deliver” means, inter alia, to “dis-burden (a women) of the foetus”); Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1993) (“ff)]elivery” means “the expulsion or extraction of a fetus and its membranes”). In any event, the statute itself specifies that it applies both to delivering “an intact unborn child” or “a substantial portion thereof.” The dissents cannot explain how introduction of a substantial portion of a fetus into the vagina pursuant to D&X is a “delivery,” while introduction pursuant to D&E is not.

We are aware that adopting the Attorney General’s interpretation might avoid the constitutional problem discussed in this section. But we are “without power to adopt a narrowing construction of a state statute unless such a construction is reasonable and readily apparent.” Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 312, 330 (1988); Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U. S. 518, 520-*945521 (1972). For the reasons stated, it is not reasonable to replace the term “substantial portion” with the Attorney General’s phrase “body up to the head.” See Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U. S. 224, 237-239 (1998) (statute must be “genuinely susceptible” to two interpretations).

Finally, the law does not require us to certify the state-law question to the Nebraska Supreme Court. Of course, we lack any authoritative state-court construction. But “we have never held that a federal litigant must await a state-court construction or the development of an established practice before bringing the federal suit.” City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co., 486 U. S. 750, 770, n. 11 (1988). The Attorney General did not seek a narrowing interpretation from the Nebraska Supreme Court nor did he ask the federal courts to certify the interpretive question. See Brief for State Appellants in Nos. 98-3245 and 98-3300 (CA8); cf. Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 520 U. S. 43 (1997). Even if we were inclined to certify the question now, we cannot do so. Certification of a question (or abstention) is appropriate only where the statute is “fairly susceptible” to a narrowing construction, see Houston v. Hill, 482 U. S. 451, 468-471 (1987). We believe it is not. Moreover, the Nebraska Supreme Court grants certification only if the certified question is “determinative of the cause.” Neb. Rev. Stat. §24-219 (1995); see also Houston v. Hill, supra, at 471 (“It would be manifestly inappropriate to certify a question in a ease where . . . there is no uncertain question of state law whose resolution might affect the pending federal claim”). Here, it would not be determinative, in light of the discussion in Part II-A, supra.

In sum, using this law some present prosecutors and future Attorneys General may choose to pursue physicians who use D&E procedures, the most commonly used method for performing previability second trimester abortions. All those who perform abortion procedures using that method must fear prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment. The *946result is an undue burden upon a woman’s right to make an abortion decision. We must consequently find the statute unconstitutional.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

Justice Stevens,

with whom Justice Ginsburg joins, concurring.

Although much ink is spilled today describing the gruesome nature of late-term abortion procedures, that rhetoric does not provide me a reason to believe that the procedure Nebraska here claims it seeks to ban is more brutal, more gruesome, or less respectful of “potential life” than the equally gruesome procedure Nebraska claims it still allows. Justice Ginsburg and Judge Posner have, I believe, correctly diagnosed the underlying reason for the enactment of this legislation — a reason that also explains much of the Court’s rhetoric directed at an objective that extends well beyond the narrow issue that this case presents. The rhetoric is almost, but not quite, loud enough to obscure the quiet fact that during the past 27 years, the central holding of Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), has been endorsed by all but 4 of the 17 Justices who have addressed the issue. That holding — that the word “liberty” in the Fourteenth Amendment includes a woman’s right to make this difficult and extremely personal decision — makes it impossible for me to understand how a State has any legitimate interest in requiring a doctor to follow any procedure other than the one that he or she reasonably believes will best protect the woman in her exercise of this constitutional liberty. But one need not even approach this view today to conclude that Nebraska’s law must fall. For the notion that either of these two equally gruesome procedures performed at this late stage of gestation is more akin to infanticide than the other, or that the State furthers any legitimate interest by banning one but *947not the other, is simply irrational. See U. S. Const., Amdt. 14.

Justice O’Connor,

concurring.

The issue of abortion is one of the most contentious and controversial in contemporary American society. It presents extraordinarily difficult questions that, as the Court recognizes, involve “virtually irreconcilable points of view.” Ante, at 921. The specific question we face today is whether Nebraska’s attempt to proscribe a particular method of abortion, commonly known as “partial birth abortion,” is constitutional. For the reasons stated in the Court’s opinion, I agree that Nebraska’s statute cannot be reconciled with our decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 838 (1992), and is therefore unconstitutional. I write separately to emphasize the following points.

First, the Nebraska statute is inconsistent with Casey because it lacks an exception for those instances when the banned procedure is necessary to preserve the health of the mother. See id., at 879 (plurality opinion). Importantly, Nebraska’s own statutory scheme underscores this constitutional infirmity. As we held in Casey, prior to viability “the woman has a right to choose to terminate her pregnancy.” Id., at 870. After the fetus has become viable, States may substantially regulate and even proscribe abortion, but any such regulation or proscription must contain an exception for instances “‘where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.’ ” Id., at 879 (quoting Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 165 (1973)). Nebraska has recognized this constitutional limitation in its separate statute generally proscribing postviability abortions. See Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-329 (Supp. 1999). That statute provides that “[n]o abortion shall be performed after the time at which, in the sound medical judgment of the attending physician, the unborn child clearly appears to have reached viability, except when necessary to *948preserve the life or health of the mother” Ibid, (emphasis added). Because even a postviability proscription of abortion would be invalid absent a health exception, Nebraska’s ban on previability partial birth abortions, under the circumstances presented here, must include a health exception as well, since the State’s interest in regulating abortions before viability is “considerably weaker” than after viability. Ante, at 930. The statute at issue here, however, only excepts those procedures “necessary to save the life of the mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury.” Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-328(1) (Supp. 1999). This lack of a health exception necessarily renders the statute unconstitutional.

Contrary to the assertions of Justice Kennedy and Justice Thomas, the need for a health exception does not arise from “the individual views of Dr. Carhart and his supporters.” Post, at 969 (Kennedy, J., dissenting); see also post, at 1012-1013 (Thomas, J., dissenting). Rather, as the majority explains, where, as here, “a significant body of medical opinion believes a procedure may bring with it greater safety for some patients and explains the medical reasons supporting that view,” ante, at 937, then Nebraska cannot say that the procedure will not, in some circumstances, be “necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.” Accordingly, our precedent requires that the statute include a health exception.

Second, Nebraska’s statute is unconstitutional on the alternative and independent ground that it imposes an undue burden on a woman’s right to choose to terminate her pregnancy before viability. Nebraska’s ban covers not just the dilation and extraction (D&X) procedure, but also the dilation and evacuation (D&E) procedure, “the most commonly used method for performing previability second trimester abortions.” Ante, at 946. The statute defines the banned procedure as “deliberately and intentionally delivering into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion *949thereof, for the purpose of performing a procedure that the person performing such procedure knows will kill the unborn child and does kill the unborn child.” Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-326(9) (Supp. 1999) (emphasis added). As the Court explains, the medical evidence establishes that the D&E procedure is included in this definition. Thus, it is not possible to interpret the statute’s language as applying only to the D&X procedure. Moreover, it is significant that both the District Court and the Court of Appeals interpreted the statute as prohibiting abortions performed using the D&E method as well as the D&X method. See 192 P. 3d 1142, 1150 (CA8 1999); 11 F. Supp. 2d 1099,1127-1131 (Neb. 1998). We have stated on several occasions that we ordinarily defer to the construction of a state statute given it by the lower federal courts unless such a construction amounts to plain error. See, e. g., Bishop v. Wood, 426 U. S. 341, 346 (1976) (“[T]his Court has accepted the interpretation of state law in which the District Court and the Court of Appeals have concurred even if an examination of the state-law issue without such guidance might have justified a different conclusion”); The Tungus v. Skovgaard, 358 U. S. 588,596 (1959). Such deference is not unique to the abortion context, but applies generally to state statutes addressing all areas of the law. See, e. g., UNUM Life Ins. Co. of America v. Ward, 526 U. S. 358, 368 (1999) ("notice-prejudice” rule in state insurance law); Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U. S. 491, 499 (1985) (moral nuisance law); Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U. S. 160, 181 (1976) (statute of limitations for personal injury actions); Bishop v. Wood, supra, at 346, n. 10 (city employment ordinance). Given this construction, the statute is impermissible. Indeed, Nebraska conceded at oral argument that “the State could not prohibit the D&E procedure.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 10. By proscribing the most commonly used method for previabiHty second trimester abortions, see ante, at 924, the statute creates a “substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion,” Casey, supra, at 884, and therefore imposes *950an undue burden on a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy prior to viability.

It is important to note that, unlike Nebraska, some other States have enacted statutes more narrowly tailored to proscribing the D&X procedure alone. Some of those statutes have done so by specifically excluding from their coverage the most common methods of abortion, such as the D&E and vacuum aspiration procedures. For example, the Kansas statute states that its ban does not apply to the “(A) [s]uction curettage abortion procedure; (B) suction aspiration abortion procedure; or (C) dilation and evacuation abortion procedure involving dismemberment of the fetus prior to removal from the body of the pregnant woman.” Kan. Stat. Ann. §65-6721(b)(2) (Supp. 1998). The Utah statute similarly provides that its prohibition “does not include the dilation and evacuation procedure involving dismemberment prior to removal, the suction curettage procedure, or the suction aspiration procedure for abortion.” Utah Code Ann. §76-7-310.5(l)(a) (1999). Likewise, the Montana statute defines the banned procedure as one in which “(A) the living fetus is removed intact from the uterus until only the head remains in the uterus; (B) all or a part of the intracranial contents of the fetus are evacuated; (C) the head of the fetus is compressed; and (D) following fetal demise, the fetus is removed from the birth canal.” Mont. Code Ann. § 50-20-401(3)(e)(ii) (Supp. 1999). By restricting their prohibitions to the D&X procedure exclusively, the Kansas, Utah, and Montana statutes avoid a principal defect of the Nebraska law.

If Nebraska’s statute limited its application to the D&X procedure and included an exception for the life and health of the mother, the question presented would be quite different from the one we face today. As we held in Casey, an abortion regulation constitutes an undue burden if it “has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus.” *951505 U. S., at 877. If there were adequate alternative methods for a woman safely to obtain an abortion before viability, it is unlikely that prohibiting the D&X procedure alone would “amount in practical terms to a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion.” Id., at 884. Thus, a ban on partial birth abortion that only proscribed the D&X method of abortion and that included an exception to preserve the life and health of the mother would be constitutional in my view.

Nebraska’s statute, however, does not meet these criteria. It contains no exception for when the procedure, in appropriate medical judgment, is necessary to preserve the health of the mother; and it proscribes not only the D&X procedure but also the D&E procedure, the most commonly used method for previability second trimester abortions, thus making it an undue burden on a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy. For these reasons, I agree with the Court that Nebraska’s law is unconstitutional.

Justice Ginsburg,

with whom Justice Stevens joins, concurring.

I write separately only to stress that amidst all the emotional uproar caused by an abortion ease, we should not lose sight of the character of Nebraska’s “partial birth abortion” law. As the Court observes, this law does not save any fetus from destruction, for it targets only “a method of performing abortion.” Ante, at 930. Nor does the statute seek to protect the lives or health of pregnant women. Moreover, as Justice Stevens points out, ante, at 946 (concurring opinion), the most common method of performing previability second trimester abortions is no less distressing or susceptible to gruesome description. Seventh Circuit Chief Judge Posner correspondingly observed, regarding similar bans in Wisconsin and Illinois, that the law prohibits the D&X procedure “not because the procedure kills the fetus, not because it risks worse complications for the woman *952than alternative procedures would do, not because it is a erueler or more painful or more disgusting method of terminating a pregnancy.” Hope Clinic v. Ryan, 195 F. 3d 857, 881 (CA7 1999) (dissenting opinion). Rather, Chief Judge Posner commented, the law prohibits the procedure because the state legislators seek to chip away at the private choice shielded by Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), even as modified by Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992). 195 F. 3d, at 880-882.

A state regulation that “has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus” violates the Constitution. Casey, 505 U. S., at 877 (plurality opinion). Such an obstacle exists if the State stops a woman from choosing the procedure her doctor “reasonably believes will best protect the woman in [the] exercise of [her] constitutional liberty.” Ante, at 946 (Stevens, J., concurring); see Casey, 505 U. S., at 877 (“means chosen by the State to further the interest in potential life must be calculated to inform the woman’s free choice, not hinder it”). Again as stated by Chief Judge Posner, “if a statute burdens constitutional rights and all that can be said on its behalf is that it is the vehicle that legislators have chosen for expressing their hostility to those rights, the burden is undue.” Hope Clinic, 195 F. 3d, at 881.

CHIEF Justice Rehnquist,

dissenting.

I did not join the joint opinion in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992), and continue to believe that ease is wrongly decided. Despite my disagreement with the opinion, under the rule laid down in Marks v. United States, 430 U. S. 188, 193 (1977), the Casey joint opinion represents the holding of the Court in that case. I believe Justice Kennedy and Justice Thomas have correctly applied Casey]s principles and join their dissenting opinions.

*953Justice Scalia,

dissenting.

I am optimistic enough to believe that, one day, Stenberg v. Carhart will be assigned its rightful place in the history of this Court’s jurisprudence beside Korematsu and Dred Scott. The method of killing a human child — one cannot even accurately say an entirely unborn human child — proscribed by this statute is so horrible that the most clinical description of it evokes a shudder of revulsion. And the Court must know (as most state legislatures banning this procedure have concluded) that demanding a “health exception” — which requires the abortionist to assure himself that, in his expert medical judgment, this method is, in the case at hand, marginally safer than others (how can one prove the contrary beyond a reasonable doubt?) — is to give live-birth abortion free rein. The notion that the Constitution of the United States, designed, among other things, “to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, . . . and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” prohibits the States from simply banning this visibly brutal means of eliminating our half-born posterity is quite simply absurd.

Even so, I had not intended to write separately here until the focus of the other separate writings (including the one I have joined) gave me cause to fear that this case might be taken to stand for an error different from the one that it actually exemplifies. Because of the Court’s practice of publishing dissents in the order of the seniority of their authors, this writing will appear in the United States Reports before those others, but the reader will not comprehend what follows unless he reads them first.

* * *

The two lengthy dissents in this case have, appropriately enough, set out to establish that today’s result does not follow from this Court’s most recent pronouncement on the matter of abortion, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 883 (1992). It would be unfortunate, how*954ever, if those who disagree with the result were induced to regard it as merely a regrettable misapplication of Casey. It is not that, but is Casey’s logical and entirely predictable consequence. To be sure, the Court’s construction of this statute so as to make it include procedures other than live-birth abortion involves not only a disregard of fair meaning, but an abandonment of the principle that even ambiguous statutes should be interpreted in such fashion as to render them valid rather than void. Casey does not permit that jurisprudential novelty — -which must be chalked up to the Court’s inclination to bend the rules when any effort to limit abortion, or even to speak in opposition to abortion, is at issue. It is of a piece, in other words, with Hill v. Colorado, ante, p. 703, also decided today.

But the Court gives a second and independent reason for invalidating this humane (not to say antibarbarian) law: That it fails to allow an exception for the situation in which the abortionist believes that this live-birth method of destroying the child might be safer for the woman. (As pointed out by Justice Thomas, and elaborated upon by Justice Kennedy, there is no good reason to believe this is ever the case, but — who knows? — it sometime might be.)

I have joined Justice Thomas’s dissent because I agree that today’s decision is an “unprecedented expansio[n]” of our prior cases, post, at 1012, “is not mandated” by Casey’s “undue-burden” test, post, at 1010, and can even be called (though this pushes me to the limit of my belief) “obviously irreconcilable with Casey’s explication of what its undue-burden standard requires,” post, at 983. But I never put much stock in Casey’s explication of the inexplicable. In the last analysis, my judgment that Casey does not supp'ort today’s tragic result can be traced to the fact that what I consider to be an “undue burden” is different from what the majority considers to be an “undue burden” — a conclusion that cannot be demonstrated true or false by factual inquiry or legal reasoning. It is a value judgment, dependent upon how much one respects (or believes society ought to respect) *955the life of a partially delivered fetus, and how much one respects (or believes society ought to respect) the freedom of the woman who gave it life to kill it. Evidently, the five Justices in today’s majority value the former less, or the latter more, (or both), than the four of us in dissent. Case closed. There is no cause for anyone who believes in Casey to feel betrayed by this outcome. It has been arrived at by precisely the process Casey promised — a democratic vote by nine lawyers, not on the question whether the text of the Constitution has anything to say about this subject (it obviously does not); nor even on the question (also appropriate for lawyers) whether the legal traditions of the American people would have sustained such a limitation upon abortion (they obviously would); but upon the pure policy question whether this limitation upon abortion is “undue” — i. e., goes too far.

In my dissent in Casey, I wrote that the “undue burden” test made law by the joint opinion created a standard that was “as doubtful in application as it is unprincipled in origin,” Casey, 505 U. S., at 985; “hopelessly unworkable in practice,” id., at 986; “ultimately standardless,” id., at 987. Today’s decision is the proof. As long as we are debating this issue of necessity for a health-of-the-mother exception on the basis of Casey, it is really quite impossible for us dissenters to contend that the majority is wrong on the law— any more than it could be said that one is wrong in law to support or oppose the death penalty, or to support or oppose mandatory minimum sentences. The most that we can honestly say is that we disagree with the majority on their poliey-judgment-eouched-as-law. And those who believe that a 5-to-4 vote on a policy matter by unelected lawyers should not overcome the judgment of 80 state legislatures have a problem, not with the application of Casey, but with its existence. Casey must be overruled.

While I am in an I-told-you-so mood, I must recall my bemusement, in Casey, at the majority opinion’s expressed be*956lief that Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 133 (1973), had “eall[ed] the contending sides of a national controversy to end their national division by accepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitution,” Casey, 505 U. S., at 867, and that the decision in Casey would ratify that happy truce. It seemed to me, quite to the contrary, that “Roe fanned into life an issue that has inflamed our national politics in general, and has obscured with its smoke the selection of Justices to this Court in particular, ever since”; and that, “by keeping us in the abortion-umpiring business, it is the perpetuation of that disruption, rather than of any Pax Roeana, that the Court’s new majority decrees.” Id., at 995-996. Today’s decision, that the Constitution of the United States prevents the prohibition of a horrible mode of abortion, will be greeted by a firestorm of criticism — as well it should. I cannot understand why those who acknowledge that, in the opening words of Justice O’Connor’s concurrence, “[t]he issue of abortion is one of the most contentious and controversial in contemporary American society,” ante, at 947, persist in the belief that this Court, armed with neither constitutional text nor accepted tradition, can resolve that contention and controversy rather than be consumed by it. If only for the sake of its own preservation, the Court should return this matter to the people — where the Constitution, by its silence on the subject, left it — and let them decide, State by State, whether this practice should be allowed. Casey must be overruled.

Justice Kennedy,

with whom The ChieF Justice joins, dissenting.

For close to two decades after Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), the Court gave but slight weight to the interests of the separate States when their legislatures sought to address persisting concerns raised by the existence of a woman’s right to elect an abortion in defined circumstances. When the Court reaffirmed the essential holding of Roe, a central premise was that the States retain a critical and legitimate *957role in legislating on the subject of abortion, as limited by the woman’s right the Court restated and again guaranteed. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 838 (1992). The political processes of the State are not to be foreclosed from enacting laws to promote the life of the unborn and to ensure respect for all human life and its potential. Id., at 871 (plurality opinion). The State’s constitutional authority is a vital means for citizens to address these grave and serious issues, as they must if we are to progress in knowledge and understanding and in the attainment of some degree of consensus.

The Court’s decision today, in my submission, repudiates this understanding by invalidating a statute advancing critical state interests, even though the law denies no woman the right to choose an abortion and places no undue burden upon the right. The legislation is well within the State’s competence to enact. Having concluded Nebraska’s law survives the scrutiny dictated by a proper understanding of Casey, I dissent from the judgment invalidating it.

I

The Court’s failure to accord any weight to Nebraska’s interest in prohibiting partial birth abortion is erroneous and undermines its discussion and holding. The Court’s approach in this regard is revealed by its description of the abortion methods at issue, which the Court is correct to describe as “clinically cold or callous.” Ante, at 928. The majority views the procedures from the perspective of the abortionist, rather than from the perspective of a society shocked when confronted with a new method of ending human life. Words invoked by the majority, such as “transcervical procedures,” “[ojsmotie dilators,” “instrumental disarticulation,” and “paracervical block,” may be accurate and are to some extent necessary, ante, at 924-925; but for citizens who seek to know why laws on this subject have been enacted across the Nation, the words are insufficient. Repeated references *958to sources understandable only to a trained physician may obscure matters for persons not trained in medical terminology. Thus it seems necessary at the outset to set forth what may happen during an abortion.

The person challenging Nebraska’s law is Dr. Leroy Car-hart, a physician who received his medical degree from Hahnemann Hospital and University in 1973. App. 29. Dr. Carhart performs the procedures in a clinic in Nebraska, id., at 30, and will also travel to Ohio to perform abortions there, id., at 86. Dr. Cai’hart has no specialty certifications in a field related to childbirth or abortion and lacks admitting privileges at any hospital. Id., at 82, 83. He performs abortions throughout pregnancy, including when he is unsure whether the fetus is viable. Id., at 116. In contrast to the physicians who provided expert testimony in this ease (who are board certified instructors at leading medical education institutions and members of the American Board of Obstetricians and Gynecologists), Dr. Carhart performs the partial birth abortion procedure (B&X) that Nebraska seeks to ban. He also performs the other method of abortion at issue in the ease, the D&E.

As described by Dr. Carhart, the D&E procedure requires the abortionist to. use instruments to grasp a portion (such as a foot or hand) of a developed and living fetus and drag the grasped portion out of the uterus into the vagina. Id., at 61. Dr. Carhart uses the traction created by the opening between the uterus and vagina to dismember the fetus, tearing the grasped portion away from the remainder of the body. Ibid. The traction between the uterus and vagina is essential to the procedure because attempting to abort a fetus without using that traction is described by Dr. Carhart as “pulling the cat’s tail” or “dragtging] a string across the floor, you’ll just keep dragging it. It’s not until something grabs the other end that you are going to develop traction.” Id., at 62. The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from *959limb. Id., at 63. The fetus can be alive at the beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time while its limbs are being torn off. Dr. Carhart agreed that “[w]hen you pull out a piece of the fetus, let’s say, an arm or a leg and remove that, at the time just prior to removal of the portion of the fetus,... the fetus [is] alive.” Id., at 62. Dr. Carhart has observed fetal heartbeat via ultrasound with “extensive parts of the fetus removed,” id., at 64, and testified that mere dismemberment of a limb does not always cause death because he knows of a physician who removed the arm of a fetus only to have the fetus go on to be born “as a living child with one arm.” Id., at 63. At the conclusion of a D&E abortion no intact fetus remains. In Dr. Carhart’s words, the abortionist is left with “a tray full of pieces.” Id., at 125.

The other procedure implicated today is called “partial birth abortion” or the D&X. The D&X can be used, as a general matter, after 19 weeks’ gestation because the fetus has become so developed that it may survive intact partial delivery from the uterus into the vagina. Id., at 61. In the D&X, the abortionist initiates the woman’s natural delivery process by causing the cervix of the woman to be dilated, sometimes over a sequence of days. Id., at 492. The fetus’ arms and legs are delivered outside the uterus while the fetus is alive; witnesses to the procedure report seeing the body of the fetus moving outside the woman’s body. Brief for Petitioners 4. At this point, the abortion procedure has the appearance of a live birth. As stated by one group of physicians, “[a]s the physician manually performs breech extraction of the body of a live fetus, excepting the head, she continues in the apparent role of an obstetrician delivering a child.” Brief for Association of American Physicians and Surgeons et al. as Amici Curiae 27. With only the head of the fetus remaining in útero, the abortionist tears open the skull. According to Dr. Martin Haskell, a leading proponent of the procedure, the appropriate instrument to be used at *960this stage of the abortion is a pair of scissors. M. Haskell, Dilation and Extraction for Late Second Trimester Abortion (1992), in 139 Cong. Ree. 8605 (1993). Witnesses report observing the portion of the fetus outside the woman react to the skull penetration. Brief for Petitioners 4. The abortionist then inserts a suction tube and vacuums out the developing brain and other matter found within the skull. The process of making the size of the fetus’ head smaller is given the clinically neutral term “reduction procedure.” 11 F. Supp. 2d 1099, 1106 (Neb. 1998). Brain death does not occur until after the skull invasion, and, according to Dr. Carhart, the heart of the fetus may continue to beat for minutes after the contents of the skull are vacuumed out. App. 58. The abortionist next completes the delivery of a dead fetus, intact except for the damage to the head and the missing contents of the skull.

Of the two described procedures, Nebraska seeks only to ban the D&X. In light of the description of the D&X procedure, it should go without saying that Nebraska’s ban on partial birth abortion furthers purposes States are entitled to pursue. Dr. Carhart nevertheless maintains the State has no legitimate interest in forbidding the D&X. As he interprets the controlling cases in this Court, the only two interests the State may advance through regulation of abortion are in the health of the woman who is considering the procedure and in the life of the fetus she carries. Brief for Respondent 45. The Court, as I read its opinion, accedes to his views, misunderstanding Casey and the authorities it confirmed.

Casey held that eases decided in the wake of Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), had “given [state interests] too little acknowledgment and implementation.” 505 U. S., at 871 (plurality opinion). The decision turned aside any contention that a person has the “right to decide whether to have an abortion without interference from the State,’” id., at 875, and rejected a strict scrutiny standard of review as “in*961compatible with the recognition that there is a substantial state interest in potential life throughout pregnancy.” Id., at 876. “The very notion that the State has a substantial interest in potential life leads to the conclusion that not all regulations must be deemed unwarranted.” Ibid. We held it was inappropriate for the Judicial Branch to provide an exhaustive list of state interests implicated by abortion. Id., at 877.

Casey is premised on the States having an important constitutional role in defining their interests in the abortion debate. It is only with this principle in mind that Nebraska’s interests can be given proper weight. The State’s brief describes its interests as including concern for the life of the unborn and “for the partially-born,” in preserving the integrity of the medical profession, and in “erecting a barrier to infanticide.” Brief for Petitioners 48-49. A review of Casey demonstrates the legitimacy of these policies. The Court should say so.

States may take sides in the abortion debate and come down on the side of life, even life in the unborn:

“Even in the earliest stages of pregnancy, the State may enact rules and regulations designed to encourage [a woman] to know that there are philosophic and social arguments of great weight that can be brought to bear in favor of continuing the pregnancy to full term and that there are procedures and institutions to allow adoption of unwanted children as well as a certain degree of state assistance if the mother chooses to raise the child herself.” 505 U. S., at 872 (plurality opinion).

States also have an interest in forbidding medical procedures which, in the State’s reasonable determination, might cause the medical profession or society as a whole to become insensitive, even disdainful, to life, including life in the human fetus. Abortion, Casey held, has consequences beyond the woman and her fetus. The States’ interests in reg*962ulating are of concomitant extension. Casey recognized that abortion is “fraught with consequences for .. . the persons who perform and assist in the procedure [and for] society which must confront the knowledge that these procedures exist, procedures some deem nothing short of an act of violence against innocent human life.” Id., at 852 (majority opinion).

A State may take measures to ensure the medical profession and its members are viewed as healers, sustained by a compassionate and rigorous ethic and cognizant of the dignity and value of human life, even life which cannot survive without the assistance of others. Ibid.; Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 730-734 (1997).

Casey demonstrates that the interests asserted by the State are legitimate and recognized by law. It is argued, however, that a ban on the D&X does not farther these interests. This is because, the reasoning continues, the D&E method, whieh Nebraska claims to be beyond its intent to regulate, can still be used to abort a fetus and is no less dehumanizing than the D&X method. While not adopting the argument in express terms, the Court indicates tacit approval of it by refusing to reject it in a forthright manner. Rendering express what is only implicit in the majority opinion, Justice Stevens.and Justice Ginsburg are forthright in declaring that the two procedures are indistinguishable and that Nebraska has acted both irrationally and without a proper purpose in enacting the law. The issue is not whether members of the judiciary can see a difference between the two procedures. It is whether Nebraska can. The Court’s refusal to recognize Nebraska’s right to declare a moral difference between the procedures is a dispiriting disclosure of the illogic and illegitimacy of the Court’s approach to the entire ease.

Nebraska was entitled to find the existence of a consequential moral difference between the procedures. We are referred to substantial medical authority that D&X perverts *963the natural birth process to a greater degree than D&E, commandeering the live birth process until the skull is pierced. American Medical Association (AMA) publications describe the D&X abortion method as “ethically wrong.” AMA Board of Trustees Pactsheet on HR 1122 (June 1997), in App. to Brief for Association of American Physicians and Surgeons et al. as Amici Curiae 1 (AMA Pactsheet). The D&X differs from the D&E because in the D&X the fetus is “killed outside of the womb” where the fetus has “an autonomy which separates it from the right of the woman to choose treatments for her own body.” Ibid.; see also App. 639-640; Brief for Association of American Physicians and Surgeons et al. as Amici Curiae 27 (“Intact D&X is aberrant and troubling because the technique confuses the disparate role of a physician in childbirth and abortion in such a way as to blur the medical, legal, and ethical line between infanticide and abortion”). Witnesses to the procedure relate that the fingers and feet of the fetus are moving prior to the piercing of the skull; when the scissors are inserted in the back of the head, the fetus’ body, wholly outside the woman’s body and alive, reacts as though startled and goes limp. D&X’s stronger resemblance to infanticide means Nebraska could conclude the procedure presents a greater risk of disrespect for life and a consequent greater risk to the profession and society, which depend for their sustenance upon reciprocal recognition of dignity and respect. The Court is without authority to second-guess this conclusion.

Those who oppose abortion would agree, indeed would insist, that both procedures are subject to the most severe moral condemnation, condemnation reserved for the most repulsive human conduct. This is not inconsistent, however, with the further proposition that as an ethical and moral matter D&X is distinct from D&E and is a more serious concern for medical ethics and the morality of the larger society the medical profession must serve. Nebraska must obey the legal regime which has declared the right of the woman to *964have an abortion before viability. Yet it retains its power to adopt regulations which do not impose an undue burden on the woman’s right. By its regulation, Nebraska instructs all participants in the abortion process, including the mother, of its moral judgment that all life, including the life of the unborn, is to be respected. The participants, Nebraska has determined, cannot be indifferent to the procedure used and must refrain from using the natural delivery process to kill the fetus. The differentiation between the procedures is itself a moral statement, serving to promote respect for human life; and if the woman and her physician in contemplating the moral consequences of the prohibited procedure conclude that grave moral consequences pertain to the permitted abortion process as well, the choice to elect or not to elect abortion is more informed; and the policy of promoting respect for life is advanced.

It ill-serves the Court, its institutional position, and the constitutional sources it seeks to invoke to refuse to issue a forthright affirmation of Nebraska’s right to declare that critical moral differences exist between the two procedures. The natural birth process has been appropriated; yet the Court refuses to hear the State’s voice in defining its interests in its law. The Court’s holding contradicts Casey’s assurance that the State’s constitutional position in the realm of promoting respect for life is more than marginal.

II

Demonstrating a further and basic misunderstanding of Casey, the Court holds the ban on the D&X procedure fails because it does not include an exception permitting an abortionist to perform a D&X whenever he believes it will best preserve the health of the woman. Casting aside, the views of distinguished physicians and the statements of leading medical organizations, the Court awards each physician a veto power over the State’s judgment that the procedures should not be performed. Dr. Carhart has made the medical *965judgment to use the D&X procedure in every ease, regardless of indications, after 15 weeks’ gestation. 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1105. Requiring Nebraska to defer to Dr. Carhart’s judgment is no different from forbidding Nebraska from enacting a ban at all; for it is now Dr. Leroy Carhart who sets abortion policy for the State of Nebraska, not the legislature or the people. Casey does not give precedence to the views of a single physician or a group of physicians regarding the relative safety of a particular procedure.

I am in frill agreement with Justice Thomas that the appropriate Casey inquiry is not, as the Court would have it, whether the State is preventing an abortionist from doing something that, in his medical judgment, he believes to be the most appropriate course of treatment. Post, at 1009-1013. Casey addressed the question “whether the State can resolve .. . philosophic questions [about abortion] in such a definitive way that a woman lacks all choice in the matter.” 505 U. S., at 850. We decided the issue against the State, holding that a woman cannot be deprived of the opportunity to make reproductive decisions. Id., at 860. Casey made it quite evident, however, that the State has substantial concerns for childbirth and the life of the unborn and may enact laws “which in no real sense depriv[e] women of the ultimate decision.” Id., at 875 (plurality opinion). Laws having the “purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus” are prohibited. Id., at 877. Nebraska’s law does not have this purpose or effect.

The holding of Casey, allowing a woman to elect abortion in defined circumstances, is not in question here. Nebraska, however, was entitled to conclude that its ban, while advancing important interests regarding the sanctity of life, deprived no woman of a safe abortion and therefore did not impose a substantial obstacle on the rights of any woman. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) “could identify no circumstances under which [D&X] *966would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.” App. 600-601. The AMA' agrees, stating the “AMA’s expert panel, which included an ACOG representative, could not find ‘any5 identified circumstance where it was ‘the only appropriate alternative.’” AMA Factsheet 1. The Court’s conclusion that the D&X is the safest method requires it to replace the words “may be” with the word “is” in the following sentence from ACOG’s position statement: “An intact D&X, however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance.” App. 600-601.

No studies support the contention that the D&X abortion method is safer than other abortion methods. Brief for Respondent 36, n. 41. Leading proponents of the procedure acknowledge that the D&X has “disadvantages” versus other methods because it requires a high degree of surgical skill to pierce the skull with a sharp instrument in a blind procedure. Haskell, 139 Cong. Rec. 8605 (1993). Other doctors point to complications that may arise from the D&X. Brief for American Physicians and Surgeons et al. as Amici Curiae 21-23; App. 186. A leading physieian, Frank Boehm, M. D., who has performed and supervised abortions as director of the Fetal Intensive Care Unit and the Maternal/Fetal Medicine Division at Vanderbilt University Hospital, has refused to support use of the D&X, both because no medical need for the procedure exists and because of ethical concerns. Id., at 636, 639-640, 656-657. Dr. Boehm, a fellow of ACOG, id., at 565, supports abortion rights and has provided sworn testimony in opposition to previous state attempts to regulate abortion. Id., at 608-614.

The Court cannot conclude the D&X is part of standard medical practice. It is telling that no expert called by Dr. Carhart, and no expert testifying in favor of the procedure, had in fact performed a partial birth abortion in his or her medical practice. E. g., id., at 308 (testimony of Dr. Phillip Stubblefield). In this respect their opinions were *967courtroom conversions of uncertain reliability. Litigation in other jurisdictions establishes that physicians do not adopt the D&X procedure as part of standard medical practice. E. g., Richmond Medical Center for Women v. Gilmore, 144 F. 3d 326, 328 (CA4 1998); Hope Clinic v. Ryan, 195 F. 3d 857, 871 (CA71999); see also App. 603-604. It is quite wrong for the Court to conclude, as it seems to have done here, that Dr. Carhart conforms his practice to the proper standard of care because he has incorporated the procedure into his practice. Neither Dr. Boehm nor Dr. Carhart’s lead expert, Dr. Stubblefield (the chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Boston University School of Medicine and director of obstetrics and gynecology for the Boston Medical Center), has done so.

Substantial evidence supports Nebraska’s conclusion that its law denies no woman a safe abortion. The most to be said for the D&X is it may present an unquantified lower risk of complication for a particular patient but that other proven safe procedures remain available even for this patient. Under these circumstances, the Court is wrong to limit its inquiry to the relative physical safety of the two procedures, with the slightest potential difference requiring the invalidation of the law. As Justice O’Connor explained in an earlier case, the State may regulate based on matters beyond “what various medical organizations have to say about the physical safety of a particular procedure.” Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U. S. 416, 467 (1983) (dissenting opinion). Where the difference in physical safety is, at best, marginal, the State may take into account the grave moral issues presented by a new abortion method. See Casey, 505 U. S., at 880 (requiring a regulation to impose a “significant threat to the life or health of a woman” before its application would impose an undue burden (internal quotation marks omitted)). Dr. Carhart does not decide to use the D&X based on a conclusion that it is best for a particular woman. Unsubstantiated and gen*968eralized health differences which are, at best, marginal, do not amount to a substantial obstacle to the abortion right. Id, at 874, 876 (plurality opinion). It is also important to recognize that the D&X is effective only when the fetus is close to viable or, in fact, viable; thus the State is regulating the process at the point where its interest in life is nearing its peak.

Courts are ill-equipped to evaluate the relative worth of particular surgical procedures. The legislatures of the several States have superior factfinding capabilities in this regard. In an earlier ease, Justice O’Connor had explained that the general rule extends to abortion cases, writing that the Court is not suited to be “the Nation’s ex officio medical board with powers to approve or disapprove medical and operative practices and standards throughout the United States.” 462 U. S., at 456 (dissenting opinion) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Irrespective of the difficulty of the task, legislatures, with their superior factfinding capabilities, are certainly better able to make the necessary judgments than are courts.” Id, at 456, n. 4. Nebraska’s judgment here must stand.

In deferring to the physician’s judgment, the Court turns back to eases decided in the wake of Roe, cases which gave a physician’s treatment decisions controlling weight. Before it was repudiated by Casey, the approach of deferring to physicians had reached its apex in Akron, supra, where the Court held an informed consent requirement was unconstitutional. The law challenged in Akron required the abortionist to inform the woman of the status of her pregnancy, the development of her fetus, the date of possible viability, the physical and emotional complications that may result from an abortion, and the availability of agencies to provide assistance and information. Id, at 442. The physician was also required to advise the woman of the risks associated with the abortion technique to be employed and other information. Ibid. The law was invalidated based on the physi-*969dan’s right to practice medicine in the way he or she saw fit; for, according to the Akron Court, “[i]t remains primarily the responsibility of the physician to ensure that appropriate information is conveyed to his patient, depending on her particular circumstances.” Id., at 443. Dispositive for the Court was that the law was an “intrusion upon the discretion of the pregnant woman’s physician.” Id., at 445. The physician was placed in an “undesired and uncomfortable straitjacket.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court’s decision today echoes the Akron Court’s deference to a physician’s right to practice medicine in the way he or she sees fit.

The Court, of course, does not wish to cite Akron; yet the Court’s holding is indistinguishable from the reasoning in Akron that Casey repudiated. No doubt exists that today’s holding is based on a physician-first view which finds its primary support in that now-discredited case. Rather than exalting the right of a physician to practice medicine with unfettered discretion, Casey recognized: “Whatever constitutional status the doctor-patient relation may have as a general matter, in the present context it is derivative of the woman’s position.” 505 U. S., at 884 (joint opinion of O’CON-NOR, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ.). Casey discussed the informed consent requirement struck down in Akron and held Akron was wrong. The doctor-patient relation was only “entitled to the same solicitude it receives in other contexts.” 505 U. S., at 884. The standard of medical practice cannot depend on the individual views of Dr. Carhart and his supporters. The question here is whether there was substantial and objective medical evidence to demonstrate the State had considerable support for its conclusion that the ban created a substantial risk to no woman’s health. Casey recognized the point, holding the physician’s ability to practice medicine was “subject to reasonable . . . regulation by the State” and would receive the “same solicitude it receives in other contexts.” Ibid. In other contexts, the State is enti-*970tied to make judgments where high medical authority is in disagreement.

The Court fails to acknowledge substantial authority allowing the State to take sides in a medical debate, even when fundamental liberty interests are at stake and even when leading members of the profession disagree with the conclusions drawn by the legislature. In Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U. S. 346 (1997), we held that disagreements among medical professionals “do not tie the State’s hands in setting the bounds of... laws. In fact, it is precisely where such disagreement exists that legislatures have been afforded the widest latitude.” Id., at 360, n. 3. Instead, courts must exercise caution (rather than require deference to the physician’s treatment decision) when medical uncertainty is present. Ibid. (“[W]hen a legislature ‘undertakes to act in areas fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties, legislative options must be especially broad and courts should be cautious not to rewrite legislation’”) (quoting Jones v. United States, 463 U. S. 354, 370 (1983)); see also Collins v. Texas, 223 U. S. 288, 297-298 (1912) (Holmes, J.) (declaring the “right of the state to adopt a policy even upon medical matters concerning which there is difference of opinion and dispute”); Lambert v. Yellowley, 272 U. S. 581, 596-597 (1926) (rejecting claim of distinguished physician because “[h]igh medical authority being in conflict ... , it would, indeed, be strange if Congress lacked the power [to act]”); Marshall v. United States, 414 U. S. 417, 427 (1974) (recognizing “there is no agreement among members of the medical profession” (internal quotation marks omitted)); United States v. Rutherford, 442 U. S. 544 (1979) (discussing regulatory approval process for certain drugs).

Instructive is Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11 (1905), where the defendant was convicted because he refused to undergo a smallpox vaccination. The defendant claimed the mandatory vaccination violated his liberty to “care for his own body and health in such way as to him *971seems best.” Id., at 26. He offered to prove that members of the medical profession took the position that the vaccination was of no value and, in fact, was harmful. Id., at 30. The Court rejected the claim, establishing beyond doubt the right of the legislature to resolve matters upon which physicians disagreed:

“Those offers [of proof by the defendant] in the main seem to have had no purpose except to state the general theory of those of the medical profession who attach little or no value to vaccination as a means of preventing the spread of smallpox, or who think that vaccination causes other diseases of the body. What everybody knows the court must know, and therefore the state court judicially knew, as this court knows, that an opposite theory accords with the common belief, and is maintained by high medical authority. We must assume that, when the statute in question was passed, the legislature of Massachusetts was not unaware of these opposing theories, and was compelled, of necessity, to choose between them. It was not compelled to commit a matter involving the public health and safety to the final decision of a court or jury. It is no part of the function of a court or a jury to determine which one of two modes was likely to be the most effective for the protection of the public against disease. That was for the legislative department to determine in the light of all the information it had or could obtain. It could not properly abdicate its function to guard the public health and safety.” Ibid.

The Jacobson Court quoted with approval a recent state-court decision which observed, in words having full application today:

“The fact that the belief is not universal [in the medical community] is not controlling, for there is scarcely any belief that is accepted by everyone. The possibility that *972the belief may be wrong, and that science may yet show it to be wrong, is not conclusive; for the legislature has the right to pass laws which, according to common belief of the people, are adapted to [address medical matters]. In a free country, where government is by the people, through their chosen representatives, practical legislation admits of no other standard of action/ ” Id., at 35 (quoting Viemester v. White, 179 N. Y. 235, 241, 72 N. E. 97, 99 (1904)).

Justice O’Connor assures the people of Nebraska they are free to redraft the law to include an exception permitting the D&X to be performed when “the procedure, in appropriate medical judgment, is necessary to preserve the health of the mother.” Ante, at 951. The assurance is meaningless. She has joined an opinion which accepts that Dr. Car-hart exercises “appropriate medical judgment” in using the D&X for every patient in every procedure, regardless of indications, after 15 weeks’ gestation. Ante, at 937 (requiring any health exception to “tolerate responsible differences of medical opinion” which “are present here”). A ban which depends on the “appropriate medical judgment” of Dr. Car-hart is no ban at all. He will be unaffected by any new legislation. This, of course, is the vice of a health exception resting in the physician’s discretion.

In light of divided medical opinion on the propriety of the partial birth abortion technique (both in terms of physical safety and ethical practice) and the vital interests asserted by Nebraska in its law, one is left to ask what the first Justice Harlan asked: “Upon what sound principles as to the relations existing between the different departments of government can the court review this action of the legislature?” Jacobson, supra, at 31. The answer is none.

Ill

The Court’s next holding is that Nebraska’s ban forbids both the D&X procedure and the more common D&E proce*973dure. In so ruling the Court misapplies settled doctrines of statutory construction and contradicts Casey’s premise that the States have a vital constitutional position in the abortion debate. I agree with the careful statutory analysis conducted by Justice Thomas, post, at 989-1005. Like the ruling requiring a physician veto, requiring a State to meet unattainable standards of statutory draftsmanship in order to have its voice heard on this grave and difficult subject is no different from foreclosing state participation altogether. Nebraska’s statute provides:

“No partial birth abortion shall be performed in this state unless such procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.” Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-828(1) (Supp. 1999).

The statute defines “partial birth abortion” as

“an abortion procedure in which the person performing the abortion partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child and completing the delivery.” §28-326(9).

It further defines “partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child” to mean

“deliberately and intentionally delivering into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof, for the purpose of performing a procedure that the person performing such procedure knows will kill the unborn child and does kill the unborn child.” Ibid.

The text demonstrates the law applies only to the D&X procedure. Nebraska’s intention is demonstrated at three points in the statutory language: references to “partial-birth abortion” and to the “delivery” of a fetus; and the require*974ment that the delivery occur “before” the performance of the death-causing procedure.

The term “partial birth abortion” means an abortion performed using the D&X method as described above. The Court of Appeals acknowledged the term “is commonly understood to refer to a particular procedure known as intact dilation and extraction (D&X).” Little Rock Family Planning Servs. v. Jegley, 192 F. 3d 794, 795 (CA8 1999). Dr. Carhart’s own lead expert, Dr. Phillip Stubblefield, prefaced his description of the D&X procedure by describing it as the procedure “which, in the lay press, has been called a partial-birth abortion.” App. 271-272. And the AMA has declared: “The ‘partial birth abortion’ legislation is by its very name aimed exclusively [at the D&X.] There is no other abortion procedure which could be confused with that description.” AMA Factsheet 8. A commonsense understanding of the statute’s reference to “partial-birth abortion” demonstrates its intended reach and provides all citizens the fair warning required by the law. McBoyle v. United States, 283 U. S. 25, 27 (1931).

The statute’s intended scope is demonstrated by its requirement that the banned procedure include a partial “delivery” of the fetus into the vagina and the completion of a “delivery” at the end of the procedure. Only removal of an intact fetus can be described as a “delivery” of a fetus and only the D&X involves an intact fetus. In a D&E, portions of the fetus are pulled into the vagina with the intention of dismembering the fetus by using the traction at the opening between the uterus and vagina. This cannot be considered a delivery of a portion of a fetus. In Dr. Carhart’s own words, the D&E leaves the abortionist with a “tray full of pieces,” App. 125, at the end of the procedure. Even if it could be argued, as the majority does, ante, at 944, that dragging a portion of an intact fetus into the vagina as the first step of a D&E is a delivery of that portion of an intact fetus, the D&E still does not involve “completing the deliv*975ery” of an intact fetus. Whatever the statutory term “completing the delivery” of an unborn child means, it cannot mean, as the Court would have it, placing fetal remains on a tray. See Planned Parenthood of Wis. v. Doyle, 9 F. Supp. 2d 1033, 1041 (WD Wis. 1998) (the statute is “readily applied to the partial delivery of an intact child but hardly applicable to the delivery of dismembered body parts”).

Medical descriptions of the abortion procedures confirm the point, for it is only the description of the D&X that invokes the word “delivery.” App. 600. The United States, as amicus, cannot bring itself to describe the D&E as involving a “delivery,” instead substituting the word “emerges” to describe how the fetus is brought into the vagina in a- D&E. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 10. The Court, in a similar admission, uses the words “a physician pulling” a portion of a fetus, ante, at 939, rather than a “physician delivering” a portion of a fetus; yet only a procedure involving a delivery is banned by the law. Of all the definitions of “delivery” provided by the Court, ante, at 944, not one supports (or, more important for statutory construction purposes, requires) the conclusion that the statutory term “completing the delivery” refers to the placement of dismembered body parts on a tray rather than the removal of an intact fetus from the woman’s body.

The operation of Nebraska’s law is further defined by the requirement that the fetus be partially delivered into the vagina “before” the abortionist kills it. The partial delivery must be undertaken “for the purpose of performing a procedure that the person . . . knows will kill the unborn child.” Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-326(9) (Supp. 1999). The law is most naturally read to require the death of the fetus to take place in two steps: First the fetus must be partially delivered into the vagina and then the defendant must perform a death-causing procedure. In a D&E, forcing the fetus into the vagina (the pulling of extremities off the body in the process of extracting the body parts from the uterus into the *976vagina) is also the procedure that kills the fetus. Richmond Medical Center for Women v. Gilmore, 144 F. Bd, at 330 (order of Luttig, J.). In a D&X, the fetus is partially delivered into the vagina before a separate procedure (the so-called “reduction procedure”) is performed in order to kill the fetus.

The majority rejects this argument based on its conclusion that the word “procedure” must “refer to an entire abortion procedure” each time it is used. Ante, at 944. This interpretation makes no sense. It would require us to conclude that the Nebraska Legislature considered the “entire abortion procedure” to take place after the abortionist has already delivered into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof. Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-326(9) (Supp. 1999). All medical authorities agree, however, that the entire abortion procedure begins several days before this stage, with the dilation of the cervix. The majority asks us, in effect, to replace the words “for the purpose of performing” with the words “in the course of performing” in the portion of §28-326(9) quoted in the preceding paragraph. The reference to “procedure” refers to the separate death-causing procedure that is unique to the D&X.

In light of the statutory text, the commonsense understanding must be that the statute covers only the D&X. See Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601, 698 (1973). The AMA does not disagree. It writes: “The partial birth abortion legislation is by its very name aimed exclusively at a procedure by which a living fetus is intentionally and deliberately given partial birth and delivered for the purpose of killing it. There is no other abortion procedure which could be confused with that description.” AMA Factsheet 3 (internal quotation marks omitted). Casey disavows strict scrutiny review; and Nebraska must be afforded leeway when attempting to regulate the medical profession. See Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U. S., at 359 (“[W]e have traditionally left to legislators the task of defining terms of a medical *977nature that have legal significance”). To hold the statute covers the D&E, the Court must disagree with the AMA and disregard the known intent of the legislature, adequately-expressed in the statute.

Strained statutory constructions in abortion cases are not new, for Justice O’Connor identified years ago “an unprecedented canon of construction under which in cases involving abortion, a permissible reading of a statute is to be avoided at all costs.” Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747, 829 (1986) (dissenting opinion) (internal quotation marks omitted). Casey banished this doctrine from our jurisprudence; yet the Court today reinvigorates it and, in the process, ignores its obligation to interpret the law in a manner to validate it, not render it void. E. g., Johnson v. Robison, 415 U. S. 361, 366-367 (1974); Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Constr. Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 575 (1988). Avoidance of unconstitutional constructions is discussed only in two sentences of the Court’s analysis and dismissed as inapplicable because the statute is not susceptible to the construction offered by the Nebraska Attorney General. Ante, at 944-945. For the reasons here discussed, the statute is susceptible to the construction; and the Court is required to adopt it.

The Court and Justice O’Connor seek to shield themselves from criticism by citing the interpretations of the partial birth abortion statutes offered by some other federal courts. Ante, at 941-942. On this issue of nationwide importance, these courts have no special competence; and of appellate courts to consider similar statutes, a majority have, in contrast to the Court, declared that the law could be interpreted to cover only the D&X. See Hope Clinic, 195 F. 3d, at 865-871; Richmond Medical Center, supra, at 330-332 (order of Luttig, J.). Thirty States have enacted similar laws. It is an abdication of responsibility for the Court to suggest its hands are tied by decisions which paid scant at*978tention to Casey’s, recognition of the State’s authority and misapplied the doctrine of construing statutes to avoid constitutional difficulty. Further, the leading case describing the deference argument, Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S. 474, 483 (1988), declined to defer to a lower court construction of the state statute at issue in the case. As Frisby observed, the “lower courts ran afoul of the well-established principle that statutes will be interpreted to avoid constitutional difficulties.” See also Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S. 490, 514 (1989) (opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.); id., at 525 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).

The majority and, even more so, the concurring opinion by Justice O’Connor, ignore the settled rule against deciding unnecessary constitutional questions. The State of Nebraska conceded, under its understanding of Casey, that if this law must be interpreted to bar D&E as well as D&X it is unconstitutional. Since the majority concludes this is indeed the ease, that should have been the end of the matter. Yet the Court and Justice O’Connor go much further. They conclude that the statute requires a health exception which, for all practical purposes and certainly in the circumstances of this ease, allows the physician to make the determination in his own professional judgment. This is an immense constitutional holding. It is unnecessary; and, for the reasons I have sought to explain, it is incorrect. While it is not clear which of the two halves of the majority opinion is dictum, both are wrong.

The United States District Court in this ease leaped to prevent the law from being enforced, granting an injunction before it was applied or interpreted by Nebraska. Cf. Hill v. Colorado, ante, p. 708. In so doing, the court excluded from the abortion debate not just the Nebraska legislative branch but the State’s executive and judiciary as well. The law was enjoined before the ehief law enforcement officer *979of the State, its Attorney General, had any opportunity to interpret it. The federal court then ignored the representations made by that officer during this litigation. In like manner, Nebraska’s courts will be given no opportunity to define the contours of the law, although by all indications those courts would give the statute a more narrow construction than the one so eagerly adopted by the Court today. E. g., Stenberg v. Moore, 258 Neb. 199, 206,602 N. W. 2d 465, 472 (1995). Thus the court denied each branch of Nebraska’s government any role in the interpretation or enforcement of the statute. This cannot be what Casey meant when it said we would be more solicitous of state attempts to vindicate interests related to abortion. Casey did not assume this state of affairs.

IV

Ignoring substantial medical and ethical opinion, the Court substitutes its own judgment for the judgment of Nebraska and some 30 other States and sweeps the law away. The Court’s holding stems from misunderstanding the record, misinterpretation of Casey, outright refusal to respect the law of a State, and statutory construction in conflict with settled rules. The decision nullifies a law expressing the will of the people of Nebraska that medical procedures must be governed by moral principles having their foundation in the intrinsic value of human life, including the life of the unborn. Through their law the people of Nebraska were forthright in confronting an issue of immense moral consequence. The State chose to forbid a procedure many decent and civilized people find so abhorrent as to be among the most serious of crimes against human life, while the State still protected the woman’s autonomous right of choice as reaffirmed in Casey. The Court closes its eyes to these profound concerns.

From the decision, the reasoning, and the judgment, I dissent.

*980Justice Thomas,

with whom The ChieF Justice and Justice Scalia join, dissenting.

In 1973, this Court struck down an Act of the Texas Legislature that had been in effect since 1857, thereby rendering unconstitutional abortion statutes in dozens of States. Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 119. As some of my colleagues on the Court, past and present, ably demonstrated, that decision was grievously wrong. See, e. g., Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179, 221-223 (1973) (White, J., dissenting); Roe v. Wade, supra, at 171-178 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). Abortion is a unique act, in which a woman’s exercise of control over her own body ends, depending on one’s view, human life or potential human life. Nothing in our Federal Constitution deprives the people of this country of the right to determine whether the consequences of abortion to the fetus and to society outweigh the burden of an unwanted pregnancy on the mother. Although a State may permit abortion, nothing in the Constitution dictates that a State must do so.

In the years following Roe, this Court applied, and, worse, extended, that decision to strike down numerous state statutes that purportedly threatened a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion. The Court voided parental consent laws, see Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 75 (1976), legislation requiring that second-trimester abortions take place in hospitals, see Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U. S. 416, 431 (1983), and even a requirement that both parents of a minor be notified before their child has an abortion, see Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U. S. 417, 455 (1990). It was only a slight exaggeration when this Court described, in 1976, a right to abortion “without interference from the State.” Danforth, supra, at 61. The Court’s expansive application of Roe in this period, even more than Roe itself, was fairly described as the “unrestrained imposition of [the Court’s] own, extraconstitutional value preferences” on the American people. Thornburgh v. *981American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747, 794 (1986) (White, J., dissenting).

It appeared that this era of Court-mandated abortion on demand had come to an end, first with our decision in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S. 490 (1989), see id., at 557 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (lamenting that the plurality had “diseard[ed]” Roe), and then finally (or so we were told) in our decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992). Although in Casey the separate opinions of The CHIEF Justice and Justice Scalia urging the Court to overrule Roe did not command a majority, seven Members of that Court, including six Members sitting today, acknowledged that States have a legitimate role in regulating abortion and recognized the States’ interest in respecting fetal life at all stages of development. See 505.U. S., at 877 (joint opinion of O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ.); id., at 944 (Rehnquist, C. J., joined by White, Scalia, and Thomas, JJ., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part); id., at 979 (Scalia, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J., and White and Thomas, JJ., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). The plurality authored by Justices O’Con-nor, Kennedy, and Souter concluded that prior case law “went too far” in “undervalu[ing] the State’s interest in potential life” and in “striking down ... some abortion regulations which in no real sense deprived women of the ultimate decision.” Id., at 875.1 Roe and subsequent eases, according to the plurality, had wrongly “treat[ed] all governmental attempts to influence a woman’s decision on behalf of the potential life within her as unwarranted,” a treatment that was “incompatible with the recognition that there is a substantial state interest in potential life throughout pregnancy.” Id., at 876. Accordingly, the plurality held that so *982long as state regulation of abortion furthers legitimate interests — that is, interests not designed to strike at the right itself — the regulation is invalid only if it imposes an undue burden on a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion, meaning that it places a substantial obstacle in the woman’s path. Id., at 874, 877.

My views on the merits of the Casey plurality have been fully articulated by others. Id., at 944 (Rehnquist, C. J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part); id., at 979 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). I will not restate those views here, except to note that the Casey plurality opinion was constructed by its authors out of whole cloth. The standard set forth in the Casey plurality has no historical or doctrinal pedigree. The standard is a product of its authors’ own philosophical views about abortion, and it should go without saying that it has no origins in or relationship to the Constitution and is, consequently, as illegitimate as the standard it purported to replace. Even assuming, however, as I will for the remainder of this dissent, that Casey’s fabricated undue-burden standard merits adherence (which it does not), today’s decision is extraordinary. Today, the Court inexplicably holds that the States cannot constitutionally prohibit a method of abortion that millions find hard to distinguish from infanticide and that the Court hesitates even to describe. Ante, at 923. This holding cannot be reconciled with Casey’s undue-burden standard, as that standard was explained to us by the authors of the plurality opinion, and the majority hardly pretends otherwise. In striking down this statute — which expresses a profound and legitimate respect for fetal life and whieh leaves unimpeded several other safe forms of abortion — the majority opinion gives the lie to the promise of Casey that regulations that do no more than “express profound respect for the life of the unborn are permitted, if they are not a substantial obstacle to the woman’s exercise of the right to choose” whether or not to have an abortion. 505 *983U. S., at 877. Today’s decision is so obviously irreconcilable with Casey’s explication of what its undue-burden standard requires, let alone the Constitution, that it should be seen for what it is, a reinstitution of the pre-Webster abortion-on-demand era in which the mere invocation of “abortion rights” trumps any contrary societal interest. If this statute is unconstitutional under Cctsey, then Casey meant nothing at all, and the Court should candidly admit it.

To reach its decision, the majority must take a series of indefensible steps. The majority must first disregard the principles that this Court follows in every context but abortion: We interpret statutes according to their plain meaning, and we do not strike down statutes susceptible of a narrowing construction. The majority also must disregard the very constitutional standard it purports to employ, and then displace the' considered judgment of the people of Nebraska and 29 other States. The majority’s decision is lamentable, because of the result the majority reaches, the illogical steps the majority takes to reach it, and because it portends a return to an era I had thought wé had at last abandoned.

I

In the almost 30 years since Roe, this Court has never described the various methods of aborting a second- or third-trimester fetus. From reading the majority’s sanitized description, one would think that this ease involves state regulation of a widely accepted routine medical procedure. Nothing could be further from the truth. The most widely used method of abortion during this stage of pregnancy is so gruesome that its use can be traumatic even for the physicians and medical staff who perform it. See App/ 656 (testimony of Dr. Boehm); W. Hern, Abortion Practice 134 (1990). And the particular procedure at issue in this case, “partial birth abortion,” so closely borders on infanticide that 30 States have attempted to ban it. I will begin with a discussion of the methods of abortion available to *984women late in their pregnancies before addressing the statutory and constitutional questions involved.2

1. The primary form of abortion used at or after 16 weeks’ gestation is known as “dilation and evacuation” or “D&E.” 11 F. Supp. 2d 1099, 1103, 1129 (Neb. 1998). When performed during that stage of pregnancy, the D&E procedure requires the physician to dilate the woman’s cervix and then extract the fetus from her uterus with forceps. Id., at 1103; App. 490 (American Medical Association (AMA), Report of the Board of Trustees on Late-Term Abortion). Because of the fetus’ size at this stage, the physician generally removes the fetus by dismembering the fetus one piece at a time.3 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1103-1104. The doctor grabs a fetal extremity, such as an arm or a leg, with forceps and “pulls it through the cervical os . . . tearing . . . fetal parts from the fetal body ... by means of traction.” Id., at 1104. See App. 55 (testimony of Dr. Carhart). In other words, the physician will grasp the fetal parts and “basically tear off pieces of the fetus and pull them out.” Id., at 267 (testimony of Dr. Stubblefield). See also id., at 149 (testimony of *985Dr. Hodgson) (“[Y]ou grasp the fetal parts, and you often don’t know what they are, and you try to pull it down, and its . . . simply all there is to it”). The fetus will die from blood loss, either because the physician has separated the umbilical cord prior to beginning the procedure or because the fetus loses blood as its limbs are removed. Id., at 62-64 (testimony of Dr. Carhart); id., at 151 (testimony of Dr. Hodgson).4 When all of the fetus’ limbs have been removed and only the head is left in útero, the physician will then collapse the skull and pull it through the cervical canal. Id., at 106 (testimony of Dr. Carhart); id., at 297 (testimony of Dr. Stubblefield); Causeway Medical Suite v. Foster, 43 P. Supp. 2d 604,608 (ED La. 1999). At the end of the procedure, the physician is left, in respondent’s words, with a “tray full of pieces.” App. 125 (testimony of Dr. Carhart).

2. Some abortions after the 15th week are performed using a method of abortion known as induction. 11P. Supp. 2d, at 1108; App. 492 (AMA, Report of the Board of Trustees on Late-Term Abortion). In an induction procedure, the amniotic sac is injected with an abortifacient such as a saline solution or a solution that contains prostaglandin. 11 P. Supp. 2d, at 1108. Uterine contractions typically follow, causing the fetus to be expelled. Ibid.

3. A third form of abortion for use during or after 16 weeks’ gestation is referred to by some medical professionals as “intact D&E.” There are two variations of this method, both of which require the physician to dilate the woman’s cervix. Gynecologic, Obstetric, and Related Surgery 1043 (D. Nichols & D. Clarke-Pearson eds., 2d ed. 2000); App. 271 (testimony of Dr. Stubblefield). The first variation is used only in vertex presentations, that is, when the fetal head is presented first. To perform a vertex-presentation intact D&E, the doctor will insert an instrument into the fetus’ *986skull while the fetus is still in útero and remove the brain and other intracranial contents. 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1111; Gynecologic, Obstetric, and Related Surgery, supra, at 1043; App. 271 (testimony of Dr. Stubblefield). When the fetal skull collapses, the physician will remove the fetus.

The second variation of intact D&E is the procedure commonly known as “partial birth abortion.”5 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1106; Gynecologic, Obstetric, and Related Surgery, supra, at 1043; App. 271 (testimony of Dr. Stubblefield). This procedure, which is used only rarely, is performed on mid- to late-second-trimester (and sometimes third-trimester) fetuses.6 Although there are variations, it is generally per*987formed as follows: After dilating the cervix, the physician will grab the fetus by its feet and pull the fetal body out of the uterus into the vaginal cavity. 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1106. At this stage of development, the head is the largest part of the body. Assuming the physician has performed the dilation procedure correctly, the head will be held inside the uterus by the woman’s cervix. Ibid.; H. R. 1888 Hearing 8. While the fetus is stuck in this position, dangling partly out of the woman’s body, and just a few inches from a completed birth, the physician uses an instrument such as a pair of scissors to tear or perforate the skull. 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1106; App. 664 (testimony of Dr. Boehm); Joint Hearing on S. 6 and H. R. 929 before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 105th Cong., 1st Sess., 45 (1995) (hereinafter S. 6 and H. R. 929 Joint Hearing). The physician will then either crush the skull or will use a vacuum to remove the brain and other intracranial contents from the fetal skull, collapse the fetus’ head, and pull the fetus from the uterus. 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1106.7

Use of the partial birth abortion procedure achieved prominence as a national issue after it was publicly described by Dr. Martin Haskell, in a paper entitled “Dilation and Extraction for Late Second Trimester Abortion,” at the National Abortion Federation’s September 1992 Risk Management Seminar. In that paper, Dr. Haskell described his version of the procedure as follows:

“With a lower [fetal] extremity in the vagina, the surgeon uses his fingers to deliver the opposite lower *988extremity, then the torso, the shoulders and the upper extremities.

“The skull lodges at the internal cervical os. Usually there is not enough dilation for it to pass through. The fetus is oriented dorsum or spine up.

“At this point, the right-handed surgeon slides the fingers of the left hand along the back of the fetus and ‘hooks’ the shoulders of the fetus with the index and ring fingers (palm down).

“[T]he surgeon takes a pair of blunt curved Metzen-baum scissors in the right hand. He carefully advances the tip, curved down, along the spine and under his middle finger until he feels it contact the base of the skull under the tip of his middle finger.

“[T]he surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull or into the foramen magnum. Having safely entered the skull, he spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening.

“The surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents. With the catheter still in place, he applies traction to the fetus, removing it completely from the patient.” H. R. 183S Hearing 3, 8-9.

In cases in which the physician inadvertently dilates the woman to too great a degree, the physician will have to hold the fetus inside the woman so that he can perform the procedure. Id., at 80 (statement of Pamela Smith, M. D.) (“In these procedures, one basically relies on cervical entrapment of the head, along with a firm grip, to help keep the baby in place while the practitioner plunges a pair of scissors into the base of the baby’s skull”). See also S. 6 and H. R. 929 Joint Hearing 45 (“I could put dilapan in for four or five days and say I’m doing a D&E procedure and the fetus could just fall out. But that’s not really the point. The point here is you’re attempting to do an abortion.... Not to see how do *989I manipulate the situation so that I get a live birth instead”) (quoting Dr. Haskell).

II

Nebraska, along with 29 other States, has attempted to ban the partial birth abortion procedure. Although the Nebraska statute purports to prohibit only “partial birth abortion,” a phrase which is commonly used, as I mentioned, to refer to the breech extraction version of intact D&E, the majority concludes that this statute could also be read in some future case to prohibit ordinary D&E, the first procedure described above. According to the majority, such an application would pose a substantial obstacle to some women seeking abortions and, therefore, the statute is unconstitutional. The majority errs with its very first step. I think it is clear that the Nebraska statute does not prohibit the D&E procedure. The Nebraska partial birth abortion statute at issue in this ease reads as follows:

“No partial-birth abortion shall be performed in this state, unless such procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.” Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-328(1) (Supp. 1999).

“Partial birth abortion” is defined in the statute as

“an abortion procedure in which the person performing the abortion partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child and completing the delivery. For purposes of this subdivision, the term partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child means deliberately and intentionally delivering into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof, for the purpose of performing a procedure that the person performing such *990procedure knows will kill the unborn child and does kill the unborn child.” §28-326(9).

A

Starting with the statutory definition of "partial birth abortion,” I think it highly doubtful that the statute could be applied to ordinary D&E. First, the Nebraska statute applies only if the physician "partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child,” which phrase is defined to mean “deliberately and intentionally delivering into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof.” §28-326(9) (emphases added). When read in context, the term "partially delivers” cannot be fairly interpreted to include removing pieces of an unborn child from the uterus one at a time.

The word “deliver,” particularly delivery of an “unborn child,” refers to the process of “assist[ing] in giving birth,” which suggests removing an intact unborn child from the womb, rather than pieces of a child. See Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 336 (1991) (defining “deliver” as “to assist in giving birth; to aid in the birth of”); Stedman’s Medical Dictionary 409 (26th ed. 1996) (“To assist a woman in childbirth”). Without question, one does not “deliver” a child when one removes the child from the uterus piece by piece, as in a D&E. Rather, in the words of respondent and his experts, one “remove[s]” or “dismember[s]” the child in a D&E. App. 45, 55 (testimony of Dr. Carhart) (referring to the act of removing the fetus in a D&E); id., at 150 (testimony of Dr. Hodgson) (same); id., at 267 (testimony of Dr. Stubblefield) (physician “dismember[s]” the fetus). See also H. R. 1833 Hearing 3, 8 (Dr. Haskell describing “delivery” of part of the fetus during a D&X). The majority cites sources using the terms “deliver” and “delivery” to refer to removal of the fetus and the placenta during birth. But these sources also presume an intact fetus, rather than dismembered fetal parts. See Obstetrics: Normal & Problem Pregnancies 388 (S. Gabbe, J. Niebyl, & J. Simpson eds., 3d *991ed. 1996) (“After delivery [of infant and placenta], the placenta, cord, and membranes should be examined”); 4 Oxford English Dictionary 421, 422 (2d ed. 1989) (“To disburden (a woman) of the foetus, to bring to childbirth”); B. Maloy, Medical Dictionary for Lawyers 221 (2d ed. 1989) (“To aid in the process of childbirth; to bring forth; to deliver the fetus, placenta”). The majority has pointed to no source in which “delivery” is used to refer to removal of first a fetal arm, then a leg, then the torso, etc. In fact, even the majority describes the D&E procedure without using the word “deliver” to refer to the removal of fetal tissue from the uterus. See ante, at 939 (“pulling a ‘substantial portion’ of -a still living fetus” (emphasis added)); ibid, (“portion of a living fetus has been pulled into the vagina” (emphasis added)). No one, including the majority, understands the act of pulling off a part of a fetus to be a “delivery.”

To make the statute’s meaning even more clear, the statute applies only if the physician “partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child and completing the delivery.” The statute defines this phrase to mean that the physician must complete the delivery “for the purpose o/performing a procedure” that will kill the unborn child. It is clear from these phrases that the procedure that kills the fetus must be subsequent to, and therefore separate from, the “partia[l] deliver[y]” or the “deliver[y] into the vagina” of “a living unborn child or substantial portion thereof.” In other words, even if one assumes, arguendo, that dismemberment — the act of grasping a fetal arm or leg and pulling until it comes off, leaving the remaining part of the fetal body still in the uterus — is a kind of “delivery,” it does not take place “before” the death-causing procedure or “for the purpose of performing” the death-causing procedure; it is the death-causing procedure. Under the majority’s view, D&E is covered by the statute because when the doctor pulls on a fetal foot until it tears off he has “delivered” a substantial portion of the unborn child and has performed *992a procedure known to cause death. But, significantly, the physician has not “delivered” the child before performing the death-causing procedure or “for the purpose of” performing the death-causing procedure; the dismemberment “delivery” is itself the act that causes the fetus’ death.8

Moreover, even if removal of a fetal foot or arm from the uterus incidental to severing it from the rest of the fetal body could amount to delivery before, or for the purpose of, performing a death-causing procedure, the delivery would not be of an “unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof.” And even supposing that a fetal foot or arm could conceivably be a “substantial portion” of an unborn child, both the common understanding of “partial birth abortion” and the principle that statutes will be interpreted to avoid constitutional difficulties would require one to read “substantial” otherwise. See infra, at 996-997.

B

Although I think that the text of §28-826(9) forecloses any application of the Nebraska statute to the D&E procedure, even if there were any ambiguity, the ambiguity would be conclusively resolved by reading the definition in light of the fact that the Nebraska statute, by its own terms, applies only to “partial birth abortion,” §28-328(1). By ordinary rules of statutory interpretation, we should resolve any ambiguity in the specific statutory definition to comport with the common understanding of “partial birth abortion,” for that term itself, no less than the specific definition, is part of the stat*993ute. United States v. Morton, 467 U. S. 822, 828 (1984) (“We do not. . . construe statutory phrases in isolation; we read statutes as a whole”).9

“Partial birth abortion” is a term that has been used by a majority of state legislatures, the United States Congress, medical journals, physicians, reporters, even judges, and has never, as far as I am aware, been used to refer to the D&E procedure. The number of instances in which “partial birth abortion” has been equated with the breech extraction form of intact D&E (otherwise known as “D&X”)10 and explicitly contrasted with D&E, are numerous. I will limit myself to just a few examples.

First, numerous medical authorities have equated “partial birth abortion” with D&X. The AMA has done so and has recognized that the procedure is “different from other destructive abortion techniques because the fetus ... is killed outside of the womb.” AMA Board of Trustees Factsheet on H. R. 1122 (June 1997), in App. to Brief for Association of American Physicians and Surgeons et al. as Amici Curiae 1. Medical literature has also equated “partial birth abortion” with D&X as distinguished from D&E. See Gynecologic, Obstetric, and Related Surgery, at 1043; Sprang & Neerhof, Rationale for Banning Abortions Late in Pregnancy, 280 JAMA 744 (Aug. 26,1998); Bopp & Cook, Partial Birth Abortion: The Final Frontier of Abortion Jurisprudence, 14 Issues in Law and Medicine 3 (1998). Physicians have equated “partial birth abortion” with D&X. See Planned Parenthood v. Doyle, 44 F. Supp. 2d 975, 999 (WD Wis. 1999) (citing testimony); Richmond Medical Center for Women v. Gil*994more, 55 F. Supp. 2d 441, 455 (ED Va. 1999) (citing testimony). Even respondent’s expert, Dr. Phillip Stubblefield, acknowledged that breech extraction intact D&E is referred to in the lay press as “partial birth abortion.” App. 271.

Second, the lower courts have repeatedly acknowledged that “partial birth abortion” is commonly understood to mean D&X. See Little Rock Family Planning Services v. Jegley, 192 F. 3d 794, 795 (CA8 1999) (“The term 'partial-birth abortion,’ ... is commonly understood to refer to a particular procedure also known as intact dilation and extraction”); Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa, Inc. v. Miller, 195 F. 3d 386, 387 (CA8 1999) (“The [Iowa] Act prohibits 'partial-birth abortion,’ a term commonly understood to refer to a procedure called a dilation and extraction (D&X)”). The District Court in this case noted that “[p]artial-birth abortions” are “known medically as intact dilation and extraction or D&X.” 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1121, n. 26. Even the majority notes that “partial birth abortion” is a term “ordinarily associated with the D&X procedure.” Ante, at 942.

Third, the term “partial birth abortion” has been used in state legislation on 28 occasions and by Congress twice. The term “partial birth abortion” was adopted by Congress in both 1995 and 1997 in two separate pieces of legislation prohibiting the procedure.11 In considering the legislation, *995Congress conducted numerous hearings and debates on the issue, which repeatedly described “partial birth abortion” as a procedure distinct from D&E. The Congressional Record contained numerous references to Dr. Haskell’s procedure. See, e. g., H. R. 1833 Hearing 3,17, 52, 77; S. 6 and H. R. 929 Joint Hearing 45. Since that time, debates have taken place in state legislatures across the country, 30 of which have voted to prohibit the procedure. With only two exceptions, the legislatures that voted to ban the procedure referred to it as “partial birth abortion.”12 These debates also referred to Dr. Haskell’s procedure as D&X. Both the evidence before the legislators and the legislators themselves equated “partial birth abortion” with D&X. The fact that 28 States adopted legislation banning “partial birth abortion,” defined it in a way similar or identical to Nebraska’s definition,13 and, *996in doing so, repeatedly referred to the breech extraction form of intact D&E and repeatedly distinguished it from ordinary D&E, makes it inconceivable that the term “partial birth abortion” could reasonably be interpreted to mean

Were there any doubt remaining whether the statute could apply to a D&E procedure, that doubt is no ground for invalidating the statute. Rather," we are bound to first consider whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible that would avoid the constitutional question. Erznozwik v. Jacksonville, 422 U. S. 205, 216 (1975) (“[A] state statute should not be deemed facially invalid unless it is not readily subject to a narrowing construction by the state courts”); Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S. 474, 482 (1988) (“The precise scope of the ban is not further described within the text of the ordinance, but in our view the ordinance is readily subject to a narrowing construction that avoids constitutional difficulties”). This principle is, as Justice O’Connor has said, so “well-established” that failure to apply is “plain error.” Id., at 48S. Although our interpretation of a Nebraska law is of course not binding on Nebraska courts, it is clear, as Erznoz-nik and Frisby demonstrate, that, absent a conflicting interpretation by Nebraska (and there is none here), we should, if the text permits, adopt such a construction.

*997The majority contends that application of the Nebraska statute to D&E would pose constitutional difficulties because it would eliminate the most common form of second-trimester abortions. To the extent that the majority’s contention is true, there is no doubt that the Nebraska statute is susceptible of a narrowing construction by Nebraska courts that would preserve a physicians’ ability to perform D&E. See State v. Carpenter, 250 Neb. 427, 434, 551 N. W. 2d 518, 524 (1996) (“A penal statute must be construed so as to meet constitutional requirements if such can reasonably be done”). For example, the statute requires that the physician "deliberately and intentionally delive[r] into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof,” before performing a death-causing procedure. The term “substantial portion” is susceptible to a narrowing construction that would exclude the D&E procedure. One definition of the word “substantial” is “being largely but not wholly that which is specified.” Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, at 1176. See Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U. S. 552, 564 (1988) (describing different meanings of the term “substantial”). In other words, “substantial” can mean “almost all” of the thing denominated. If nothing else, a court could construe the statute to require that the fetus be “largely, but not wholly,” delivered out of the uterus before the physician performs a procedure that he knows will kill the unborn child. Or, as I have discussed, a court could (and should) construe “for the purpose of performing a procedure” to mean “for the purpose of performing a separate procedure.”

HH J-H I — I

The majority and Justice O’Connor reject the plain language of the statutory definition, refuse to read that definition in light of the statutory reference to “partial birth abortion,” and ignore the doctrine of constitutional avoidance. In so doing, they offer scant statutory analysis of their own. See ante, at 938-940 (majority opinion); cf. ante, at 940-945 *998(majority opinion); ante, at 948-949 (O’Connor, J., concurring). In their brief analyses, the majority and Justice O’Connor disregard all of the statutory language except for the final definitional sentence, thereby violating the fundamental canon of construction that statutes are to be read as a whole. United States v. Morton, 467 U. S., at 828 (“We do not... construe statutory phrases in isolation; we read statutes as a whole. Thus, the words [in question] must be read in light of the immediately following phrase”) (footnote omitted)); United States v. Heirs of Boisdoré, 8 How. 113, 122 (1849) (“In expounding a statute, we must not be guided by a single sentence or member of a sentence, but look to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and policy”); Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U. S. 561, 575 (1995) (“[A] word is known by the company it keeps”).14 In lieu of analyzing the statute as a whole, the majority and Justice O’Connor *999offer five principal arguments for their interpretation of the statute. I will address them in turn.

First, the majority appears to accept, if only obliquely, an argument made by respondent: If the term “partial birth abortion” refers to only the breech extraction form of intact D&E, or D&X, the Nebraska Legislature should have used the medical nomenclature. See ante, at 943 (noting that the Nebraska Legislature rejected an amendment that would replace “partial birth abortion” with “dilation and extraction”); Brief for Respondent 4-5, 24.

There is, of course, no requirement that a legislature use terminology accepted by the medical community. A legislature could, no doubt, draft a statute using the term “heart attack” even if the medical community preferred “myocardial infarction.” Legislatures, in fact, sometimes use medical terms in ways that conflict with their clinical definitions, see, e. g., Barber v. Director, 48 F. 3d 899, 901 (CA4 1995) (noting that the medical definition of “pneumoconiosis” is only a subset of the afflictions that fall within the definition of “pneu-moconiosis” in the Black Lung Act), a practice that is unremarkable so long as the legal term is adequately defined. We have never, until today, suggested that legislature may only use words accepted by every individual physician. Rather, “we have traditionally left to legislators the task of defining terms of a medical nature that have legal significance.” Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U. S. 346, 359 (1997). And we have noted that “[o]ften, those definitions do not fit precisely with the definitions employed by the medical community.” Ibid.

Further, it is simply not true that the many legislatures, including Nebraska’s, that prohibited “partial birth abortion” chose to use a term known only in the vernacular in place of a term with an accepted clinical meaning. When the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1995 was introduced in Congress, the term “dilation and extraction” did not appear in any medical dictionary. See, e. g., Borland’s Illustrated *1000Medical Dictionary 470 (28th ed. 1994); Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, at 485; Miller-Keane Encyclopedia & Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, & Allied Health 460 (6th ed. 1997); The Sloane-Dorland Annotated Medical-Legal Dictionary 204 (1987); I. Dox, J. Melloni, & G. Eisher, The HarperCollins Illustrated Medical Dictionary 131 (1993). The term did not appear in descriptions of abortion methods in leading medical textbooks. See, e. g., G. Cunningham et al., Williams Obstetrics 579-605 (20th ed. 1997); Obstetrics: Normal & Problem Pregnancies, at 1249-1279; W. Hern, Abortion Practice (1990). Abortion reference books also omitted any reference to the term. See, e. g., Modern Methods of Inducing Abortion (D. Baird, D. Grimes, & P. Van Look eds. 1995); E. Glick, Surgical Abortion (1998).15

Not only did D&X have no medical meaning at the time, but the term is ambiguous on its face. “Dilation and extraction” would, on its face, accurately describe any procedure in which the woman is “dilated” and the fetus “extracted,” including D&E. See supra, at 984-985. In contrast, “partial birth abortion” has the advantage of faithfully describing the procedure the legislature meant to address because the fact that a fetus is “partially born” during the procedure is indisputable. The term “partial birth abortion” is completely accurate and descriptive, which is perhaps the reason why the majority finds it objectionable. Only a desire to find fault at any cost could explain the Court’s willingness to penalize the Nebraska Legislature for failing to replace a *1001descriptive term with a vague one. There is, therefore, nothing to the majority’s argument that the Nebraska Legislature is at fault for declining to use the term “dilation and extraction.”16

Second, the majority faults the Nebraska Legislature for failing to “track the medical differences between D&E and D&X” and for failing to “suggest that its application turns on whether a portion of the fetus’ body is drawn into the vagina as part of a process to extract an intact fetus after collapsing the head as opposed to a process that would dismember the fetus.” Ante, at 939. I have already explained why the Nebraska statute reflects the medical differences between D&X and D&E. To the extent the majority means that the Nebraska Legislature should have “tracked the medical differences” by adopting one of the informal definitions of D&X, this argument is without merit; none of these definitions would have been effective to accomplish the State’s purpose of preventing abortions of partially born fetuses. Take, for example, ACOG’s informal definition of the term “intact D&X.” According to ACOG, an “intact D&X” consists of the following four steps: (1) deliberate dilation of *1002the cervix, usually over a sequence of days; (2) instrumental conversion of the fetus to a footling breach; (8) breech extraction of the body excepting the head; and (4) partial evacuation of the intracranial contents of a living fetus to effect vaginal delivery of a dead but otherwise intact fetus. App. 599-600 (ACOG Executive Board, Statement on Intact Dilation and Extraction (Jan. 12,1997)). ACOG emphasizes that “unless all four elements are present in sequence, the procedure is not an intact D&X.” Id., at 600. Had Nebraska adopted a statute prohibiting “intact D&X,” and defined it along the lines of the ACOG definition, physicians attempting to perform abortions on partially born fetuses could have easily evaded the statute. Any doctor wishing to perform a partial birth abortion procedure could simply avoid liability under such a statute by performing the procedure, as respondent does, only when the fetus is presented feet first, thereby avoiding the necessity of “conversion of the fetus to a footling breech.” Id., at 599. Or, a doctor could convert the fetus without instruments. Or, the doctor could cause the fetus’ death before “partial evacuation of the intracranial contents,” id., at 600, by plunging scissors into the fetus’ heart, for example. A doctor could even attempt to evade the statute by chopping off two fetal toes prior to completing delivery, preventing the State from arguing that the fetus was “otherwise intact.” Presumably, however, Nebraska, and the many other legislative bodies that adopted partial birth abortion bans, were not concerned with whether death was inflicted by injury to the brain or the heart, whether the fetus was converted with or without instruments, or whether the fetus died with its toes attached. These legislative bodies were, I presume, concerned with whether the child was partially born before the physician caused its death. The legislatures’ evident concern was with permitting a procedure that resembles infanticide and threatens to dehumanize the fetus. They, therefore, presumably declined to adopt a *1003ban only on “intact D&X,” as defined by ACOG, because it would have been ineffective to that purpose. Again, the majority is faulting Nebraska for a legitimate legislative calculation.

Third, the majority and Justice O’Connor argue that this Court generally defers to lower federal courts’ interpretations of state law. Ante, at 940 (majority opinion); ante, at 949 (O’Connor, J., concurring). However, a decision drafted by Justice O’Connor, which she inexplicably fails to discuss, Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S. 474 (1988), makes clear why deference is inappropriate here. As Justice O’Con-nor explained in that case:

“[Wjhile we ordinarily defer to lower court constructions of state statutes, we do not invariably do so. We are particularly reluctant to defer when the lower courts have fallen into plain error, which is precisely the situation presented here. To the extent they endorsed a broad reading of the ordinance, the lower courts ran afoul of the well-established principle that statutes will be interpreted to avoid constitutional difficulties.” Id., at 483 (citations omitted).

Frisby, then, identifies exactly why the lower courts’ opinions here are not entitled to deference: The lower courts failed to identify the narrower construction that, consistent with the text, would avoid any constitutional difficulties.

Fourth, the majority speculates that some Nebraska prosecutor may attempt to stretch the statute to apply it to D&E. But a state statute is not unconstitutional on its face merely because we can imagine an aggressive prosecutor who would attempt an overly aggressive application of the statute. We have noted that “‘[wjords inevitably contain germs of uncertainty.’ ” Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601, 608 (1973). We do not give statutes the broadest definition imaginable. Rather, we ask whether “the ordinary *1004person exercising ordinary common sense can sufficiently understand and comply with [the statute].” Ibid, [quoting Civil Service Comm’n v. Letter Carriers, 413 U. S. 548, 579 (1973)). While a creative legal mind might be able to stretch the plain language of the Nebraska statute to apply to D&E, “citizens who desire to obey the statute will have no difficulty in understanding it.” Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U. S. 104,110 (1972) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Finally, the majority discusses at some length the reasons it will not defer to the interpretation of the statute proffered by the Nebraska Attorney General, despite the Attorney General’s repeated representations to this Court that his State will not apply the partial birth abortion statute to D&E. See Brief for Petitioners 11-13; Tr. of Oral Arg. 10-11. The fact that the Court declines to defer to the interpretation of the Attorney General is not, however, a reason to give the statute a contrary representation. Even without according the Attorney General’s view any particular respect, we should agree with his interpretation because it is undoubtedly the correct one. Moreover, Justice O’Connor has noted that the Court should adopt a narrow interpretation of a state statute when it is supported by the principle that statutes will be interpreted to avoid constitutional difficulties as well as by “the representations of counsel... at oral argument.” Frisby v. Schultz, supra, at 483. Such an approach is particularly appropriate in this case because, as the majority notes, Nebraska courts accord the Nebraska Attorney General’s interpretations of state statutes “substantial weight.” See State v. Coffman, 213 Neb. 560, 561, 330 N. W. 2d 727, 728 (1983). Therefore, any renegade prosecutor bringing criminal charges against a physician for performing a D&E would find himself confronted with a contrary interpretation of the statute by the Nebraska Attorney General, and, I assume, a judge who both possessed common *1005sense and was aware of the rule of lenity. See State v. White, 254 Neb. 566, 575, 577 N. W. 2d 741,747 (1998).17

rH <!

Having resolved that Nebraskas partial birth abortion statute permits doctors to perform D&E abortions, the question remains whether a State can constitutionally prohibit the partial birth abortion procedure without a health exception. Although the majority and Justice O’Connor purport to rely on the standard articulated in the Casey plurality in concluding that a State may not, they in fact disregard it entirely.

A

Though Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter declined in Casey, on the ground of stare decisis, to reconsider whether abortion enjoys any constitutional protection, 505 U. S., at 844-846,854-869 (majority opinion); id., at 871 (plurality opinion), Casey professed to be, in part, a repudiation of Roe and its progeny. The Casey plurality expressly noted that prior case law had undervalued the State’s interest in potential life, 505 U. S., at 875-876, and had invalidated regulations of abortion that “in no real sense deprived women of the ultimate decision,” id., at 875. See id., at 871 (“Roe v. Wade speaks with clarity in establishing ... the State’s ‘important and legitimate interest in potential life.’ That por*1006tion of the decision in Roe has been given too little acknowledgment” (citation omitted)). The plurality repeatedly recognized the States’ weighty interest in this area. See id., at 877 (“State ... may express profound respect for the life of the unborn”); id., at 878 (“the State’s profound interest in potential life”); id., at 850 (majority opinion) (“profound moral and spiritual implications of terminating a pregnancy, even in its earliest stage”). And, the plurality expressed repeatedly the States’ legitimate role in regulating abortion procedures. See id., at 876 (“The very notion that the State has a substantial interest in potential life leads to the conclusion that not all regulations must be deemed unwarranted”); id., at 875 (“Not all governmental intrusion [with abortion] is of necessity unwarranted”). According to the plurality: “The fact that a law which serves a valid purpose, one not designed to strike at the right itself, has the incidental effect of making it more difficult or more expensive to procure an abortion cannot be enough to invalidate it.” Id., at 874.

The Casey plurality therefore adopted the standard: “Only where state regulation imposes an undue burden on a woman’s ability to make this decision does the power of the State reach into the heart of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause.” Ibid. A regulation imposes an “undue burden” only if it “has the effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman’s choice.” Id., at 877.

B

There is no question that the State of Nebraska has a valid interest — one not designed to strike at the right itself — in prohibiting partial birth abortion. Casey itself noted that States may “express profound respect for the life of the unborn.” Ibid. States may, without a doubt, express this profound respect by prohibiting a procedure that approaches infanticide, and thereby dehumanizes the fetus and trivializes human life. The AMA has recognized that this procedure is “ethically different from other destructive abortion *1007techniques because the fetus, normally twenty weeks or longer in gestation, is killed outside the womb. The 'partial birth’ gives the fetus an autonomy which separates it from the right of the woman to choose treatments for her own body.” AMA Board of Trustees Factsheet on H. R. 1122 (June 1997), in App. to Brief for Association of American Physicians and Surgeons et al. as Amici Curiae 1. Thirty States have concurred with this view.

Although the description of this procedure set forth above should be sufficient to demonstrate the resemblance between the partial birth abortion procedure and infanticide, the testimony of one nurse who observed a partial birth abortion procedure makes the point even more vividly:

"The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall.

“The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp.” H. R. 1833 Hearing 18 (statement of Brenda Pratt Shafer).

The question whether States have a legitimate interest in banning the procedure does not require additional authority. See ante, at 961-964 (Kennedy, J., dissenting).18 In a civi*1008lized society, the answer is too obvious, and the contrary arguments too offensive, to merit further discussion. But see ante, at 946-947 (Stevens, J., concurring) (arguing that the decision of BO States to ban the partial birth abortion procedure was “simply irrational” because other forms of abortion were “equally gruesome”); ante, at 961-952 (Ginsburg, J., concurring) (similar).19

*1009C

The next question, therefore, is whether the Nebraska statute is unconstitutional because it does not contain an exception that would allow use of the procedure whenever “ ‘ “necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the . . . health of the mother.” ’ ” Ante, at 930 (majority opinion) (quoting Casey, 505 U. S., at 879, in turn quoting Roe, 410 U. S., at 164-165) (emphasis deleted). According to the majority, such a health exception is required here because there is a “division of opinion among some medical experts over whether D&X is generally safer [than D&E], and an absence of controlled medical studies that would help answer these medical questions.” Ante, at 936-937. In other words, unless a State can conclusively establish that an abortion procedure is no safer than other procedures, the State cannot regulate that procedure without including a health exception. Justice O’Connor agrees. Ante, at 947-948 (concurring opinion). The rule set forth by the majority and Justice O’Connor dramatically expands on our prior abortion cases and threatens to undo any state regulation of abortion procedures.

The majority and Justice O’Connor suggest that their rule is dictated by a straightforward application of Roe and Casey. Ante, at 929-930 (majority opinion); ante, at 947-948 (O’Connor, J., concurring). But that is simply not true. In Roe and Casey, the Court stated that the State may “regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.” Roe, supra, at 165; Casey, 505 U. S., at 879. Casey said that a health exception must be available if “continuing her pregnancy would constitute a threat” to the woman. Id., at 880 (majority opinion) (emphasis added). Under these eases, if a State seeks to prohibit abortion, even if only temporarily or under particular circumstances, as Casey says that it may, id., at 879 (plu*1010rality opinion), the State must make an exception for cases in which the life or health of the mother is endangered by continuing the pregnancy. These cases addressed only the situation in which a woman must obtain an abortion because of some threat to her health from continued pregnancy. But Roe and Casey say nothing at all about eases in which a physician considers one prohibited method of abortion to be preferable to permissible methods. Today's majority and Justice O'Connor twist Roe and Casey to apply to the situation in which a woman desires — for whatever reason — an abortion and wishes to obtain the abortion by some particular method. See ante, at 929-931 (majority opinion); ante, at 947-948 (concurring opinion). In other words, the majority and Justice O'Connor fail to distinguish between cases in which health concerns require a woman to obtain an abortion and cases in which health concerns cause a woman who desires an abortion (for whatever reason) to prefer one method over another.

It is clear that the Court's understanding of when a health exception is required is not mandated by our prior cases. In fact, we have, post-Casey, approved regulations of methods of conducting abortion despite the lack of a health exception. Mazurek v. Armstrong, 520 U. S. 968, 971 (1997) (per cu-riam) (reversing Court of Appeals holding that plaintiffs challenging requirement that only physicians perform abortions had a “'fair chance of success’”); id., at 979 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (arguing that the regulation was designed to make abortion more difficult). And one can think of vast bodies of law regulating abortion that are valid, one would hope, despite the lack of health exceptions. For example, physicians are presumably prohibited from using abortifa-cients that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration even if some physicians reasonably believe *1011that these abortifaeients would be safer for women than existing abortifaeients.20

The majority effectively concedes that Casey provides no support for its broad health exception rule by relying on live-Casey authority, see ante, at 931, including a case that was specifically disapproved of in Casey for giving too little weight to the State’s interest in fetal life. See Casey, supra, at 869,882 (overruling the parts of Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747 (1986), that were “inconsistent with Roe’s statement that the State has a legitimate interest in promoting the life or potential life of the unborn,” 506 U. S., at 870); id., at 893 (majority opinion) (relying on Thornburgh, supra, at 783 (Burger, C. J., dissenting), for the proposition that the Court was expanding on Roe in that case). Indeed, Justice O’Connor, who joins the Court’s opinion, was on the Court for Thornburgh and was in dissent, arguing that, under the undue-burden standard, the statute at issue was constitutional. See 476 U. S., at 828-832 (arguing that the challenged state statute was not “unduly burdensome”). The majority’s resort to this ease proves my point that the holding today assumes that the standard set forth in the Casey joint opinion is no longer governing.

And even if I were to assume that the pre-Casey standards govern, the cases cited by the majority provide no support for the proposition that the partial birth abortion ban must *1012include a health exception because some doctors believe that partial birth abortion is safer. In Thornburgh, Danforth, and Doe, the Court addressed health exceptions for cases in which continued pregnancy would pose a risk to the woman. Thornburgh, supra, at 770; Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52 (1976); Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S., at 197.. And in Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U. S. 379 (1979), the Court explicitly declined to address whether a State can constitutionally require a tradeoff between the woman’s health and that of the fetus. The broad rule articulated by the majority and by Justice O’Connor are unprecedented expansions of this Court’s already expansive pre-Casey jurisprudence.

As if this state of affairs were not bad enough, the majority expands the health exception rule articulated in Casey in one additional and equally pernicious way. Although Roe and Casey mandated a health exception for cases in which abortion is “necessary” for a woman’s health, the majority concludes that a procedure is “necessary” if it has any comparative health benefits. Ante, at 937. In other words, according to the majority, so long as a doctor can point to support in the profession for his (or the woman’s) preferred procedure, it is “necessary” and the physician is entitled to perform it. Ibid. See also ante, at 952 (Ginsburg, J., concurring) (arguing that a State cannot constitutionally “sto[p] a woman from choosing the procedure her doctor ‘reasonably believes’ ” is in her best interest). But such a health exception requirement eviscerates Casey’s undue-burden standard and imposes unfettered abortion on demand. The exception entirely swallows the rule. In effect, no regulation of abortion procedures is permitted because there will always be some support for a procedure and there will always be some doctors who conclude that the procedure is preferable. If Nebraska reenacts its partial birth abortion ban with a health exception, the State will not be able to prevent physicians like Dr. Carhart from using partial birth abortion as a routine abortion procedure. This Court has now expressed *1013its own conclusion that there is “highly plausible” support for the view that partial birth abortion is safer, which, in the majority’s view, means that the procedure is therefore “necessary.” Ante, at 937. Any doctor who wishes to perform such a procedure under the new statute will be able to do so with impunity. Therefore, Justice O’Connor’s assurance that the constitutional failings of Nebraska’s statute can be easily fixed, ante, at 950-951, is illusory. The majority’s insistence on a health exception is a fig leaf barely covering its hostility to any abortion regulation by the States — a hostility that Casey purported to reject.21

D

The majority assiduously avoids addressing the actual standard articulated in Casey — whether prohibiting partial birth abortion without a health exception poses a substantial obstacle to obtaining an abortion. 505 U. S., at 877. And for good reason: Such an obstacle does not exist. There are two essential reasons why the Court cannot identify a substantial obstacle. First, the Court cannot identify any real, much less substantial, barrier to any woman’s ability to obtain an abortion. And second, the Court cannot demonstrate that any such obstacle would affect a sufficient number of women to justify invalidating the statute on its face.

1

The Casey joint opinion makes clear that the Court should not strike down state regulations of abortion based on the *1014fact that some women might face a marginally higher health risk from the regulation. In Casey, the Court upheld a 24-hour waiting period even though the Court credited evidence that for some women the delay would, in practice, be much longer than 24 hours, and even though it was undisputed that any delay in obtaining an abortion would impose additional health risks. Id., at 887; id., at 937 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part, concurring in judgment in part, and dissenting in part) (“The District Court found that the mandatory 24-hour delay could lead to delays in excess of 24 hours, thus increasing health risks”). Although some women would be able to avoid the waiting period because of a “medical emergency,” the medical emergency exception in the statute was limited to those women for whom delay would create “serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.” Id., at 902 (appendix to joint opinion) (internal quotation marks omitted). Without question, there were women for whom the regulation would impose some additional health risk who would not fall within the medical emergency exception. The Court concluded, despite the certainty of this increased risk, that there was no showing that the burden on any of the women was substantial. Id., at 887.

The only ease in which this Court has overturned a State’s attempt to prohibit a particular form of abortion also demonstrates that a marginal increase in health risks is not sufficient to create an undue burden. In Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52 (1976), the Court struck down a state regulation because the State had outlawed the method of abortion used in 70% of abortions and because alternative methods were, the Court emphasized, “significantly more dangerous and critical” than the prohibited method. Id., at 76.

Like the Casey 24-hour waiting period, and in contrast to the situation in Danforth, any increased health risk to women imposed by the partial birth abortion ban is minimal *1015at most. Of the 5.5% of abortions that occur after 15 weeks (the time after which a partial birth abortion would be possible), the vast majority are performed with a D&E or induction procedure. And, for any woman with a vertex presentation fetus, the vertex presentation form of intact D&E, which presumably shares some of the health benefits of the partial birth abortion procedure but is not covered by the Nebraska statute, is available. Of the remaining women— that is, those women for whom a partial birth abortion procedure would be considered and who have a breech presentation fetus — there is no showing that any one faces a significant health risk from the partial birth abortion ban. A select committee of ACOG “could identify no circumstances under which this procedure ... would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.” App. 600 (ACOG Executive Board, Statement on Intact Dilation and Extraction (Jan. 12, 1997))* See also Hope Clinic v. Ryan, 195 F. 8d 857, 872 (CA7 1999) (en banc) (“ ‘There does not appear to be any identified situation in which intact D&X is the only appropriate procedure to induce abortion’ ” (quoting Late Term Pregnancy Techniques, AMA Policy H-5.982 W. D. Wis. 1999)); Planned Parenthood of Wis. v. Doyle, 44 F. Supp. 2d, at 980 (citing testimony of Dr. Haskell that “the D&X procedure is never medically neeessary to... preserve the health of a woman”), vacated, 195 F. 3d 857 (CA7 1999). And, an ad hoe coalition of doctors, including former Surgeon General Koop, concluded that there are-no medical conditions that require use of the partial birth abortion procedure to preserve the mother’s health. See App. 719.

In fact, there was evidence before the Nebraska Legislature that partial birth abortion increases health risks relative to other procedures. During floor debates, a proponent of the Nebraska legislation read from and cited several articles by physicians concluding that-partial birth abortion procedures are risky. App. in Nos. 98-8245, 98-3300 (GA8), *1016p. 812. One doctor testifying before a committee of the Nebraska Legislature stated that partial birth abortion involves three “very risky procedures”: dilation of the cervix, using instruments blindly, and conversion of the fetus. App. 721 (quoting testimony of Paul Hays, M. D.).22

There was also evidence before Congress that partial birth abortion “does not meet medical standards set by ACOG nor has it been adequately proven to be safe nor efficacious.” H. R. 1838 Hearing 112 (statement of Nancy G. Romer, M. D.); see id., at 110-111.23 The AMA supported the congressional ban on partial birth abortion, concluding that the procedure is “not medically indicated” and “not good medicine.” See 143 Cong. Ree. S4670 (May 19,1997) (reprinting a letter from the AMA to Sen. Santorum). And there was evidence before Congress that there is “certainly no basis upon which to state the claim that [partial birth abortion] is a safer or even a preferred procedure.” Partial Birth Abortion: The Truth, S. 6 and H. R. 929 Joint Hearing 123 (statement of Curtis Cook, M. D.). This same doctor testified that *1017“partial-birth abortion is an unnecessary, unsteady, and potentially dangerous procedure,” and that “safe alternatives are in existence.” Id., at 122.

The majority justifies its result by asserting that a “significant body of medical opinion” supports the view that partial birth abortion may be a safer abortion procedure. Ante, at 937. I find this assertion puzzling. If there is a “significant body of medical opinion” supporting this procedure, no one in the majority has identified it. In fact, it is uncontested that although this procedure has been used since at least 1992, no formal studies have compared partial birth abortion with other procedures. 11F. Supp. 2d, at 1112 (citing testimony of Dr. Stubblefield); id., at 1115 (citing testimony of Dr. Boehm); Epner, Jonas, & Seckinger, Late-term Abortion, 280 JAMA 724 (Aug. 26,1998); Sprang & Neerhof, Rationale for Banning Abortion Late in Pregnancy, 280 JAMA 744 (Aug, 26, 1998). Cf. Kumko Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U. S. 137,149-152 (1999) (observing that the reliability of a scientific technique may turn on whether the technique can be and has been tested; whether it has been subjected to peer review and publication; and whether there is a high rate of error or standards controlling its operation). The majority’s conclusion makes sense only if the undue-burden standard is not whether a “significant body of medical opinion” supports the result, but rather, as Justice Ginsburg candidly admits, whether any doctor could reasonably believe that the partial birth abortion procedure would best protect the woman. Ante, at 952.

Moreover, even if I were to assume credible evidence on both sides of the debate, that fact should resolve the undue-burden question in favor of allowing Nebraska to legislate. Where no one knows whether a regulation of abortion poses any burden at all, the burden surely does not amount to a “substantial obstacle.” Under Casey, in sueh a case we should defer to the legislative judgment. We have said:

*1018“[I]t is precisely where such disagreement exists that legislatures have been afforded the widest latitude in drafting such statutes. ... [W]hen a legislature undertakes to act in areas fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties, legislative options must be especially broad_” Kansas v. Hendricks, 521U. S., at 360, n. 3 (internal quotations marks omitted).

In Justice O’Connor’s words:

“It is . . . difficult to believe that this Court, without the resources available to those bodies entrusted with making legislative choices, believes itself competent to make these inquiries and to revise these standards every time the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) or similar group revises its views about what is and what is not appropriate medical procedure in this area.” Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U. S., at 456 (dissenting opinion).

See id., at 456, n. 4 (“Irrespective of the difficulty of the task, legislatures, with their superior factfinding capabilities, are certainly better able to make the necessary judgments than are courts”); Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S., at 519 (plurality opinion) (Court should not sit as an “ex officio medical board with powers to approve or disapprove medical and operative practices and standards throughout the United States (internal quotations marks omitted)); Jones v. United States, 463 U. S. 354, 365, n. 13 (1983) (“The lesson we have drawn is not that government may not act in the face of this [medical] uncertainty, but rather that courts should pay particular deference to reasonable legislative judgments”). The Court today disregards these principles and the clear import of Casey.

2

Even if I were willing to assume that the partial birth method of abortion is safer for some small set of women, such *1019a conclusion would not require invalidating the Act, because this case comes to us on a facial challenge. The only question before us is whether respondent has shown that “'no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid/ ” Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U. S. 502, 514 (1990) (quoting Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, supra, at 524 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment)). Courts may not invalidate on its face a state statute regulating abortion “based upon a worst-case analysis that may never occur.” 497 U. S., at 514.

Invalidation of the statute would be improper even assuming that Casey rejected this standard sub silentio (at least so far as abortion cases are concerned) in favor of a so-called “ ‘large fraction’ ” test. See Fargo Women’s Health Organization v. Schafer, 507 U. S. 1013, 1014 (1993) (O’Connor, J., joined by Souter, J., concurring) (arguing that the “no set of circumstances” standard is incompatible with Casey). See also Janklow v. Planned Parenthood, Sioux Falls Clinic, 517 U. S. 1174, 1177-1179 (1996) (Scalia, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari). In Casey, the Court was presented with a facial challenge to, among other provisions, a spousal notice requirement. The question, according to the majority, was whether the spousal notice provision operated as a “substantial obstacle” to the women “whose conduct it affects,” namely, “married women seeking abortions who do not wish to notify their husbands of their intentions and who do not qualify for one of the statutory exceptions to the notice requirement.” 505 U. S., at 895. The Court determined that a “large fraction” of the women in this category were victims of psychological or physical abuse. Ibid. For this subset of women, according to the Court, the provision would pose a substantial obstacle to the ability to obtain an abortion because their husbands could exercise an effective veto over their decision. Id., at 897.

None of the opinions supporting the majority so much as mentions the large fraction standard, undoubtedly because *1020the Nebraska statute easily survives it. I will assume, for the sake of discussion, that the category of women whose conduct Nebraska’s partial birth abortion statute might affect includes any woman who wishes to obtain a safe abortion after 16 weeks’ gestation. I will also assume (although I doubt it is true) that, of these women, every one would be willing to use the partial birth abortion procedure if so advised by her doctor. Indisputably, there is no “large fraction” of these women who would face a substantial obstacle to obtaining a safe abortion because of their inability to use this particular procedure. In fact, it is not clear that any woman would be deprived of a safe abortion by her inability to obtain a partial birth abortion. More medically sophisticated minds than ours have searched and failed to identify a single circumstance (let alone a large fraction) in which partial birth abortion is required. But no matter. The “ad hoe nullification” machine is back at full throttle. See Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S., at 814 (O’Connor, J., dissenting); Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 512 U. S. 753, 785 (1994) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part).

•i* H’ ^

We were reassured repeatedly in Casey that not all regulations of abortion are unwarranted and that the States may express profound respect for fetal life. Under Casey, the regulation before us today should easily pass constitutional muster. But the Court’s abortion jurisprudence is a particularly virulent strain of constitutional exegesis. And so today we are told that 30 States are prohibited from banning one rarely used form of abortion that they believe to border on infanticide. It is clear that the Constitution does not compel this result.

I respectfully dissent.