*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

*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.

*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.

*705Chief Justice Kehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question presented in this ease is whether Washington’s prohibition against “caus[ing]” or “aid[ing]” a suicide *706offends the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. We hold that it does not.

It has always been a crime to assist a suicide in the State of Washington. In 1854, Washington’s first Territorial Leg*707islature outlawed “assisting another in the commission of self-murder.”1 Today, Washington law provides: “A person is guilty of promoting a suicide attempt when he knowingly causes or aids another person to attempt suicide.” Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060(1) (1994). “Promoting a suicide attempt” is a felony, punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment and up to a $10,000 fine. §§ 9A.36.060(2) and 9A.20.021(1)(c). At the same time, Washington’s Natural Death Act, enacted in 1979, states that the “withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment” at a patient’s direction “shall not, for any purpose, constitute a suicide.” Wash. Rev. Code §70.122.070(1).2

Petitioners in this case are the State of Washington and its Attorney General. Respondents Harold Glucksberg, M. D., Abigail Halperin, M. D., Thomas A. Preston, M. D., and Peter Shalit, M. D., are physicians who practice in Washington. These doctors occasionally treat terminally ill, suffering patients, and declare that they would assist these patients in ending their lives if not for Washington’s assisted-suicide ban.3 In January 1994, respondents, along with three gravely ill, pseudonymous plaintiffs who have since died and *708Compassion in Dying, a nonprofit organization that counsels people considering physician-assisted suicide, sued in the United States District Court, seeking a declaration that Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060(1) (1994) is, on its face, unconstitutional. Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 850 F. Supp. 1454, 1459 (WD Wash. 1994).4

The plaintiffs asserted “the existence of a liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment which extends to a personal choice by a mentally competent, terminally ill adult to commit physician-assisted suicide.” Ibid. Relying primarily on Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992), and Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S. 261 (1990), the District Court agreed, 850 F. Supp., at 1459-1462, and concluded that Washington’s assisted-suicide ban is unconstitutional because it “places an undue burden on the exercise of [that] constitutionally protected liberty interest.” Id., at 1465.5 The District Court also decided that the Washington statute violated the Equal Protection Clause’s requirement that “ ‘all persons similarly situated ... be treated alike.’” Id., at 1466 (quoting Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U. S. 432, 439 (1985)).

A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, emphasizing that “[i]n the two hundred and five years of our existence no constitutional right to aid in killing *709oneself has ever been asserted and upheld by a court of final jurisdiction.” Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 49 F. 3d 586, 591 (1995). The Ninth Circuit reheard the case en banc, reversed the panel’s decision, and affirmed the District Court. Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 79 E 3d 790, 798 (1996). Like the District Court, the en banc Court of Appeals emphasized our Casey and Cruzan decisions. 79 F. 3d, at 813-816. The court also discussed what it described as “historical” and “current societal attitudes” toward suicide and assisted suicide, id., at 806-812, and concluded that “the Constitution encompasses a due process liberty interest in controlling the time and manner of one’s death — that there is, in short, a constitutionally-recognized ‘right to die.’ ” Id., at 816. After “[wjeighing and then balancing” this interest against Washington’s various interests, the court held that the State’s assisted-suicide ban was unconstitutional “as applied to terminally ill competent adults who wish to hasten their deaths with medication prescribed by their physicians.” Id., at 836, 837.6 The court did not reach the District Court’s equal protection holding. Id., at 838.7 We granted certiorari, 518 U. S. 1057 (1996), and now reverse.

*710We begin, as we do in all due process cases, by examining our Nation’s history, legal traditions, and practices. See, e. g., Casey, supra, at 849-850; Cruzan, supra, at 269-279; Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494, 503 (1977) (plurality opinion) (noting importance of “careful 'respect for the teachings of history’ ”). In almost every State — indeed, in almost every western democracy — it is a crime to assist a suicide.8 The States’ assisted-suicide bans are not innovations. Rather, they are longstanding expressions of the States’ commitment to the protection and preservation of all human life. Cruzan, supra, at 280 (“[T]he States — indeed, all civilized nations — demonstrate their commitment to life by treating homicide as a serious crime. Moreover, the major*711ity of States in this country have laws imposing criminal penalties on one who assists another to commit suicide”); see Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U. S. 361, 373 (1989) (“[T]he primary and most reliable indication of [a national] consensus is ... the pattern of enacted laws”). Indeed, opposition to and condemnation of suicide — and, therefore, of assisting suicide — are consistent and enduring themes of our philosophical, legal, and cultural heritages. See generally Marzen 17-56; New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, When Death is Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context 77-82 (May 1994) (hereinafter New York Task Force).

More specifically, for over 700 years, the Anglo-American common-law tradition has punished or otherwise disapproved of both suicide and assisting suicide.9 Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 294-295 (Scalia, J., concurring). In the 13th century, Henry de Bracton, one of the first legal-treatise writers, observed that “[j]ust as a man may commit felony by slaying another so may he do so by slaying himself.” 2 Bracton on Laws and Customs of England 423 (f. 150) (G. Woodbine ed., S. Thorne transí., 1968). The real and personal property of one who killed himself to avoid conviction and punishment for a crime were forfeit to the King; however, thought Brac-ton, “if a man slays himself in weariness of life or because he is unwilling to endure further bodily pain . . . [only] his movable goods [were] confiscated.” Id., at 423-424 (f. 150). Thus, “[t]he principle that suicide of a sane person, for whatever reason, was a punishable felony was ... introduced into *712English common law.”10 Centuries later, Sir William Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England not only provided a definitive summary of the common law but was also a primary legal authority for 18th- and 19th-century American lawyers, referred to suicide as “self-murder” and “the pretended heroism, but real cowardice, of the Stoic philosophers, who destroyed themselves to avoid those ills which they had not the fortitude to endure . . . 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *189. Blackstone emphasized that “the law has . . . ranked [suicide] among the highest crimes,” ibid., although, anticipating later developments, he conceded that the harsh and shameful punishments imposed for suicide “borde[r] a little upon severity.” Id., at *190.

For the most part, the early American Colonies adopted the common-law approach. For example, the legislators of the Providence Plantations, which would later become Rhode Island, declared, in 1647, that “[sjelf-murder is by all agreed to be the most unnatural, and it is by this present Assembly declared, to be that, wherein he that doth it, kills himself out *713of a premeditated hatred against his own life or other humor: ... his goods and chattels are the king’s custom, but not his debts nor lands; but in case he be an infant, a lunatic, mad or distracted man, he forfeits nothing.” The Earliest Acts and Laws of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations 1647-1719, p. 19 (J. Cushing ed. 1977). Virginia also required ignominious burial for suicides, and their estates were forfeit to the Crown. A. Scott, Criminal Law in Colonial Virginia 108, and n. 93, 198, and n. 15 (1930).

Over time, however, the American Colonies abolished these harsh common-law penalties. William Penn abandoned the criminal-forfeiture sanction in Pennsylvania in 1701, and the other Colonies (and later, the other States) eventually followed this example. Cruzan, supra, at 294 (Scalia, J., concurring). Zephaniah Swift, who would later become Chief Justice of Connecticut, wrote in 1796:

“There can be no act more contemptible, than to attempt to punish an offender for a crime, by exercising a mean act of revenge upon lifeless clay, that is insensible of the punishment. There can be no greater cruelty, than the inflicting [of] a punishment, as the forfeiture of goods, which must fall solely on the innocent offspring of the offender. . . . [Suicide] is so abhorrent to the feelings of mankind, and that strong love of life which is implanted in the human heart, that it cannot be so frequently committed, as to become dangerous to society. There can of course be no necessity of any punishment.” 2 Z. Swift, A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut 304 (1796).

This statement makes it clear, however, that the movement away from the common law’s harsh sanctions did not represent an acceptance of suicide; rather, as Chief Justice Swift observed, this change reflected the growing consensus that it was unfair to punish the suicide’s family for his wrongdoing. Cruzan, supra, at 294 (Scalia, J., concurring). Nonethe*714less, although States moved away from Blackstone’s treatment of suicide, courts continued to condemn it as a grave public wrong. See, e. g., Bigelow v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., 93 U. S. 284, 286 (1876) (suicide is “an act of criminal self-destruction”); Von Holden v. Chapman, 87 App. Div. 2d 66, 70-71, 450 N. Y. S. 2d 623, 626-627 (1982); Blackwood v. Jones, 111 Fla. 528, 532, 149 So. 600, 601 (1933) (“No sophistry is tolerated . .. which seek[s] to justify self-destruction as commendable or even a matter of personal right”).

That suicide remained a grievous, though nonfelonious, wrong is confirmed by the fact that colonial and early state legislatures and courts did not retreat from prohibiting assisting suicide. Swift, in his early 19th-century treatise on the laws of Connecticut, stated that “[i]f one counsels another to commit suicide, and the other by reason of the advice kills himself, the advisor is guilty of murder as principal.” 2 Z. Swift, A Digest of the Laws of the State of Connecticut 270 (1823). This was the well-established common-law view, see In re Joseph G., 34 Cal. 3d 429, 434-435, 667 P. 2d 1176, 1179 (1983); Commonwealth v. Mink, 123 Mass. 422, 428 (1877) (“ ‘Now if the murder of one’s self is felony, the accessory is equally guilty as if he had aided and abetted in the murder’ ”) (quoting Chief Justice Parker’s charge to the jury in Commonwealth v. Bowen, 13 Mass. 356 (1816)), as was the similar principle that the consent of a homicide victim is “wholly immaterial to the guilt of the person who cause[d] [his death],” 3 J. Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England 16 (1883); see 1 F. Wharton, Criminal Law §§ 451-452 (9th ed. 1885); Martin v. Commonwealth, 184 Va. 1009, 1018-1019, 37 S. E. 2d 43, 47 (1946) (‘“The right to life and to personal security is not only sacred in the estimation of the common law, but it is inalienable’ ”). And the prohibitions against assisting suicide never contained exceptions for those who were near death. Rather, “[t]he life of those to whom life ha[d] become a burden — of those who [were] hopelessly diseased or fatally wounded — nay, even the lives of criminals *715condemned to death, [were] under the protection of the law, equally as the lives of those who [were] in the full tide of life’s enjoyment, and anxious to continue to live.” Blackburn v. State, 23 Ohio St. 146, 163 (1872); see Bowen, supra, at 360 (prisoner who persuaded another to commit suicide could be tried for murder, even though victim was scheduled shortly to be executed).

The earliest American statute explicitly to outlaw assisting suicide was enacted in New York in 1828, Act of Dec. 10, 1828, ch. 20, § 4, 1828 N. Y. Laws 19 (codified at 2 N. Y. Rev. Stat. pt. 4, ch. 1, Tit. 2, Art. 1, § 7, p. 661 (1829)), and many of the new States and Territories followed New York’s example. Marzen 73-74. Between 1857 and 1865, a New York commission led by Dudley Field drafted a criminal code that prohibited “aiding” a suicide and, specifically, “furnishing] another person with any deadly weapon or poisonous drug, knowing that such person intends to use such weapon or drug in taking his own life.” Id., at 76-77. By the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, it was a crime in most States to assist a suicide. See Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 294-295 (Scalia, J., concurring). The Field Penal Code was adopted in the Dakota Territory in 1877 and in New York in 1881, and its language served as a model for several other western States’ statutes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Marzen 76-77, 205-206, 212-213. California, for example, codified its assisted-suicide prohibition in 1874, using language similar to the Field Code’s.11 In this century, the Model Penal Code also prohibited “aiding” suicide, prompting many States to enact or revise their assisted-suicide *716bans.12 The code’s drafters observed that “the interests in the sanctity of life that are represented by the criminal homicide laws are threatened by one who expresses a willingness to participate in taking the life of another, even though the act may be accomplished with the consent, or at the request, of the suicide victim.” American Law Institute, Model Penal Code § 210.5, Comment 5, p. 100 (Official Draft and Revised Comments 1980).

Though deeply rooted, the States’ assisted-suicide bans have in recent years been reexamined and, generally, reaffirmed. Because of advances in medicine and technology, Americans today are increasingly likely to die in institutions, from chronic illnesses. President’s Comm’n for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Deciding to Forego Life-Sustaining Treatment 16-18 (1983). Public concern and democratic action are. therefore sharply focused on how best to protect dignity and independence at the end of life, with the result that there have been many significant changes in state laws and in the attitudes these laws reflect. Many States, for example, now permit “living wills,” surrogate health-care decisionmaking, and the withdrawal or refusal of life-sustaining medical treatment. See Vacco v. Quill, post, at 804-806; 79 F. 3d, at 818-820; People v. Kevorkian, 447 Mich. 436, 478-480, and nn. 53-56, 527 N. W. 2d 714, 731-732, and nn. 53-56 (1994). At the same time, however, voters and legislators continue for the most part to reaffirm their States’ prohibitions on assisting suicide.

The Washington statute at issue in this case, Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060 (1994), was enacted in 1975 as part of a revision of that State’s criminal code. Four years later, *717Washington passed its Natural Death Act, which specifically stated that the “withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment... shall not, for any purpose, constitute a suicide” and that “[n]othing in this chapter shall be construed to condone, authorize, or approve mercy killing . . . Natural Death Act, 1979 Wash. Laws, ch. 112, § 8(1), p. 11 (codified at Wash. Rev. Code §§ 70.122.070(1), 70.122.100 (1994)). In 1991, Washington voters rejected a ballot initiative which, had it passed, would have permitted a form of physician-assisted suicide.13 Washington then added a provision to the Natural Death Act expressly excluding physician-assisted suicide. 1992 Wash. Laws, ch. 98, § 10; Wash. Rev. Code § 70.122.100 (1994).

California voters rejected an assisted-suicide initiative similar to Washington’s in 1993. On the other hand, in 1994, voters in Oregon enacted, also through ballot initiative, that State’s “Death With Dignity Act,” which legalized physician-assisted suicide for competent, terminally ill adults.14 Since the Oregon vote, many proposals to legalize assisted-suicide have been and continue to be introduced in the States’ legislatures, but none has been enacted.15 And *718just last year, Iowa and Rhode Island joined the overwhelming majority of States explicitly prohibiting assisted suicide. See Iowa Code Ann. §§ 707A.2, 707A.3 (Supp. 1997); R. I. Gen. Laws §§ 11-60-1, 11-60-3 (Supp. 1996). Also, on April 30, 1997, President Clinton signed the Federal Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997, which prohibits the use of federal funds in support of physician-assisted suicide. Pub. L. 105-12, 111 Stat. 23 (codified at 42 U. S. C. § 14401 et seq.).16

*719Thus, the States are currently engaged in serious, thoughtful examinations of physician-assisted suicide and other similar issues. For example, New York State’s Task Force on Life and the Law — an ongoing, blue-ribbon commission composed of doctors, ethicists, lawyers, religious leaders, and interested laymen — was convened in 1984 and commissioned with “a broad mandate to recommend public policy on issues raised by medical advances.” New York Task Force vii. Over the past decade, the Task Force has recommended laws relating to end-of-life decisions, surrogate pregnancy, and organ donation. Id., at 118-119. After studying physician-assisted suicide, however, the Task Force unanimously concluded that “[legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia would pose profound risks to many individuals who are ill and vulnerable. . . . [T]he potential dangers of this dramatic change in public policy would outweigh any benefit that might be achieved.” Id., at 120.

Attitudes toward suicide itself have changed since Brac-ton, but our laws have consistently condemned, and continue to prohibit, assisting suicide. Despite changes in medical technology and notwithstanding an increased emphasis on the importance of end-of-life decisionmaking, we have not retreated from this prohibition. Against this backdrop of history, tradition, and practice, we now turn to respondents’ constitutional claim.

II

The Due Process Clause guarantees more than fair process, and the “liberty” it protects includes more than the absence of physical restraint. Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U. S. 115, 125 (1992) (Due Process Clause “protects individual liberty against ‘certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them’ ”) (quot*720ing Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 331 (1986)). The Clause also provides heightened protection against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests. Reno v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 301-302 (1993); Casey, 505 U. S., at 851. In a long line of cases, we have held that, in addition to the specific freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, the “liberty” specially protected by the Due Process Clause includes the rights to marry, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967); to have children, Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535 (1942); to direct the education and upbringing of one's children, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 (1923); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510 (1925); to marital privacy, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965); to use contraception, ibid.; Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438 (1972); to bodily integrity, Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165 (1952), and to abortion, Casey, supra. We have also assumed, and strongly suggested, that the Due Process Clause protects the traditional right to refuse unwanted lifesaving medical treatment. Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 278-279.

But we “ha[ve] always been reluctant to expand the concept of substantive due process because guideposts for responsible decisionmaking in this unchartered area are scarce and open-ended.” Collins, 503 U. S., at 125. By extending constitutional protection to an asserted right or liberty interest, we, to a great extent, place the matter outside the arena of public debate and legislative action. We must therefore “exercise the utmost care whenever we are asked to break new ground in this field,” ibid., lest the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause be subtly transformed into the policy preferences of the Members of this Court, Moore, 431 U. S., at 502 (plurality opinion).

Our established method of substantive-due-process analysis has two primary features: First, we have regularly observed that the Due Process Clause specially protects those fundamental rights and liberties which are, objectively, *721“deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” id., at 503 (plurality opinion); Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 105 (1934) (“so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental”), and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” such that “neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed,” Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 325, 326 (1937). Second, we have required in substantive-due-process cases a “careful description” of the asserted fundamental liberty interest. Flores, supra, at 302; Collins, supra, at 125; Cruzan, supra, at 277-278. Our Nation’s history, legal traditions, and practices thus provide the crucial “guideposts for responsible decision-making,” Collins, supra, at 125, that direct and restrain our exposition of the Due Process Clause. As we stated recently in Flores, the Fourteenth Amendment “forbids the government to infringe ... ‘fundamental’ liberty interests at all, no matter what process is provided, unless the infringement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.” 507 U. S., at 302.

Justice Souter, relying on Justice Harlan’s dissenting opinion in Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497 (1961), would largely abandon this restrained methodology, and instead ask “whether [Washington’s] statute sets up one of those ‘arbitrary impositions’ or ‘purposeless restraints’ at odds with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” post, at 752 (quoting Poe, supra, at 543 (Harlan, J., dissenting)).17 *722In our view, however, the development of this Court’s substantive-due-process jurisprudence, described briefly supra, at 719-720, has been a process whereby the outlines of the “liberty” specially protected by the Fourteenth Amendment — never fully clarified, to be sure, and perhaps not capable of being fully clarified — have at least been carefully refined by concrete examples involving fundamental rights found to be deeply rooted in our legal tradition. This approach tends to rein in the subjective elements that are necessarily present in.due process judicial review. In addition, by establishing a threshold requirement — that a challenged state action implicate a fundamental right — before requiring m'ore than a reasonable relation to a legitimate state interest to justify the action, it avoids the need for complex balancing of competing interests in every case.

Turning to the claim at issue here, the Court of Appeals stated that “ [p]roperly analyzed, the first issue to be resolved is whether there is a liberty interest in determining the time and manner of one’s death,” 79 F. 3d, at 801, or, in other words, “[i]s there a right to die?,” id., at 799. Similarly, respondents assert a “liberty to choose how to die” and a right to “control of one’s final days,” Brief for Respondents 7, and describe the asserted liberty as “the right to choose a humane, dignified death,” id., at 15, and “the liberty to shape death,” id., at 18. As noted above, we have a tradition of carefully formulating the interest at stake in substantive-due-process cases. For example, although Cruzan is often described as a “right to die” case, see 79 F. 3d, at 799; post, at 745 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgments) (Cruzan recognized “the more specific interest in making decisions about *723how to confront an imminent death”), we were, in fact, more precise: We assumed that the Constitution granted competent persons a “constitutionally protected right to refuse lifesaving hydration and nutrition.” Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 279; id., at 287 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (“[A] liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical treatment may be inferred from our prior decisions”). The Washington statute at issue in this case prohibits “aid[ing] another person to attempt suicide,” Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060(1) (1994), and, thus, the question before us is whether the “liberty” specially protected by the Due Process Clause includes a right to commit suicide which itself includes a right to assistance in doing so.18

We now inquire whether this asserted right has any place in our Nation’s traditions. Here, as discussed supra, at 710-719, we are confronted with a consistent and almost universal tradition that has long rejected the asserted right, and continues explicitly to reject it today, even for terminally ill, mentally competent adults. To hold for respondents, we would have to reverse centuries of legal doctrine and practice, and strike down the considered policy choice of almost every State. See Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U. S. 22, 31 (1922) (“If a thing has been practised for two hundred years by common consent, it will need a strong case for the Fourteenth Amendment to affect it”); Flores, 507 U. S., at 303 (“The mere novelty of such a claim is reason enough to doubt that ‘substantive due process’ sustains it”).

Respondents contend, however, that the liberty interest they assert is consistent with this Court’s substantive-due-*724process line of cases, if not with this Nation’s history and practice. Pointing to Casey and Cruzan, respondents read our jurisprudence in this area as reflecting a general tradition of “self-sovereignty,” Brief for Respondents 12, and as teaching that the “liberty” protected by the Due Process Clause includes “basic and intimate exercises of personal autonomy,” id., at 10; see Casey, 505 U. S., at 847 (“It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter”). According to respondents, our liberty jurisprudence, and the broad, individualistic principles it reflects, protects the “liberty of competent, terminally ill adults to make end-of-life decisions free of undue government interference.” Brief for Respondents 10. The question presented in this case, however, is whether the protections of the Due Process Clause include a right to commit suicide with another’s assistance. With this “careful description” of respondents’ claim in mind, we turn to Casey and Cruzan.

In Cruzan, we considered whether Nancy Beth Cruzan, who had been severely injured in an automobile accident and was in a persistive vegetative state, “ha[d] a right under the United States Constitution which would require the hospital to withdraw life-sustaining treatment” at her parents’ request. 497 U. S., at 269. We began with the observation that “[a]t common law, even the touching of one person by another without consent and without legal justification was a battery.” Ibid. We then discussed the related rule that “informed consent is generally required for medical treatment.” Ibid. After reviewing a long line of relevant state cases, we concluded that “the common-law doctrine of informed consent is viewed as generally encompassing the right of a competent individual to refuse medical treatment.” Id., at 277. Next, we reviewed our own cases on the subject, and stated that “[t]he principle that a competent person has a constitutionally protected liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical treatment may be inferred from our prior *725decisions.” Id., at 278. Therefore, “for purposes of [that] case, we assumefd] that the United States Constitution would grant a competent person a constitutionally protected right to refuse lifesaving hydration and nutrition.” Id., at 279; see id., at 287 (O’Connor, J., concurring). We concluded that, notwithstanding this right, the Constitution permitted Missouri to require clear and convincing evidence of an incompetent patient’s wishes concerning the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment. Id., at 280-281.

Respondents contend that in Cruzan we “acknowledged that competent, dying persons have the right to direct the removal of life-sustaining medical treatment and thus hasten death,” Brief for Respondents 23, and that “the constitutional principle behind recognizing the patient’s liberty to direct the withdrawal of artificial life support applies at least as strongly to the choice to hasten impending death by consuming lethal medication,” id., at 26. Similarly, the Court of Appeals concluded that “Cruzan, by recognizing a liberty interest that includes the refusal of artificial provision of life-sustaining food and water, necessarily recognize[d] a liberty interest in hastening one’s own death.” 79 F. 3d, at 816.

The right assumed in Cruzan, however, was not simply deduced from abstract concepts of personal autonomy. Given the common-law rule that forced medication was a battery, and the long legal tradition protecting the decision to refuse unwanted medical treatment, our assumption was entirely consistent with this Nation’s history and constitutional traditions. The decision to commit suicide with the assistance of another may be just as personal and profound as the decision to refuse unwanted medical treatment, but it has never enjoyed similar legal protection. Indeed, the two acts are widely and reasonably regarded as quite distinct. See Quill v. Vacco, post, at 800-808. In Cruzan itself, we recognized that most States outlawed assisted suicide — and even more do today — and we certainly gave no intimation that the right to refuse unwanted medical treatment could be some*726how transmuted into a right to assistance in committing suicide. 497 U. S., at 280.

Respondents also rely on Casey. There, the Court’s opinion concluded that “the essential holding of Roe v. Wade[, 410 U. S. 113 (1973),] should be retained and once again reaffirmed.” 505 U. S., at 846. We held, first, that a woman has a right, before her fetus is viable, to an abortion “without undue interference from the State”; second, that States may restrict postviability abortions, so long as exceptions are made to protect a woman’s life and health; and third, that the State has legitimate interests throughout a pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the unborn child. Ibid. In reaching this conclusion, the opinion discussed in some detail this Court’s substantive-due-process tradition of interpreting the Due Process Clause to protect certain fundamental rights and “personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education,” and noted that many of those rights and liberties “involv[e] the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime.” Id., at 851.

The Court of Appeals, like the District Court, found Casey “ ‘highly instructive’ ” and “ ‘almost prescriptive’ ” for determining “ ‘what liberty interest may inhere in a terminally ill person’s choice to commit suicide’

“Like the decision of whether or not to have an abortion, the decision how and when to die is one of ‘the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime,’ a choice ‘central to personal dignity and autonomy.’” 79 F. 3d, at 813-814.

Similarly, respondents emphasize the statement in Casey that:

“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 *727formed under compulsion of the State.” 505 U. S., at 851.

Brief for Respondents 12. By choosing this language, the Court’s opinion in Casey described, in a general way and in light of our prior eases, those personal activities and decisions that this Court has identified as so deeply rooted in our history and traditions, or so fundamental to our concept of constitutionally ordered liberty, that they are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.19 The opinion moved from the recognition that liberty necessarily includes freedom of conscience and belief about ultimate considerations to the observation that “though the abortion decision may originate within the zone of conscience and belief, it is more than a philosophic exercise.” Casey, 505 U. S., at 852 (emphasis added). That many of the rights and liberties protected by the Due Process Clause sound in personal autonomy does not warrant the sweeping conclusion that any and all important, intimate, and personal decisions are so protected, San An*728tonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 33-35 (1973), and Casey did not suggest otherwise.

The history of the law’s treatment of assisted suicide in this country has been and continues to be one of the rejection of nearly all efforts to permit it. That being the case, our decisions lead us to conclude that the asserted “right” to assistance in committing suicide is not a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. The Constitution also requires, however, that Washington’s assisted-suicide ban be rationally related to legitimate government interests. See Heller v. Doe, 509 U. S. 312, 319-320 (1993); Flores, 507 U. S., at 305. This requirement is unquestionably met here. As the court below recognized, 79 F. 3d, at 816-817,20 Washington’s assisted-suicide ban implicates a number of state interests.21 See 49 F. 3d, at 592-593; Brief for State of California et al. as Amici Curiae 26-29; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16-27.

First, Washington has an “unqualified interest in the preservation of human life.” Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 282. The State’s prohibition on assisted suicide, like all homicide laws, both reflects and advances its commitment to this interest. See id., at 280; Model Penal Code § 210.5, Comment 5, at 100 (“[T]he interests in the sanctity of life that are represented by the criminal homicide laws are threatened by one who expresses a willingness to participate in taking the life of *729another”).22 This interest is symbolic and aspirational as well as practical:

“While suicide is no longer prohibited or penalized, the ban against assisted suicide and euthanasia shores up the notion of limits in human relationships. It reflects the gravity with which we view the decision to take one’s own life or the life of another, and our reluctance to encourage or promote these decisions.” New York Task Force 131-132.

Respondents admit that “[t]he State has a real interest in preserving the lives of those who can still contribute to society and have the potential to enjoy life.” Brief for Respondents 35, n. 23. The Court of Appeals also recognized Washington’s interest in protecting life, but held that the “weight” of this interest depends on the “medical condition and the wishes of the person whose life is at stake.” 79 F. 3d, at 817. Washington, however, has rejected this sliding-scale approach and, through its assisted-suicide ban, insists that all persons’ lives, from beginning to end, regardless of physical or mental condition, are under the full protection of the law. See United States v. Rutherford, 442 U. S. 544, 558 (1979) (“. . . Congress could reasonably have determined to protect the terminally ill, no less than other patients, from the vast range of self-styled panaceas that inventive minds can devise”). As we have previously affirmed, the States “may properly decline to make judgments about the 'quality’ of life that a particular individual may enjoy,” Cruzan, *730supra, at 282. This remains true, as Cruzan makes clear, even for those who are near death.

Relatedly, all admit that suicide is a serious public-health problem, especially among persons in otherwise vulnerable groups. See Washington State Dept. of Health, Annual Summary of Vital Statistics 1991, pp. 29-30 (Oct. 1992) (suicide is a leading cause of death in Washington of those between the ages of 14 and 54); New York Task Force 10, 23-33 (suicide rate in the general population is about one percent, and suicide is especially prevalent among the young and the elderly). The State has an interest in preventing suicide, and in studying, identifying, and treating its causes. See 79 F. 3d, at 820; id., at 854 (Beezer, J., dissenting) (“The state recognizes suicide as a manifestation of medical and psychological anguish”); Marzen 107-146.

Those who attempt suicide — terminally ill or not — often suffer from depression or other mental disorders. See New York Task Force 13-22, 126-128 (more than 95% of those who commit suicide had a major psychiatric illness at the time of death; among the terminally ill, uncontrolled pain is a “risk factor” because it contributes to depression); Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Netherlands: A Report of Chairman Charles T. Canady to the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 104th Cong., 2d Sess., 10-11 (Comm. Print 1996); cf. Back, Wallace, Starks, & Pearlman, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Washington State, 275 JAMA 919, 924 (1996) (“[Intolerable physical symptoms are not the reason most patients request physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia”). Research indicates, however, that many people who request physician-assisted suicide withdraw that request if their depression and pain are treated. H. Hendin, Seduced by Death: Doctors, Patients and the Dutch Cure 24-25 (1997) (suicidal, terminally ill patients “usually respond well to treatment for depressive illness and pain medication and are then grateful to be alive”); New York Task Force 177-178. *731The New York Task Force, however, expressed its concern that, because depression is difficult to diagnose, physicians and medical professionals often fail to respond adequately to seriously ill patients’ needs. Id., at 175. Thus, legal physician-assisted suicide could make it more difficult for the State to protect depressed or mentally ill persons, or those who are suffering from untreated pain, from suicidal impulses.

The State also has an interest in protecting the integrity and ethics of the medical profession. In contrast to the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that “the integrity of the medical profession would [not] be threatened in any way by [physician-assisted suicide],” 79 F. 3d, at 827, the American Medical Association, like many other medical and physicians’ groups, has concluded that “[p]hysician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.” American Medical Association, Code of Ethics § 2.211 (1994); see Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, Decisions Near the End of Life, 267 JAMA 2229, 2233 (1992) (“[T]he societal risks of involving physicians in medical interventions to cause patients’ deaths is too great”); New York Task Force 103-109 (discussing physicians’ views). And physician-assisted suicide could, it is argued, undermine the trust that is essential to the doctor-patient relationship by blurring the time-honored line between healing and harming. Assisted Suicide in the United States, Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 104th Cong., 2d Sess., 355-356 (1996) (testimony of Dr. Leon R. Kass) (“The patient’s trust in the doctor’s whole-hearted devotion to his best interests will be hard to sustain”).

Next, the State has an interest in protecting vulnerable groups — including the poor, the elderly, and disabled persons — from abuse, neglect, and mistakes. The Court of Appeals dismissed the State’s concern that disadvantaged persons might be pressured into physician-assisted suicide as *732“ludicrous on its face.” 79 F. 3d, at 825. We have recognized, however, the real risk of subtle coercion and undue influence in end-of-life situations. Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 281. Similarly, the New York Task Force warned that “[ljegaliz-ing physician-assisted suicide would pose profound risks to many individuals who are ill and vulnerable. . . . The risk of harm is greatest for the many individuals in our society whose autonomy and well-being are already compromised by poverty, lack of access to good medical care, advanced age, or membership in a stigmatized social group.” New York Task Force 120; see Compassion in Dying, 49 F. 3d, at 593 (“An insidious bias against the handicapped — again coupled with a cost-saving mentality — makes them especially in need of Washington’s statutory protection”). If physician-assisted suicide were permitted, many might resort to it to spare their families the substantial financial burden of end-of-life health-care costs.

The State’s interest here goes beyond protecting the vulnerable from coercion; it extends to protecting disabled and terminally ill people from prejudice, negative and inaccurate stereotypes, and “societal indifference.” 49 F. 3d, at 592. The State’s assisted-suicide ban reflects and reinforces its policy that the lives of terminally ill, disabled, and elderly people must be no less valued than the lives of the young and healthy, and that a seriously disabled person’s suicidal impulses should be interpreted and treated the same way as anyone else’s. See New York Task Force 101-102; Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Netherlands: A Report of Chairman Charles T. Canady, supra, at 9, 20 (discussing prejudice toward the disabled and the negative messages euthanasia and assisted suicide send to handicapped patients).

Finally, the State may fear that permitting assisted suicide will start it down the path to voluntary and perhaps even involuntary euthanasia. The Court of Appeals struck down *733Washington’s assisted-suicide ban only “as applied to competent, terminally ill adults who wish to hasten their deaths by obtaining medication prescribed by their doctors.” 79 F. 3d, at 838. Washington insists, however, that the impact of the court’s decision will not and cannot be so limited. Brief for Petitioners 44-47. If suicide is protected as a matter of constitutional right, it is argued, “every man and woman in the United States must enjoy it.” Compassion in Dying, 49 F. 3d, at 591; see Kevorkian, 447 Mich., at 470, n. 41, 527 N. W. 2d, at 727-728, n. 41. The Court of Appeals’ decision, and its expansive reasoning, provide ample support for the State’s concerns. The court noted, for example, that the “decision of a duly appointed surrogate decision maker is for all legal purposes the decision of the patient himself,” 79 F. 3d, at 832, n. 120; that “in some instances, the patient may be unable to self-administer the drugs and ... administration by the physician . . . may be the only way the patient may be able to receive them,” id., at 831; and that not only physicians, but also family members and loved ones, will inevitably participate in assisting suicide, id., at 838, n. 140. Thus, it turns out that what is couched as a limited right to “physician-assisted suicide” is likely, in effect, a much broader license, which could prove extremely difficult to police and contain.23 Washington’s ban on assisting suicide prevents such erosion.

*734This concern is further supported by evidence about the practice of euthanasia in the Netherlands. The Dutch government’s own study revealed that in 1990, there were 2,300 cases of voluntary euthanasia (defined as “the deliberate termination of another’s life at his request”), 400 cases of assisted suicide, and more than 1,000 cases of euthanasia without an explicit request. In addition to these latter 1,000 cases, the study found an additional 4,941 cases where physicians administered lethal morphine overdoses without the patients’ explicit consent. Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Netherlands: A Report of Chairman Charles T. Canady, supra, 12-13 (citing Dutch study). This study suggests that, despite the existence of various reporting procedures, euthanasia in the Netherlands has not been limited to competent, terminally ill adults who are enduring physical suffering, and that regulation of the practice may not have prevented abuses in cases involving vulnerable persons, including severely disabled neonates and elderly persons suffering from dementia. Id., at 16-21; see generally C. Gomez, Regulating Death: Euthanasia and the Case of the Netherlands (1991); H. Hendin, Seduced By Death: Doctors, Patients, and the Dutch Cure (1997). The New York Task Force, citing the Dutch experience, observed that “assisted suicide and euthanasia are closely linked,” New York Task Force 145, and concluded that the “risk of... abuse is neither speculative nor distant,” id., at 134. Washington, like most *735other States, reasonably ensures against this risk by banning, rather than regulating, assisted suicide. See United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Super 8MM. Film, 413 U. S. 123, 127 (1973) (“Each step, when taken, appear[s] a reasonable step in relation to that which preceded it, although the aggregate or end result is one that would never have been seriously considered in the first instance”).

We need not weigh exactingly the relative strengths of these various interests. They are unquestionably important and legitimate, and Washington’s ban on assisted suicide is at least reasonably related to their promotion and protection. We therefore hold that Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060(1) (1994) does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, either on its face or “as applied to competent, terminally ill adults who wish to hasten their deaths by obtaining medication prescribed by their doctors.” 79 F. 3d, at 838.24

* * *

Throughout the Nation, Americans are engaged in an earnest and profound debate about the morality, legality, and practicality of physician-assisted suicide. Our holding permits this debate to continue, as it should in a democratic society. The decision of the en banc Court of Appeals is *736reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice O’Connor,

concurring.*, †

Death will be different for each of us. For many, the last days will be spent in physical pain and perhaps the despair that accompanies physical deterioration and a loss of control of basic bodily and mental functions. Some will seek medication to alleviate that pain and other symptoms.

The Court frames the issue in Washington v. Glucksberg as whether the Due Process Clause of the Constitution protects a "right to commit suicide which itself includes a right to assistance in doing so,” ante, at 723, and concludes that our Nation’s history, legal traditions, and practices do not support the existence of such a right. I join the Court’s opinions because I agree that there is no generalized right to “commit suicide.” But respondents urge us to address the narrower question whether a mentally competent person who is experiencing great suffering has a constitutionally cognizable interest in controlling the circumstances of his or her imminent death. I see no need to reach that question in the context of the facial challenges to the New York and Washington laws at issue here. See ibid. (“The Washington statute at issue in this case prohibits ‘aid[ing] another person to attempt suicide,’. . . and, thus, the question before us is whether the ‘liberty’ specially protected by the Due Process Clause includes a right to commit suicide which itself includes a right to assistance in doing so”). The parties and amici agree that in these States a patient who is *737suffering from a terminal illness and who is experiencing great pain has no legal barriers to obtaining medication, from qualified physicians, to alleviate that suffering, even to the point of causing unconsciousness and hastening death. See Wash. Rev. Code §70.122.010 (1994); Brief for Petitioners in No. 95-1858, p. 15, n. 9; Brief for Respondents in No. 95-1858, p. 15. In this light, even assuming that we would recognize such an interest, I agree that the State’s interests in protecting those who are not truly competent or facing imminent death, or those whose decisions to hasten death would not truly be voluntary, are sufficiently weighty to justify a prohibition against physician-assisted suicide. Ante, at 781-733; post, at 747 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgments); post, at 782-787 (Souter, J., concurring in judgment).

Every one of us at some point may be affected by our own or a family member’s terminal illness. There is no reason to think the democratic process will not strike the proper balance between the interests of terminally ill, mentally competent individuals who would seek to end their suffering and the State’s interests in protecting those who might seek to end life mistakenly or under pressure. As the Court recognizes, States are presently undertaking extensive and serious evaluation of physician-assisted suicide and other related issues. Ante, at 716-718; see post, at 785-788 (Souter, J., concurring in judgment). In such circumstances, “the . . . challenging task of crafting appropriate procedures for safeguarding... liberty interests is entrusted to the ‘laboratory’ of the States ... in the first instance.” Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S. 261, 292 (1990) (O’Connor, J., concurring) (citing New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262, 311 (1932)).

In sum, there is no need to address the question whether suffering patients have a constitutionally cognizable interest in obtaining relief from the suffering that they may experience in the last days of their lives. There is no dispute that *738dying patients in Washington and New York can obtain palliative care, even when doing so would hasten their deaths. The difficulty in defining terminal illness and the risk that a dying patient’s request for assistance in ending his or her life might not be truly voluntary justifies the prohibitions on assisted suicide we uphold here.

Justice Stevens,

concurring in the judgments. *

The Court ends its opinion with the important observation that our holding today is fully consistent with a continuation of the vigorous debate about the “morality, legality, and practicality of physician-assisted suicide” in a democratic society. Ante, at 735. I write separately to make it clear that there is also room for further debate about the limits that the Constitution places on the power of the States to punish the practice.

I

The morality, legality, and practicality of capital punishment have been the subject of debate for many years. In 1976, this Court upheld the constitutionality of the practice in cases coming to us from Georgia,1 Florida,2 and Texas.3 In those cases we concluded that a State does have the power to place a lesser value on some lives than on others; there is no absolute requirement that a State treat all human life as having an equal right to preservation. Because the state legislatures had sufficiently narrowed the category of lives that the State could terminate, and had enacted special procedures to ensure that the defendant belonged in that limited category, we concluded that the statutes were not unconstitutional on their face. In later cases coming to us from each *739of those States, however, we found that some applications of the statutes were unconstitutional.4

Today, the Court decides that Washington’s statute prohibiting assisted suicide is not invalid “on its face,” that is to say, in all or most cases in which it might be applied.5 That holding, however, does not foreclose the possibility that some applications of the statute might well be invalid.

As originally filed, Washington v. Glucksberg presented a challenge to the Washington statute on its face and as it applied to three terminally ill, mentally competent patients and to four physicians who treat terminally ill patients. After the District Court issued its opinion holding that the statute placed an undue burden on the right to commit physician-assisted suicide, see Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 850 F. Supp. 1454, 1462, 1465 (WD Wash. 1994), the three patients died. Although the Court of Appeals considered the constitutionality of the statute “as applied to the prescription of life-ending medication for use by terminally ill, competent adult patients who wish to hasten their deaths,” Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 79 F. 3d 790, 798 (CA9 1996), the court did not have before it any individual plaintiff seeking to hasten her death or any doctor who was threatened with prosecution for assisting in the suicide of a particular patient; its analysis and eventual holding that the statute was unconstitutional was not limited to a particular set of plaintiffs before it.

The appropriate standard to be applied in eases making facial challenges to state statutes has been the subject of debate within this Court. See Janklow v. Planned Parenthood, Sioux Falls Clinic, 517 U. S. 1174 (1996). Upholding the validity of the federal Bail Reform Act of 1984, the Court stated in United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739 (1987), that a “facial challenge to a legislative Act is, of course, the most *740difficult challenge to mount successfully, since the challenger must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid.” Id., at 745.6 I do not believe the Court has ever actually applied such a strict standard,7 even in Salerno itself, and the Court does not appear to apply Salerno here. Nevertheless, the Court does conceive of respondents’ claim as a facial challenge — addressing not the application of the statute to a particular set of plaintiffs before it, but the constitutionality of the statute’s categorical prohibition against “aid[ing] another person to attempt suicide.” Ante, at 728 (internal quotation marks omitted) (citing Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060(1) (1994)). Accordingly, the Court requires the plaintiffs to show that the interest in liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment “includes a right to commit suicide which itself includes a right to assistance in doing so.” Ante, at 723.

• History and tradition provide ample support for refusing to recognize an open-ended constitutional right to commit suicide. Much more than the State’s paternalistic interest *741in protecting the individual from the irrevocable consequences of an ill-advised decision motivated by temporary concerns is at stake. There is truth in John Donne’s observation that “No man is an island.”8 The State has an interest in preserving and fostering the benefits that every human being may provide to the community — a community that thrives on the exchange of ideas, expressions of affection, shared memories, and humorous incidents, as well as on the material contributions that its members create and support. The value to others of a person’s life is far too precious to allow the individual to claim a constitutional entitlement to complete autonomy in making a decision to end that life. Thus, I fully agree with the Court that the “liberty” protected by the Due Process Clause does not include a categorical “right to commit suicide which itself includes a right to assistance in doing so.” Ibid.

But just as our conclusion that capital punishment is not always unconstitutional did not preclude later decisions holding that it is sometimes impermissibly cruel, so is it equally clear that a decision upholding a general statutory prohibition of assisted suicide does not mean that every possible application of the statute would be valid. A State, like Washington, that has authorized the death penalty, and thereby has concluded that the sanctity of human life does not require that it always be preserved, must acknowledge that there are situations in which an interest in hastening *742death is legitimate. Indeed, not only is that interest sometimes legitimate, I am also convinced that there are times when it is entitled to constitutional protection.

II

In Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S. 261 (1990), the Court assumed that the interest in liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment encompassed the right of a terminally ill patient to direct the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment. As the Court correctly observes today, that assumption “was not simply deduced from abstract concepts of personal autonomy.” Ante, at 725. Instead, it was supported by the common-law tradition protecting the individual’s general right to refuse unwanted medical treatment. Ibid. We have recognized, however, that this common-law right to refuse treatment is neither absolute nor always sufficiently weighty to overcome valid countervailing state interests. As Justice Brennan pointed out in his Cru-zan dissent, we have upheld legislation imposing punishment on persons refusing to be vaccinated, 497 U. S., at 312, n. 12, citing Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11, 26-27 (1905), and as Justice Scalia pointed out in his concurrence, the State ordinarily has the right to interfere with an attempt to commit suicide by, for example, forcibly placing a bandage on a self-inflicted wound to stop the flow of blood. 497 U. S., at 298. In most cases, the individual’s constitutionally protected interest in his or her own physical autonomy, including the right to refuse unwanted medical treatment, will give way to the State’s interest in preserving human life.

Cruzan, however, was not the normal case. • Given the irreversible nature of her illness and the progressive character of her suffering,9 Nancy Cruzan’s interest in refusing medical care was incidental to her more basic interest in controlling the manner and timing of her death. In finding that her *743best interests would be served by cutting off the nourishment that kept her alive, the trial court did more than simply vindicate Cruzan’s interest in refusing medical treatment; the court, in essence, authorized affirmative conduct that would hasten her death. When this Court reviewed the case and upheld Missouri’s requirement that there be clear and convincing evidence establishing Nancy Cruzan’s intent to have life-sustaining nourishment withdrawn, it made two important assumptions: (1) that there was a “liberty interest” in refusing unwanted treatment protected by the Due Process Clause; and (2) that this liberty interest did not “end the inquiry” because it might be outweighed by relevant state interests. Id., at 279. I agree with both of those assumptions, but I insist that the source of Nancy Cruzan’s right to refuse treatment was not just a common-law rule. Rather, this right is an aspect of a far broader and more basic concept of freedom that is even older than the common law.10 This freedom embraces not merely a person’s right to refuse a particular kind of unwanted treatment, but also her interest in dignity, and in determining the character of the memories that will survive long after her death.11 In *744recognizing that the State’s interests did not outweigh Nancy Cruzan’s liberty interest in refusing medical treatment, Cruzan rested not simply on the common-law right to refuse medical treatment, but — at least implicitly — on the even more fundamental right to make this “deeply personal decision,” id., at 289 (O’Connor, J., concurring).

Thus, the common-law right to protection from battery, which included the right to refuse medical treatment in most circumstances, did not mark “the outer limits of the substantive sphere of liberty” that supported the Cruzan family’s decision to hasten Nancy’s death. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 848 (1992). Those limits have never been precisely defined. They are generally identified by the importance and character of the decision confronted by the individual, Whalen v. Roe, 429 U. S. 589, 599-600, n. 26 (1977). Whatever the outer limits of the concept may be, it definitely includes protection for matters “central to personal dignity and autonomy.” Casey, 505 U. S., at 851. It includes

“the individual’s right to make certain unusually important decisions that will affect his own, or his family’s, destiny. The Court has referred to such decisions as implicating ‘basic values,’ as being ‘fundamental,’ and as being dignified by history and tradition. The character of the Court’s language in these cases brings to mind the origins of the American heritage of freedom — the *745abiding interest in individual liberty that makes certain state intrusions on the citizen’s right to decide how he will live his own life intolerable.” Fitzgerald v. Porter Memorial Hospital, 523 F. 2d 716, 719-720 (CA7 1975) (footnotes omitted), cert. denied, 425 U. S. 916 (1976).

The Cruzan case demonstrated that some state intrusions on the right to decide how death will be encountered are also intolerable. The now-deceased plaintiffs in this action may in fact have had a liberty interest even stronger than Nancy Cruzan’s because, not only were they terminally ill, they were suffering constant and severe pain. Avoiding intolerable pain and the indignity of living one’s final days incapacitated and in agony is certainly “[a]t the heart of [the] liberty ... to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Casey, 505 U. S., at 851.

While I agree with the Court that Cruzan does not decide the issue presented by these cases, Cruzan did give recognition, not just to vague, unbridled notions of autonomy, but to the more specific interest in making decisions about how to confront an imminent death. Although there is no absolute right to physician-assisted suicide, Cruzan makes it clear that some individuals who no longer have the option of deciding whether to live or to die because they are already on the threshold of death have a constitutionally protected interest that may outweigh the State’s interest in preserving life at all costs. The liberty interest at stake in a case like this differs from, and is stronger than, both the common-law right to refuse medical treatment and the unbridled interest in deciding whether to live or die. It is an interest in deciding how, rather than whether, a critical threshold shall be crossed.

Ill

The state interests supporting a general rule banning the practice of physician-assisted suicide do not have the same *746force in all cases. First and foremost of these interests is the “ ‘unqualified interest in the preservation of human life,’ ” ante, at 728 (quoting Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 282), which is equated with “‘the sanctity of life/” ante, at 728 (quoting American Law Institute, Model Penal Code § 210.5, Comment 5, p. 100 (Official Draft and Revised Comments 1980)). That interest not only justifies — it commands — maximum protection of every individual’s interest in remaining alive, which in turn commands the same protection for decisions about whether to commence or to terminate life-support systems or to administer pain medication that may hasten death. Properly viewed, however, this interest is not a collective interest that should always outweigh the interests of a person who because of pain, incapacity, or sedation finds her life intolerable, but rather, an aspect of individual freedom.

Many terminally ill people find their lives meaningful even if filled with pain or dependence on others. Some find value in living through suffering; some have an abiding desire to witness particular events in their families’ lives; many believe it a sin to hasten death. Individuals of different religious faiths make different judgments and choices about whether to live on under such circumstances. There are those who will want to continue aggressive treatment; those who would prefer terminal sedation; and those who will seek withdrawal from life-support systems and death by gradual starvation and dehydration. Although as a general matter the State’s interest in the contributions each person may make to society outweighs the person’s interest in ending her life, this interest does not have the same force for a terminally ill patient faced not with the choice of whether to live, only of how to die. Allowing the individual, rather than the State, to make judgments “ ‘about the “quality” of life that a particular individual may enjoy,’ ” ante, at 729 (quoting Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 282), does not mean that the lives of terminally ill, disabled people have less value than the lives of those who are healthy, see ante, at 732. Rather, it gives *747proper recognition to the individual’s interest in choosing a final chapter that accords with her life story, rather than one that demeans her values and poisons memories of her. See Brief for Bioethicists as Amici Curiae 11; see also R. Dworkin, Life’s Dominion 213 (1993) (“Whether it is in someone’s best interests that his life end in one way rather than another depends on so much else that is special about him— about the shape and character of his life and his own sense of his integrity and critical interests — that no uniform collective decision can possibly hope to serve everyone even decently”).

Similarly, the State’s legitimate interests in preventing suicide, protecting the vulnerable from coercion and abuse, and preventing euthanasia are less significant in this context. I agree that the State has a compelling interest in preventing persons from committing suicide because of depression or coercion by third parties. But the State’s legitimate interest in preventing abuse .does not apply to an individual who is not victimized by abuse, who is not suffering from depression, and who makes a rational and voluntary decision to seek assistance in dying. Although, as the New York Task Force report discusses, diagnosing depression and other mental illness is not always easy, mental health workers and other professionals expert in working with dying patients can help patients cope with depression and pain, and help patients assess their options. See Brief for Washington State Psychological Association et al. as Amici Curiae 8-10.

Relatedly, the State and amici express the concern that patients whose physical pain is inadequately treated will be more likely to request assisted suicide. Encouraging the development and ensuring the availability of adequate pain treatment is of utmost importance; palliative care, however, cannot alleviate all pain and suffering. See Orentlicher, Legalization of Physician Assisted Suicide: A Very Modest Revolution, 38 Boston College L. Rev. (Galley, p. 8) (1997) (“Greater use of palliative care would reduce the demand for *748assisted suicide, but it will not eliminate [it]”); see also Brief for Coalition of Hospice Professionals as Amici Curiae 8 (citing studies showing that “[a]s death becomes more imminent, pain and suffering become progressively more difficult to treat”). An individual adequately informed of the care alternatives thus might make a rational choice for assisted suicide. For such an individual, the State’s interest in preventing potential abuse and mistake is only minimally implicated.

The final major interest asserted by the State is its interest in preserving the traditional integrity of the medical profession. The fear is that a rule permitting physicians to assist in suicide is inconsistent with the perception that they serve their patients solely as healers. But for some patients, it would be a physician’s refusal to dispense medication to ease their suffering and make their death tolerable and dignified that would be inconsistent with the healing role. See Block & Billings, Patient Request to Hasten Death, 154 Archives Internal Med. 2039, 2045 (1994) (A doctor’s refusal to hasten death “may be experienced by the [dying] patient as an abandonment, a rejection, or an expression of inappropriate paternalistic authority”). For doctors who have longstanding relationships with their patients, who have given their patients advice on alternative treatments, who are attentive to their patient’s individualized needs, and who are knowledgeable about pain symptom management and palliative care options, see Quill, Death and Dignity, A Case of Individualized Decision Making, 324 New England J. Med. 691-694 (1991), heeding a patient’s desire to assist in her suicide would not serve to harm the physician-patient relationship. Furthermore, because physicians are already involved in making decisions that hasten the death of terminally ill patients — through termination of life support, withholding of medical treatment, and terminal sedation — there is in fact significant tension between the traditional view of *749the physician’s role and the actual practice in a growing number of cases.12

As the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law recognized, a State’s prohibition of assisted suicide is justified by the fact that the “‘ideal’” case in which “patients would be screened for depression and offered treatment, effective pain medication would be available, and all patients would have a supportive committed family and doctor” is not the usual case. New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, When Death Is Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context 120 (May 1994). Although, as the Court concludes today, these potential harms are sufficient to support the State’s general public policy against assisted suicide, they will not always outweigh the individual liberty *750interest of a particular patient. Unlike the Court of Appeals, I would not say as a categorical matter that these state interests are invalid as to the entire class of terminally ill, mentally competent patients. I do not, however, foreclose the possibility that an individual plaintiff seeking to hasten her death, or a doctor whose assistance was sought, could prevail in a more particularized challenge. Future cases will determine whether such a challenge may succeed.

>

In New York, a doctor must respect a competent person s decision to refuse or to discontinue medical treatment even though death will thereby ensue, but the same doctor would be guilty of a felony if she provided her patient assistance in committing suicide.13 Today we hold that the Equal Protection Clause is not violated by the resulting disparate treatment of two classes of terminally ill people who may have the same interest in hastening death. I agree that the distinction between permitting death to ensue from an underlying fatal disease and causing it to occur by the administration of medication or other means provides a constitutionally sufficient basis for the State’s classification.14 Unlike the Court, however, see Vacco, post, at 801-802, I am not persuaded that in all cases there will in fact be a significant difference between the intent of the physicians, the patients, or the families in the two situations.

There may be little distinction between the intent of a terminally ill patient who decides to remove her life support and one who seeks the assistance of a doctor in ending her life; in both situations, the patient is seeking to hasten a certain, impending death. The doctor’s intent might also be the same in prescribing lethal medication as it is in terminat*751ing life support. A doctor who fails to administer medical treatment to one who is dying from a disease could be doing so with an intent to harm or kill that patient. Conversely, a doctor who prescribes lethal medication does not necessarily intend the patient’s death — rather that doctor may seek simply to ease the patient’s suffering and to comply with her wishes. The illusory character of any differences in intent or causation is confirmed by the fact that the American Medical Association unequivocally endorses the practice of terminal sedation — the administration of sufficient dosages of pain-killing medication to terminally ill patients to protect them from excruciating pain even when it is clear that the time of death will be advanced. The purpose of terminal sedation is to ease the suffering of the patient and comply with her wishes, and the actual cause of death is the administration of heavy doses of lethal sedatives. This same intent and causation may exist when a doctor complies with a patient’s request for lethal medication to hasten her death.15

Thus, although the differences the majority notes in causation and intent between terminating life support and assisting in suicide support the Court’s rejection of the respondents’ facial challenge, these distinctions may be inapplicable to particular terminally ill patients and their doctors. Our holding today in Vacco v. Quill, post, p. 793, that the Equal Protection Clause is not violated by New York’s classification, just like our holding in Washington v. Glucksberg that the. Washington statute is not invalid on its face, does not foreclose the possibility that some applications of the New *752York statute may impose an intolerable intrusion on the patient’s freedom.

There remains room for vigorous debate about the outcome of particular cases that are not necessarily resolved by the opinions announced today. How such cases may be decided will depend on their specific facts. In my judgment, however, it is clear that the so-called “unqualified interest in the preservation of human life,” Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 282; ante, at 728, is not itself sufficient to outweigh the interest in liberty that may justify the only possible means of preserving a dying patient’s dignity and alleviating her intolerable suffering.

Justice Souter,

concurring in the judgment.

Three terminally ill individuals and four physicians who sometimes treat terminally ill patients brought this challenge to the Washington statute making it a crime “knowingly ... [to] ai[d] another person to attempt suicide,” Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060 (1994), claiming on behalf of both patients and physicians that it would violate substantive due process to enforce the statute against a doctor who acceded to a dying patient’s request for a drug to be taken by the patient to commit suicide. The question is whether the statute sets up one of those “arbitrary impositions” or “purposeless restraints” at odds with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 543 (1961) (Harlan, J., dissenting). I conclude that the statute’s application to the doctors has not been shown to be unconstitutional, but I write separately to give my reasons for analyzing the substantive due process claims as I do, and for rejecting this one.

I

Although the terminally ill original parties have died during the pendency of this case, the four physicians who remain *753as respondents here1 continue to request declaratory and in-junctive relief for their own benefit in discharging their obligations to other dying patients who request their help.2 See, e. g., Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U. S. 498, 515 (1911) (question was capable of repetition yet evading review). The case reaches us on an order granting summary judgment, and we must take as true the undisputed allegations that each of the patients was mentally competent and terminally ill, and that each made a knowing and voluntary choice to ask a doctor to prescribe “medications ... to be self-administered for the purpose of hastening ... death.” Complaint ¶ 2.3. The State does not dispute that each faced a passage to death more agonizing both mentally and physically, and more protracted over time, than death by suicide with a physician’s help, or that each would have chosen such a suicide for the sake of personal dignity, apart even from relief from pain. Each doctor in this case claims to encounter patients like the original plaintiffs who have died, that is, mentally competent, terminally ill, and seeking medical help in “the voluntary self-termination of life.” Id., ¶¶ 2.5-2.8. While there, may be no unanimity on the physician’s professional obligation in such circumstances, I accept here respondents’ representation that providing such patients with prescriptions for drugs that go beyond pain relief to hasten death would, in these circumstances, be consistent with standards of medical practice. Hence, I take it to be true, as respondents say, that the Washington statute prevents the exercise of a physician’s “best professional judgment to prescribe medications to [such] patients in dosages that would enable them to act to hasten their own deaths.” Id., ¶ 2.6; see also App. 35-37, 49-51, 55-57, 73-75.

*754In their brief to this Court, the doctors claim not that they ought to have a right generally to hasten patients’ imminent deaths, but only to help patients who have made “personal decisions regarding their own bodies, medical care, and, fundamentally, the future course of their lives,” Brief for Respondents 12, and who have concluded responsibly and with substantial justification that the brief and anguished remainders of their lives have lost virtually all value to them. Respondents fully embrace the notion that the State must be free to impose reasonable regulations on such physician assistance to ensure that the patients they assist are indeed among the competent and terminally ill and that each has made a free and informed choice in seeking to obtain and use a fatal drug. Complaint ¶ 3.2; App. 28-41.

In response, the State argues that the interest asserted by the doctors is beyond constitutional recognition because it has no deep roots in our history and traditions. Brief for Petitioners 21-25. But even aside from that, without disputing that the patients here were competent and terminally ill, the State insists that recognizing the legitimacy of doctors’ assistance of their patients as contemplated here would entail a number of adverse consequences that the Washington Legislature was entitled to forestall. The nub of this part of the State’s argument is not that such patients are constitutionally undeserving of relief on their own account, but that any attempt to confine a right of physician assistance to the circumstances presented by these doctors is likely to fail. Id., at 34-35, 44-47.

First, the State argues that the right could not be confined to the terminally ill. Even assuming a fixed definition of that term, the State observes that it is not always possible to say with certainty how long a person may live. Id., at 34. It asserts that “[tjhere'is no principled basis on which [the right] can be limited to the prescription of medication for terminally ill patients to administer to themselves” when the right’s justifying principle is as broad as “ ‘merciful termina*755tion of suffering.’” Id., at 45 (citing Y. Kamisar, Are Laws Against Assisted Suicide Unconstitutional?, Hastings Center Report 32, 36-37 (May-June 1993)). Second, the State argues that the right could not be confined to the mentally competent, observing that a person’s competence cannot always be assessed with certainty, Brief for Petitioners 34, and suggesting further that no principled distinction is possible between a competent patient acting independently and a patient acting through a duly appointed and competent surrogate, id., at 46. Next, according to the State, such a right might entail a right to or at least merge in practice into “other forms of life-ending assistance,” such as euthanasia. Id., at 46-47. Finally, the State believes that a right to physician assistance could not easily be distinguished from a right to assistance from others, such as friends, family, and other health-care workers. Id., at 47. The State thus argues that recognition of the substantive due process right at issue here would jeopardize the lives of others outside the class defined by the doctors’ claim, creating risks of irresponsible suicides and euthanasia, whose dangers are concededly within the State’s authority to address.

II

When the physicians claim that the Washington law deprives them of a right falling within the scope of liberty that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees against denial without due process' of law,3 they are not claiming some sort of procedural defect in the process through which the statute has been enacted or is administered. Their claim, rather, is that the State has no substantively adequate justification for barring the assistance sought by the patient and sought to be offered by the physician. Thus, we are dealing with a claim to one of those rights sometimes described as rights *756of substantive due process and sometimes as unenumerated rights, in view of the breadth and indeterminacy of the “due process” serving as the claim’s textual basis. The doctors accordingly arouse the skepticism of those who find the Due Process Clause an unduly vague or oxymoronic warrant for judicial review of substantive state law, just as they also invoke two centuries of American constitutional practice in recognizing unenumerated, substantive limits on governmental action. Although this practice has neither rested on any single textual basis nor expressed a consistent theory (or, before Poe v. Ullman, a much articulated one), a brief overview of its history is instructive on two counts. The persistence of substantive due process in our cases points to the legitimacy of the modern justification for such judicial review found in Justice Harlan’s dissent in Poe,4 on which I will dwell further on, while the acknowledged failures of some of these cases point with caution to the difficulty raised by the present claim.

Before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, substantive constitutional review resting on a theory of unenu-merated rights occurred largely in the state courts applying state constitutions that commonly contained either due process clauses like that of the Fifth Amendment (and later the Fourteenth) or the textual antecedents of such clauses, re*757peating Magna Carta’s guarantee of “the law of the land.”5 On the basis of such clauses, or of general principles untethered to specific constitutional language, state courts evaluated the constitutionality of a wide range of statutes.

Thus, a Connecticut court approved a statute legitimating a class of previous illegitimate marriages, as falling within the terms of the “social compact,” while making clear its power to review constitutionality in those terms. Goshen v. Stonington, 4 Conn. 209, 225-226 (1822). In the same period, a specialized court of equity, created under a Tennessee statute solely to hear cases brought by the state bank against its debtors, found its own authorization unconstitutional as “partial” legislation violating the State Constitution’s “law of the land” clause. Bank of the State v. Cooper, 2 Yerg. 599, 602-608 (Tenn. 1831) (opinion of Green, J.); id., at 613-615 (opinion of Peck, J.); id., at 618-623 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). And the middle of the 19th century brought the famous Wynehamer case, invalidating a statute purporting to render possession of liquor immediately illegal except when kept for narrow, specified purposes, the state court finding the statute inconsistent with the State’s due process clause. Wynehamer v. People, 13 N. Y. 378, 486-487 (1856). The statute was deemed an excessive threat to the “fundamental rights of the citizen” to property. Id., at 398 (opinion of Comstock, J.). See generally E. Corwin, Liberty Against Government 58-115 (1948) (discussing substantive due process in the state courts before the Civil War); T. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations *85-*129, *351-*397.

Even in this early period, however, this Court anticipated the developments that would presage both the Civil War and the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, by making it clear on several occasions that it too had no doubt of the *758judiciary’s power to strike down legislation that conflicted with important but unenumerated principles of American government. In most such instances, after declaring its power to invalidate what it might find inconsistent with rights of liberty and property, the Court nevertheless went on to uphold the legislative Acts under review. See, e. g., Wilkinson v. Leland, 2 Pet. 627, 656-661 (1829); Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 386-395 (1798) (opinion of Chase, J.); see also Corfield v. Coryell, 6 F. Cas. 546, 550-552 (No. 3,230) (CC ED Pa. 1823). But in Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87 (1810), the Court went further. It struck down an Act of the Georgia Legislature that purported to rescind a sale of public land ab initio and reclaim title for the State, and so deprive subsequent, good-faith purchasers of property conveyed by the original grantees. The Court rested the invalidation on alternative sources of authority: the specific prohibitions against bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, laws impairing contracts in Article I, § 10, of the Constitution; and “general principles which are common to our free institutions,” by which Chief Justice Marshall meant that a simple deprivation of property by the State could not be an authentically “legislative” Act. Fletcher, supra, at 135-139.

Fletcher was not, though, the most telling early example of such review. For its most salient instance in this Court before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment was, of course, the case that the Amendment would in due course overturn, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857). Unlike Fletcher, Dred Scott was textually based on a Due Process Clause (in the Fifth Amendment, applicable to the National Government), and it was in reliance on that Clause’s protection of property that the Court invalidated the Missouri Compromise. 19 How., at 449-452. This substantive protection of an owner’s property in a slave taken to the territories was traced to the absence of any enumerated power to affect that property granted to the Congress by Article I of the Constitution, id., at 451-452, the implication *759being that the Government had no legitimate interest that could support the earlier congressional compromise. The ensuing judgment of history needs no recounting here.

After the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, with its guarantee of due process protection against the States, interpretation of the words “liberty” and “property” as used in Due Process Clauses became a sustained enterprise, with the Court generally describing the due process criterion in converse terms of reasonableness or arbitrariness. That standard is fairly traceable to Justice Bradley’s dissent in the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36 (1873), in which he said that a person’s right to choose a calling was an element of liberty (as the calling, once chosen, was an aspect of property) and declared that the liberty and property protected by due process are not truly recognized if such rights may be “arbitrarily assailed,” id., at 116.6 After that, opinions comparable to those that preceded Bred Scott expressed willingness to review legislative action for consistency with the Due Process Clause even as they upheld the laws in question. See, e. g., Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall. 129, 133-135 (1874); Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 123-135 (1877); Railroad Comm’n Cases, 116 U. S. 307, 331 (1886); Mugler v. *760Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 659-670 (1887). See generally Cor-win, supra, at 121-136 (surveying the Court’s early Fourteenth Amendment cases and finding little dissent from the general principle that the Due Process Clause authorized judicial review of substantive statutes).

The theory became serious, however, beginning with Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578 (1897), where the Court invalidated a Louisiana statute for excessive interference with Fourteenth Amendment liberty to contract, id., at 588-593, and offered a substantive interpretation of “liberty,” that in the aftermath of the so-called Lochner Era has been scaled back in some respects, but expanded in others, and never repudiated in principle. The Court said that Fourteenth Amendment liberty includes “the right of the citizen to be free in the enjoyment of all his faculties; to be free to use them in all lawfiil ways; to live and work where he will; to earn his livelihood by any lawful calling; to pursue any livelihood or avocation; and for that purpose to enter into all contracts which may be proper, necessary and essential to his carrying out to a successful conclusion the purposes above mentioned.” Id., at 589. “[W]e do not intend to hold that in no such case can the State exercise its police power,” the Court added, but “[w]hen and how far such power may be legitimately exercised with regard to these subjects must be left for determination to each case as it arises.” Id., at 590.

Although this principle was unobjectionable, what followed for a season was, in the realm of economic legislation, the echo of Dred Scott. Allgeyer was succeeded within a decade by Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45 (1905), and the era to which that case gave its name, famous now for striking down as arbitrary various sorts of economic regulations that post-New Deal courts have uniformly thought constitutionally sound. Compare, e.g., id., at 62 (finding New York’s maximum-hours law for bakers “unreasonable and entirely arbitrary”), and Adkins v. Children’s Hospital of D. C., 261 *761U. S. 525, 559 (1923) (holding a minimum-wage law “so clearly the product of a naked, arbitrary exercise of power that it cannot be allowed to stand under the Constitution of the United States”), with West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379, 391 (1937) (overruling Adkins and approving a minimum-wage law on the principle that “regulation which is reasonable in relation to its subject and is adopted in the interests of the community is due process”). As the paren-theticals here suggest, while the cases in the Lochner line routinely invoked a correct standard of constitutional arbitrariness review, they harbored the spirit of Dred Scott in their absolutist implementation of the standard they espoused.

Even before the deviant economic due process cases had been repudiated, however, the more durable precursors of modern substantive due process were reaffirming this Court’s obligation to conduct arbitrariness review, beginning with Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 (1923). Without referring to any specific guarantee of the Bill of Rights, the Court invoked precedents from the Slaughter-House Cases through Adkins to declare that the Fourteenth Amendment protected “the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful ' knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” 262 U. S., at 399. The Court then held that the same Fourteenth Amendment liberty included a teacher’s right to teach and the rights of parents to direct their children’s education without unreasonable interference by the States, id., at 400, with the result that Nebraska’s prohibition on the teaching of foreign languages in the lower grades was “arbitrary and without reasonable relation to any end within the competency of the State,” id., at 403. See also Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 534-536 (1925) *762(finding that a statute that all but outlawed private schools lacked any “reasonable relation to some purpose within the competency of the State”); Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 327-328 (1937) (“[E]ven in the field of substantive rights and duties the legislative judgment, if oppressive and arbitrary, may be overridden by the courts.” “Is that [injury] to which the statute has subjected [the appellant] a hardship so acute and shocking that our polity will not endure it? Does it violate those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions?” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).

After Meyer and Pierce, two further opinions took the major steps that lead to the modern law. The first was not even in a due process case but one about equal protection, Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535 (1942), where the Court emphasized the “fundamental” nature of individual choice about procreation and so foreshadowed not only the later prominence of procreation as a subject of liberty protection, but the corresponding standard of “strict scrutiny,” in this Court’s Fourteenth Amendment law. See id., at 541. Skinner, that is, added decisions regarding procreation to the list of liberties recognized in Meyer and Pierce and loosely suggested, as a gloss on their standard of arbitrariness, a judicial obligation to scrutinize any impingement on such an important interest with heightened care. In so doing, it suggested a point that Justice Harlan would develop, that the kind and degree of justification that a sensitive judge would demand of a State would depend on the importance of the interest being asserted by the individual. Poe, 367 U. S., at 543.

The second major opinion leading to the modern doctrine was Justice Harlan’s Poe dissent just cited, the conclusion of which was adopted in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965), and the authority of which was acknowledged in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992). See also n. 4, supra. The dissent is important *763for three things that point to our responsibilities today. The first is Justice Harlan’s respect for the tradition of substantive due process review itself, and his acknowledgment of the Judiciary’s obligation to carry it on. For two centuries American courts, and for much of that time this Court, have thought it necessary to provide some degree of review over the substantive content of legislation under constitutional standards of textual breadth. The obligation was understood before Dred Scott and has continued after the repudiation of Lochner’s progeny, most notably on the subjects of segregation in public education, Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497, 500 (1954), interracial marriage, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 12 (1967), marital privacy and contraception, Carey v. Population Services Int’l, 431 U. S. 678, 684-691 (1977); Griswold v. Connecticut, supra, at 481-486, abortion, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, supra, at 849, 869-879 (joint opinion of O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ.); Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 152-166 (1973), personal control of medical treatment, Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S. 261, 287-289 (1990) (O’Connor, J., concurring); id., at 302 (Brennan, J., dissenting); id., at 331 (Stevens, J., dissenting); see also id., at 278 (majority opinion), and physical confinement, Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U. S. 71, 80-83 (1992). This enduring tradition of American constitutional practice is, in Justice Harlan’s view, nothing more than what is required by the judicial authority and obligation to construe constitutional text and review legislation for conformity to that text. See Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803). Like many judges who preceded him and many who followed, he found it impossible to construe the text of due process without recognizing substantive, and not merely procedural, limitations. “Were due process merely a procedural safeguard it would fail to reach those situations where the deprivation of life, liberty or property was accomplished by legislation which by operating in the future could, given even the fairest possible procedure in ap*764plication to individuals, nevertheless destroy the enjoyment of all three.” Poe, supra, at 541.7 The text of the Due Process Clause thus imposes nothing less than an obligation to give substantive content to the words “liberty” and “due process of law.”

Following the first point of the Poe dissent, on the necessity to engage in the sort of examination we conduct today, the dissent’s second and third implicitly address those cases, already noted, that are now condemned with virtual unanimity as disastrous mistakes of substantive due process review. The second of the dissent’s lessons is a reminder that the business of such review is not the identification of extratex-tual absolutes but scrutiny of a legislative resolution (perhaps unconscious) of clashing principles, each quite possibly worthy in and of itself, but each to be weighed within the history of our values as a people. It is a comparison of the relative strengths of opposing claims that informs the judicial task, not a deduction from some first premise. Thus informed, judicial review still has no warrant to substitute one reasonable resolution of the contending positions for another, but authority to supplant the balance already struck between the contenders only when it falls outside the realm of the reasonable. Part III, below, deals with this second point, and also with the dissent’s third, which takes the form of an *765object lesson in the explicit attention to detail that is no less essential to the intellectual discipline of substantive due process review than an understanding of the basic need to account for the two sides in the controversy and to respect legislation within the zone of reasonableness.

I — l ► — l HH

My understanding of unenumerated rights in the wake of the Poe dissent and subsequent cases avoids the absolutist failing of many older cases without embracing the opposite pole of equating reasonableness with past practice described at a very specific level. See Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S., at 847-849. That understanding begins with a concept of “ordered liberty,” Poe, 367 U. S., at 549 (Harlan, J.); see also Griswold, 381 U. S., at 500, comprising a continuum of rights to be free from “arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints,” Poe, 367 U. S., at 543 (Harlan, J., dissenting).

“Due Process has not been reduced to any formula; its content cannot be determined by reference to any code. The 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 could not long survive, while a decision which builds on what has survived is likely to be sound. No formula could *766serve as a substitute, in this area, for judgment and restraint.” Id., at 542.

See also Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494, 503 (1977) (plurality opinion of Powell, J.) (“Appropriate limits on substantive due process come not from drawing arbitrary lines but rather from careful ‘respect for the teachings of history [and] solid recognition of the basic values that underlie our society”’) (quoting Griswold, supra, at 501 (Harlan, J., concurring)).

After the Poe dissent, as before it, this enforceable concept of liberty would bar statutory impositions even at relatively trivial levels when governmental restraints are undeniably irrational as unsupported by any imaginable rationale. See, e. g., United States v. Carotene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 152 (1938) (economic legislation “not . . . unconstitutional unless . . . facts . . . preclude the assumption that it rests upon some rational basis”); see also Poe, supra, at 545, 548 (Harlan, J., dissenting) (referring to usual “presumption of constitutionality” and ordinary test “going merely to the plausibility of [a statute’s] underlying rationale”). Such instances are suitably rare. The claims of arbitrariness that mark almost all instances of unenumerated substantive rights are those resting on “certain interests requiring] particularly careful scrutiny of the state needs asserted to justify their abridgment^] [c]f. Skinner v. Oklahoma [ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535 (1942)]; Bolling v. Sharpe, [347 U. S. 497 (1954)],” id., at 543; that is, interests in liberty sufficiently important to be judged “fundamental,” id., at 548; see also id., at 541 (citing Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. C. C. 371, 380 (CC ED Pa. 1825)). In the face of an interest this powerful a State may not rest on threshold rationality or a presumption of constitutionality, but may prevail only on the ground of an interest sufficiently compelling to place within the realm of the reasonable a refusal to recognize the individual right asserted. Poe, supra, at 548 (Harlan, J., dissenting) (an “enactment involv[ing] ... a most fundamental as*767pect of ‘liberty’... [is] subjec[t] to ‘strict scrutiny’ ”) (quoting Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S., at 541);8 Reno v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 301-302 (1993) (reaffirming that due process “forbids the government to infringe certain ‘fundamental’ liberty interests . . . unless the infringement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest”).9

This approach calls for a court to assess the relative “weights” or dignities of the contending interests, and to this extent the judicial method is familiar to the common law. Common-law method is subject, however, to two important constraints in the hands of a court engaged in substantive due process review. First, such a court is bound to confine the values that it recognizes to those truly deserving constitutional stature, either to those expressed in constitutional text, or those exemplified by “the traditions from which [the Nation] developed,” or revealed by contrast with “the traditions from which it broke.” Poe, 367 U. S., at 542 (Harlan, J., dissenting). “ ‘We may not draw on our merely personal and private notions and disregard the limits ... derived from *768considerations that are fused in the whole nature of our judicial process ...[,] considerations deeply rooted in reason and in the compelling traditions of the legal profession.’” Id., at 544-545 (quoting Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 170-171 (1952)); see also Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S., at 325 (looking to “ ‘principle^] of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental’ ”) (quoting Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 105 (1934)).

The second constraint, again, simply reflects the fact that constitutional review, not judicial lawmaking, is a court’s business here. The weighing or valuing of contending interests in this sphere is only the first step, forming the basis for determining whether the statute in question falls inside or outside the zone of what is reasonable in the way it resolves the conflict between the interests of state and individual. See, e.g., Poe, supra, at 553 (Harlan, J., dissenting); Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U. S. 307, 320-321 (1982). It is no justification for judicial intervention merely to identify a reasonable resolution of contending values that differs from the terms of the legislation under review. It is only when the legislation’s justifying principle, critically valued, is so far from being commensurate with the individual interest as to be arbitrarily or pointlessly applied that the statute must give way. Only if this standard points against the statute can the individual claimant be said to have a constitutional right. See Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S., at 279 (“[Djetermining that a person has a ‘liberty interest’ under the Due Process Clause does not end the inquiry; ‘whether [the individual’s] constitutional rights have been violated must be determined by balancing his liberty interests against the relevant state interests’”) (quoting Youngberg v. Romeo, supra, at 321).10

*769The Poe dissent thus reminds us of the nature of review for reasonableness or arbitrariness and the limitations entailed by it. But the opinion cautions against the repetition of past error in another way as well, more by its example than by any particular statement of constitutional method: it reminds us that the process of substantive review by reasoned judgment, Poe, 367 U. S., at 542-544, is one of close criticism going to the details of the opposing interests and to their relationships with the historically recognized principles that lend them weight or value.

Although the Poe dissent disclaims the possibility of any general formula for due process analysis (beyond the basic analytic structure just described), see id,., at 542, 544, Justice Harlan of course assumed that adjudication under the Due Process Clauses is like any other instance of judgment dependent on common-law method, being more or less persuasive according to the usual canons of critical discourse. See also Casey, 505 U. S., at 849 (“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”). When identifying and assessing the competing interests of liberty and authority, for ex*770ample, the breadth of expression that a litigant or a judge selects in stating the competing principles will have much to do with the outcome and may be dispositive. As in any process of rational argumentation, we recognize that when a generally accepted principle is challenged, the broader the attack the less likely it is to succeed. The principle’s defenders will, indeed, often try to characterize any challenge as just such a broadside, perhaps by couching the defense as if a broadside attack had occurred. So the Court in Dred Scott treated prohibition of slavery in the Territories as nothing less than a general assault on the concept of property. See 19 How., at 449-452.

Just as results in substantive due process cases are tied to the selections of statements of the competing interests, the acceptability of the results is a function of the good reasons for the selections made. It is here that the value of common-law method becomes apparent, for the usual thinking of the common law is suspicious of the all-or-nothing analysis that tends to produce legal petrification instead of an evolving boundary between the domains of old principles. Common-law method tends to pay respect instead to detail, seeking to understand old principles afresh by new examples and new counterexamples. The “tradition is a living thing,” Poe, 367 U. S., at 542 (Harlan, J., dissenting), albeit one that moves by moderate steps carefully taken. “The decision of an apparently novel claim must depend on grounds which follow closely on well-accepted principles and criteria. The new decision must take its place in relation to what went before and further [cut] a channel for what is to come.” Id., at 544 (Harlan, J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks omitted). Exact analysis and characterization of any due process claim are critical to the method and to the result.

So, in Poe, Justice Harlan viewed it as essential to the plaintiffs’ claimed right to use contraceptives that they sought to do so within the privacy of the marital bedroom. This detail in fact served two crucial and complementary *771functions, and provides a lesson for today. It rescued the individuals’ claim from a breadth that would have threatened all state regulation of contraception or intimate relations; extramarital intimacy, no matter how privately practiced, was outside the scope of the right Justice Harlan would have recognized in that case. See id., at 552-553. It was, moreover, this same restriction that allowed the interest to be valued as an aspect of a broader liberty to be free from all unreasonable intrusions into the privacy of the home and the family life within it, a liberty exemplified in constitutional provisions such as the Third and Fourth Amendments, in prior decisions of the Court involving unreasonable intrusions into the home and family life, and in the then-prevailing status of marriage as the sole lawful locus of intimate relations. Id., at 548, 551.11 The individuals’ interest was therefore at its peak in Poe, because it was supported by a principle that distinguished of its own force between areas in which government traditionally had regulated (sexual relations outside of marriage) and those in which it had not (private marital intimacies), and thus was broad enough to cover the claim at hand without being so broad as to be shot-through by exceptions.

*772On the other side of the balance, the State’s interest in Poe was not fairly characterized simply as preserving sexual morality, or doing so by regulating contraceptive devices. Just as some of the earlier cases went astray by speaking without nuance of individual interests in property or autonomy to contract for labor, so the State’s asserted interest in Poe was not immune to distinctions turning (at least potentially) on the precise purpose being pursued and the collateral consequences of the means chosen, see id,., at 547-548. It was assumed that the State might legitimately enforce limits on the use of contraceptives through laws regulating divorce and annulment, or even through its tax policy, ibid., but not necessarily be justified in criminalizing the same practice in the marital bedroom, which would entail the consequence of authorizing state enquiry into the intimate relations of a married couple who chose to close their door, id., at 548-549. See also Casey, 505 U. S., at 869 (strength of State's interest in potential life varies depending on precise context and character of regulation pursuing that interest).

The same insistence on exactitude lies behind questions, in current terminology, about the proper level of generality at which to analyze claims and counterclaims, and the demand for fitness and proper tailoring of a restrictive statute is just another way of testing the legitimacy of the generality at which the government sets up its justification.12 We may *773therefore classify Justice Harlan’s example of proper analysis in any of these ways: as applying concepts of normal critical reasoning, as pointing to the need to attend to the levels of generality at which countervailing interests are stated, or as examining the concrete application of principles for fitness with their own ostensible justifications. But whatever the categories in which we place the dissent’s example, it stands in marked contrast to earlier cases whose reasoning was marked by comparatively less discrimination, and it points to the importance of evaluating the claims of the parties now before us with comparable detail. For here we are faced with an individual claim not to a right on the part of just anyone to help anyone else commit suicide under any circumstances, but to the right of a narrow class to help others also in a narrow class under a set of limited circumstances. And the claimants are met with the State’s assertion, among others, that rights of such narrow scope cannot be recognized without jeopardy to individuals whom the State may conced-edly protect through its regulations.

IV

A

Respondents claim that a patient facing imminent death, who anticipates physical suffering and indignity, and is capable of responsible and voluntary choice, should have a right to a physician’s assistance in providing counsel and drugs to be administered by the patient to end life promptly. Complaint ¶ 3.1. They accordingly claim that a physician must have the corresponding right to provide such aid, contrary to the provisions of Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060 (1994). I do not understand the argument to rest on any assumption that rights either to suicide or to assistance in committing it are historically based as such. Respondents, rather, acknowledge the prohibition of each historically, but rely on the fact that to a substantial extent the State has repudiated that history. The result of this, respondents say, is to open *774the door to claims of such a patient to be accorded one of the options open to those with different, traditionally cognizable claims to autonomy in deciding how their bodies and minds should be treated. They seek the option to obtain the services of a physician to give them the benefit of advice and medical help, which is said to enjoy a tradition so strong and so devoid of specifically countervailing state concern that denial of a physician’s help in these circumstances is arbitrary when physicians are generally free to advise and aid those who exercise other rights to bodily autonomy.

1

The dominant western legal codes long condemned suicide and treated either its attempt or successful accomplishment as a crime, the one subjecting the individual to penalties, the other penalizing his survivors by designating the suicide’s property as forfeited to the government. See 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *188-* 189 (commenting that English law considered suicide to be “ranked . . . among the highest crimes” and deemed persuading another to commit suicide to be murder); see generally Marzen, O’Dowd, Crone, & Balch, Suicide: A Constitutional Right?, 24 Duquesne L. Rev. 1, 56-63 (1985). While suicide itself has generally not been considered a punishable crime in the United States, largely because the common-law punishment of forfeiture was rejected as improperly penalizing an innocent family, see id., at 98-99, most States have consistently punished the act of assisting a suicide as either a common-law or statutory crime and some continue to view suicide as an unpunishable crime. See generally id., at 67-100, 148-242.13 Criminal prohibi*775tions on such assistance remain widespread, as exemplified in the Washington statute in question here.14

The principal significance of this history in the State of Washington, according to respondents, lies in its repudiation *776of the old tradition to the extent of eliminating the criminal suicide prohibitions. Respondents do not argue that the State’s decision goes further, to imply that the State has repudiated any legitimate claim to discourage suicide or to limit its encouragement. The reasons for the decriminalization, after all, may have had more to do with difficulties of law enforcement than with a shift in the value ascribed to *777life in various circumstances or in the perceived legitimacy of taking one’s own. See, e. g., Kamisar, Physician-Assisted Suicide: The Last Bridge to Active Voluntary Euthanasia, in Euthanasia Examined 225, 229 (J. Keown ed. 1995); CeloCruz, Aid-in-Dying: Should We Decriminalize Physician-Assisted Suicide and Physician-Committed Euthanasia?, 18 Am. J. L. & Med. 369, 375 (1992); Marzen, O’Dowd, Crone, & Balch, 24 Duquesne L. Rev., at 98-99. Thus it may indeed make sense for the State to take its hands off suicide as such, while continuing to prohibit the sort of assistance that would make its commission easier. See, e. g., American Law Institute, Model Penal Code § 210.5, Comment 5 (1980). Decriminalization does not, then, imply the existence of a constitutional liberty interest in suicide as such; it simply opens the door to the assertion of a cognizable liberty interest in bodily integrity and associated medical care that would otherwise have been inapposite so long as suicide, as well as assisting a suicide, was a criminal offense.

This liberty interest in bodily integrity was phrased in a general way by then-judge Cardozo when he said, “[e]very human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body” in relation to his medical needs. Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital, 211 N. Y. 125, 129, 105 N. E. 92, 93 (1914). The familiar examples of this right derive from the common law of battery and include the right to be free from medical invasions into the body, Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S., at 269-279, as well as a right generally to resist enforced medication, see Washington v. Harper, 494 U. S. 210, 221-222, 229 (1990). Thus “[i]t is settled now . . . that the Constitution places limits on a State’s right to interfere with a person’s most basic decisions about . . . bodily integrity.” Casey, 505 U. S., at 849 (citations omitted); see also Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 278; id., at 288 (O’Connor, J., concurring); Washington v. Harper, supra, at 221-222; Winston v. Lee, 470 U. S. 753, 761-762 (1985); Rochin v. California, 342 *778U. S., at 172. Constitutional recognition of the right to bodily integrity underlies the assumed right, good against the State, to require physicians to terminate artificial life support, Cruzan, supra, at 279 (“[W]e assume that the United States Constitution would grant a competent person a constitutionally protected right to refuse lifesaving hydration and nutrition”), and the affirmative right to obtain medical intervention to cause abortion, see Casey, supra, at 857, 896; cf. Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S., at 153.

It is, indeed, in the abortion cases that the most telling recognitions of the importance of bodily integrity and the concomitant tradition of medical assistance have occurred. In Roe v. Wade, the plaintiff contended that the Texas statute making it criminal for any person to “procure an abortion,” id., at 117, for a pregnant woman was unconstitutional insofar as it prevented her from “terminat[ing] her pregnancy by an abortion ‘performed by a competent, licensed physician, under safe, clinical conditions,’ ” id., at 120, and in striking down the statute we stressed the importance of the relationship between patient and physician, see id., at 153, 156.

The analogies between the abortion cases and this one are several. Even though the State has a legitimate interest in discouraging abortion, see Casey, supra, at 871 (joint opinion of O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ.); Roe, 410 U. S., at 162, the Court recognized a woman’s right to a physician’s counsel and care. Like the decision to commit suicide, the decision to abort potential life can be made irresponsibly and under the influence of others, and yet the Court has held in the abortion cases that physicians are fit assistants. Without physician assistance in abortion, the woman’s right would have too often amounted to nothing more than a right to self-mutilation, and without a physician to assist in the suicide of the dying, the patient’s right will often be confined to crude methods of causing death, most shocking and painful to the decedent’s survivors.

*779There is, finally, one more reason for claiming that a physician’s assistance here would fall within the accepted tradition of medical care in our society, and the abortion cases are only the most obvious illustration of the further point. While the Court has held that the performance of abortion procedures can be restricted to physicians, the Court’s opinion in Roe recognized the doctors’ role in yet another way. For, in the course of holding that the decision to perform an abortion called for a physician’s assistance, the Court recognized that the good physician is not just a mechanic of the human body whose services have no bearing on a person’s moral choices, but one who does more than treat symptoms, one who ministers to the patient. See id., at 153; see also Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S., at 482 (“This law ... operates directly on an intimate relation of husband and wife and their physician’s role in one aspect of that relation”); see generally R. Cabot, Ether Day Address, Boston Medical and Surgical J. 287, 288 (1920). This idea of the physician as serving the whole person is a source of the high value traditionally placed on the medical relationship. Its value is surely as apparent here as in the abortion cases, for just as the decision about abortion is not directed to correcting some pathology, so the decision in which a dying patient seeks help is not so limited. The patients here sought not only an end to pain (which they might have had, although perhaps at the price of stupor) but an end to their short remaining lives with a dignity that they believed would be denied them by powerful pain medication, as well as by their consciousness of dependency and helplessness as they approached death. In that period when the end is imminent, they said, the decision to end life is closest to decisions that are generally accepted as proper instances of exercising autonomy over one’s own body, instances recognized under the Constitution and the State’s own law, instances in which the help of physicians is accepted as falling within the traditional norm.

*780Respondents argue that the State has in fact already recognized enough evolving examples of this tradition of patient care to demonstrate the strength of their claim. Washington, like other States, authorizes physicians to withdraw life-sustaining medical treatment and artificially delivered food and water from patients who request it, even though such actions will hasten death. See Wash. Rev. Code §§ 70.122.110, 70.122.051 (1994); see generally Notes to Uniform Rights of the Terminally Ill Act, 9B U. L. A. 168-169 (Supp. 1997) (listing state statutes). The State permits physicians to alleviate anxiety and discomfort when withdrawing artificial life-supporting devices by administering medication that will hasten death even further. And it generally permits physicians to administer medication to patients in terminal conditions when the primary intent is to alleviate pain, even when the medication is so powerful as to hasten death and the patient chooses to receive it with that understanding. See Wash. Rev. Code § 70.122.010 (1994); see generally Rousseau, Terminal Sedation in the Care of Dying Patients, 156 Archives of Internal Medicine 1785 (1996); Truog, Berde, Mitchell, & Grier, Barbiturates in the Care of the Terminally Ill, 327 New Eng. J. Med. 1678 (1992).15

*7812

The argument supporting respondents’ position thus progresses through three steps of increasing forcefulness. First, it emphasizes the decriminalization of suicide. Reliance on this fact is sanctioned under the standard that looks not only to the tradition retained, but to society’s occasional choices to reject traditions of the legal past. See Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S., at 542 (Harlan, J., dissenting). While the common law prohibited both suicide and aiding a suicide, with the prohibition on aiding largely justified by the primary prohibition on self-inflicted death itself, see, e. g., American Law Institute, Model Penal Code § 210.5, Comment 1, at 92-93, and n. 7, the State’s rejection of the traditional treatment of the one leaves the criminality of the other open to questioning that previously would not have been appropriate. The second step in the argument is to emphasize that the State’s own act of decriminalization gives a freedom of choice much like the individual’s option in recognized instances of bodily autonomy. One of these, abortion, is a legal right to choose in spite of the interest a State may legitimately invoke in discouraging the practice, just as suicide is now subject to choice, despite a state interest in discouraging it. The third step is to emphasize that respondents claim a right to assistance not on the basis of some broad principle that would be subject to exceptions if that continuing interest of the State’s in discouraging suicide were to be recognized at all. Respondents base their claim on the traditional right to medical care and counsel, subject to the limiting conditions of informed, responsible choice when death is imminent, conditions that support a strong analogy to rights of care in other situations in which medical counsel and assistance have been available as a matter of course. There can be no stronger claim to a physician’s assistance than at the time when death is imminent, a moral judgment implied by the State’s own recognition of the legitimacy of medical procedures necessarily hastening the moment of impending death.

*782In my judgment, the importance of the individual interest here, as within that class of “certain interests” demanding careful scrutiny of the State’s contrary claim, see Poe, supra, at 543, cannot be gainsaid. Whether that interest might in some circumstances, or at some time, be seen as “fundamental” to the degree entitled to prevail is not, however, a conclusion that I need draw here, for I am satisfied that the State’s interests described in the following section are sufficiently serious to defeat the present claim that its law is arbitrary or purposeless.

B

The State has put forward several interests to justify the Washington law as applied to physicians treating terminally ill patients, even those competent to make responsible choices: protecting life generally, Brief for Petitioners 33, discouraging suicide even if knowing and voluntary, id., at 37-38, and protecting terminally ill patients from involuntary suicide and euthanasia, both voluntary and nonvoluntary, id., at 34-35.

It is not necessary to discuss the exact strengths of the first two claims of justification in the present circumstances, for the third is dispositive for me. That third justification is different from the first two, for it addresses specific features of respondents’ claim, and it opposes that claim not with a moral judgment contrary to respondents’, but with a recognized state interest in the protection of nonresponsible individuals and those who do not stand in relation either to death or to their physicians as do the patients whom respondents describe. The State claims interests in protecting patients from mistakenly and involuntarily deciding to end their lives, and in guarding against both voluntary and involuntary euthanasia. Leaving aside any difficulties in coming to a clear concept of imminent death, mistaken decisions may result from inadequate palliative care or a terminal prognosis that turns out to be error; coercion and abuse may stem from the large medical bills that family members cannot bear *783or unreimbursed hospitals decline to shoulder. Voluntary and involuntary euthanasia may result once doctors are authorized to prescribe lethal medication in the first instance, for they might find it pointless to distinguish between patients who administer their own fatal drugs and those who wish not to, and their compassion for those who suffer may obscure the distinction between those who ask for death and those who may be unable to request it. The argument is that a progression would occur, obscuring the line between the ill and the dying, and between the responsible and the unduly influenced, until ultimately doctors and perhaps others would abuse a limited freedom to aid suicides by yielding to the impulse to end another’s suffering under conditions going beyond the narrow limits the respondents propose. The State thus argues, essentially, that respondents’ claim is not as narrow as it sounds, simply because no recognition of the interest they assert could be limited to vindicating those interests and affecting no others. The State says that the claim, in practical effect, would entail consequences that the State could, without doubt, legitimately act to prevent.

The mere assertion that the terminally sick might be pressured into suicide decisions by close friends and family members would not alone be very telling. Of course that is possible, not only because the costs of care might be more than family members could bear but simply because they might naturally wish to see an end of suffering for someone they love. But one of the points of restricting any right of assistance to physicians would be to condition the right on an exercise of judgment by someone qualified to assess the patient’s responsible capacity and detect the influence of those outside the medical relationship.

The State, however, goes further, to argue that dependence on the vigilance of physicians will not be enough. First, the lines proposed here (particularly the requirement of a knowing and voluntary decision by the patient) would be more difficult to draw than the lines that have limited *784other recently recognized due process rights. Limiting a State from prosecuting use of artificial contraceptives by married couples posed no practical threat to the State’s capacity to regulate contraceptives in other ways that were assumed at the time of Poe to be legitimate; the trimester measurements of Roe and the viability determination of Casey were easy to make with a real degree of certainty. But the knowing and responsible mind is harder to assess.16 Second, this difficulty could become the greater by combining with another fact within the realm of plausibility, that physicians simply would not be assiduous to preserve the line. They have compassion, and those who would be willing to assist in suicide at all might be the most susceptible to the wishes of a patient, whether the patient was technically quite responsible or not. Physicians, and their hospitals, have their own financial incentives, too, in this new age of managed care. Whether acting from compassion or under *785some other influence, a physician who would provide a drug for a patient to administer might well go the further step of administering the drug himself; so, the barrier between assisted suicide and euthanasia could become porous, and the line between voluntary and involuntary euthanasia as well.17 The case for the slippery slope is fairly made out here, not because recognizing one due process right would leave a court with no principled basis to avoid recognizing another, but because there is a plausible case that the right claimed would not be readily containable by reference to facts about the mind that are matters of difficult judgment, or by gatekeepers who are subject to temptation, noble or not.

Respondents propose an answer to all this, the answer of state regulation with teeth. Legislation proposed in several States, for example, would authorize physician-assisted suicide but require two qualified physicians to confirm the patient’s diagnosis, prognosis, and competence; and would mandate that the patient make repeated requests witnessed by at least two others over a specified timespan; and would impose reporting requirements and criminal penalties for various acts of coercion. See App. to Brief for State Legislators as Amici Curiae 1a-2a.

But at least at this moment there are reasons for caution in predicting the effectiveness of the teeth proposed. Respondents’ proposals, as it turns out, sound much like the guidelines now in place in the Netherlands, the only place where experience with physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia has yielded empirical evidence about how such regulations might affect actual practice. Dutch physicians must engage in consultation before proceeding, and must decide whether the patient’s decision is voluntary, well considered, and stable, whether the request to die is enduring and made more than once, and whether the patient’s future will involve *786unacceptable suffering. See C. Gomez, Regulating Death 40-43 (1991). There is, however, a substantial dispute today about what the Dutch experience shows. Some commentators marshall evidence that the Dutch guidelines have in practice failed to protect patients from involuntary euthanasia and have been violated with impunity. See, e. g., H. Hendin, Seduced By Death 75-84 (1997) (noting many cases in which decisions intended to end the life of a fully competent patient were made without a request from the patient and without consulting the patient); Keown, Euthanasia in the Netherlands: Sliding Down the Slippery Slope?, in Euthanasia Examined 261, 289 (J. Keown ed. 1995) (guidelines have “proved signally ineffectual; non-voluntary euthanasia is now widely practised and increasingly condoned in the Netherlands”); Gomez, supra, at 104-113. This evidence is contested. See, e.g., R. Epstein, Mortal Peril 322 (1997) (“Dutch physicians are not euthanasia enthusiasts and they are slow to practice it in individual cases”); R. Posner, Aging and Old Age 242, and n. 23 (1995) (noting fear of “doctors’ rushing patients to their death” in the Netherlands “has not been substantiated and does not appear realistic”); Van der Wal, Van Eijk, Leenen, & Spreeuwenberg, Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, 2, Do Dutch Family Doctors Act Prudently?, 9 Family Practice 135 (1992) (finding no serious abuse in Dutch practice). The day may come when we can say with some assurance which side is right, but for now it is the substantiality of the factual disagreement, and the alternatives for resolving it, that matter. They are, for me, dispositive of the due process claim at this time.

I take it that the basic concept of judicial review with its possible displacement of legislative judgment bars any finding that a legislature has acted arbitrarily when the following conditions are met: there is a serious factual controversy over the feasibility of recognizing the claimed right without at the same time making it impossible for the State to engage in an undoubtedly legitimate exercise of power; facts *787necessary to resolve the controversy are not readily ascertainable through the judicial process; but they are more readily subject to discovery through legislative factfinding and experimentation. It is assumed in this case, and must be, that a State’s interest in protecting those unable to make responsible decisions and those who make no decisions at all entitles the State to bar aid to any but a knowing and responsible person intending suicide, and to prohibit euthanasia. How, and how far, a State should act in that interest are judgments for the State, but the legitimacy of its action to deny a physician the option to aid any but the knowing and responsible is beyond question.

The capacity of the State to protect the others if respondents were to prevail is, however, subject to some genuine question, underscored by the responsible disagreement over the basic facts of the Dutch experience. This factual controversy is not open to a judicial resolution with any substantial degree of assurance at this time. It is not, of course, that any controversy about the factual predicate of a due process claim disqualifies a court from resolving it. Courts can recognize captiousness, and most factual issues can be settled in a trial court. At this point, however, the factual issue at the heart of this case does not appear to be one of those. The principal enquiry at the moment is into the Dutch experience, and I question whether an independent front-line investigation into the facts of a foreign country’s legal administration can be soundly undertaken through American courtroom litigation. While an extensive literature on any subject can raise the hopes for judicial understanding, the literature on this subject is only nascent. Since there is little experience directly bearing on the issue, the most that can be said is that whichever way the Court might rule today, events could overtake- its assumptions, as experimentation in some jurisdictions confirmed or discredited the concerns about progression from assisted suicide to euthanasia.

*788Legislatures, on the other hand, have superior opportunities to obtain the facts necessary for a judgment about the present controversy. Not only do they have more flexible mechanisms for factfinding than the Judiciary, but their mechanisms include the power to experiment, moving forward and pulling back as facts emerge within their own jurisdictions. There is, indeed, good reason to suppose that in the absence of a judgment for respondents here, just such experimentation will be attempted in some of the States. See,, e. g., Ore. Rev. Stat. § 127.800 et seq. (Supp. 1996); App. to Brief for State Legislators as Amici Curiae la (listing proposed statutes).

I do not decide here what the significance might be of legislative foot dragging in ascertaining the facts going to the State’s argument that the right in question could not be confined as claimed. Sometimes a court may be bound to act regardless of the institutional preferability of the political branches as forums for addressing constitutional claims. See, e. g., Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497 (1954). Now, it is enough to say that our examination of legislative reasonableness should consider the fact that the Legislature of the State of Washington is no more obviously at fault than this Court is in being uncertain about what would happen if respondents prevailed today. We therefore have a clear question abopt which institution, a legislature or a court, is relatively more competent to deal with an emerging issue as to which facts currently unknown could be dispositive. The answer has to be, for the reasons already stated, that the legislative process is to be preferred. There is a closely related further reason as well.

One must bear in mind that the nature of the right claimed, if recognized as one constitutionally required, would differ in no essential way from other constitutional rights guaranteed by enumeration or derived from some more definite textual source than “due process.” An unenumer-ated right should not therefore be recognized, with the effect *789of displacing the legislative ordering of things, without the assurance that its recognition would prove as durable as the recognition of those other rights differently derived. To recognize a right of lesser promise would simply create a constitutional regime too uncertain to bring with it the expectation of finality that is one of this Court’s central obligations in making constitutional decisions. See Casey, 505 U. S., at 864-869.

Legislatures, however, are not so constrained. The experimentation that should be out of the question in constitutional adjudication displacing legislative judgments is entirely proper, as well as highly desirable, when the legislative power addresses an emerging issue like assisted suicide. The Court should accordingly stay its hand to allow reasonable legislative consideration. While I do not decide for all time that respondents’ claim should not be recognized, I acknowledge the legislative institutional competence as the better one to deal with that claim at this time.

Justice Ginsburg,

concurring in the judgments.*

I concur in the Court’s judgments in these cases substantially for the reasons stated by Justice O’Connor in her concurring opinion, ante, p. 786.

Justice Breyer,

concurring in the judgments.†

I believe that Justice O’Connor’s views, which I share, have greater legal significance than the Court’s opinion suggests. I join her separate opinion, except insofar as it joins the majority. And I concur in the judgments. I shall briefly explain how I differ from the Court.

I agree with the Court in Vacco v. Quill, post, at 800-809, that the articulated state interests justify the distinction *790drawn between physician assisted suicide and withdrawal of life support. I also agree with the Court that the critical question in both of the cases before us is whether “the ‘liberty’ specially protected by the Due Process Clause includes a right” of the sort that the respondents assert. Washington v. Glucksberg, ante, at 723. I do not agree, however, with the Court’s formulation of that claimed “liberty” interest. The Court describes it as a “right to commit suicide with another’s assistance.” Ante, at 724. But I would not reject the respondents’ claim without considering a different formulation, for which our legal tradition may provide greater support. That formulation would use words roughly like a “right to die with dignity.” But irrespective of the exact words used, at its core would lie personal control over the manner of death, professional medical assistance, and the avoidance of unnecessary and severe physical suffering — combined.

As Justice Souter points out, ante, at 762-765 (opinion concurring in judgment), Justice Harlan’s dissenting opinion in Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497 (1961), offers some support for such a claim. In that opinion, Justice Harlan referred to the “liberty” that the Fourteenth Amendment protects as including “a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints” and also as recognizing that “certain interests require particularly careful scrutiny of the state needs asserted to justify their abridgment.” Id., at 543. The “certain interests” to which Justice Harlan referred may well be similar (perhaps identical) to the rights, liberties, or interests that the Court today, as in the past, regards as “fundamental.” Ante, at 720; see also Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438 (1972); Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965); Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165 (1952); Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535 (1942).

*791Justice Harlan concluded that marital privacy was such a “special interest.” He found in the Constitution a right of “privacy of the home” — with the home, the bedroom, and “intimate details of the marital relation” at its heart — by examining the protection that the law had earlier provided for related, but not identical, interests described by such words as “privacy,” “home,” and “family.” 367 U. S., at 548, 552; cf. Casey, supra, at 851. The respondents here essentially ask us to do the same. They argue that one can find a “right to die with dignity” by examining the protection the law has provided for related, but not identical, interests relating to personal dignity, medical treatment, and freedom from state-inflicted pain. See Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S. 651 (1977); Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S. 261 (1990); Casey, supra.

I do not believe, however, that this Court need or now should decide whether or a not such a right is “fundamental.” That is because, in my view, the avoidance of severe physical pain (connected with death) would have to constitute an essential part of any successful claim and because, as Justice O’Connor points out, the laws before us do not force a dying person to undergo that kind of pain. Ante, at 736-737 (concurring opinion). Rather, the laws of New York and of Washington do not prohibit doctors from providing patients with drugs sufficient to control pain despite the risk that those drugs themselves will kill. Cf. New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, When Death Is Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context 163, n. 29 (May 1994). And under these circumstances the laws of New York and Washington would overcome any remaining significant interests and would be justified, regardless.

Medical technology, we are repeatedly told, makes the administration of pain-relieving drugs sufficient, except for a very few individuals for whom the ineffectiveness of pain control medicines can mean not pain, but the need for seda*792tion which can end in a coma. Brief for National Hospice Organization 8; Brief for American Medical Association (AMA) et al. as Amici Curiae 6; see also Byock, Consciously-Walking the Fine Line: Thoughts on a Hospice Response to Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, 9 J. Palliative Care 25, 26 (1993); New York State Task Force, at 44, and n. 37. We are also told that there are many instances in which patients do , not receive the palliative care that, in principle, is available, id., at 43-47; Brief for AMA as Amici Curiae 6; Brief for Choice in Dying, Inc., as Amici Curiae 20, but that is so for institutional reasons or inadequacies or obstacles, which would seem possible to overcome, and which do not include a prohibitive set of laws. Ante, at 736-737 (O’Connor, J., concurring); see also 2 House of Lords, Session 1993-1994 Report of Select Committee on Medical Ethics 113 (1994) (indicating that the number of palliative care centers in the United Kingdom, where physician assisted suicide is illegal, significantly exceeds that in the Netherlands, where such practices are legal).

This legal circumstance means that the state laws before us do not infringe directly upon the (assumed) central interest (what I have called the core of the interest in dying with dignity) as, by way of contrast, the state anticontraceptive laws at issue in Poe did interfere with the central interest there at stake — by bringing the State’s police powers to bear upon the marital bedroom.

Were the legal circumstances different — for example, were state law to prevent the provision of palliative care, including the administration of drugs as needed to avoid pain at the end of life — then the law’s impact upon serious and otherwise unavoidable physical pain (accompanying death) would be more directly at issue. And as Justice O’Connor suggests, the Court might have to revisit its conclusions in these cases.

OPINION OF THE COURT

[561 U.S. 748]

Justice Alito

announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II-A, II-B, II-D, and III, in which The Chief Justice, Justice

[561 U.S. 749]

Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas join, and an opinion with respect to Parts II-C, IV, and V, in which The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Kennedy join.

Two years ago, in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), we held that the Second Amendment protects the

[561 U.S. 750]

right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense, and we struck down a District of Columbia law that banned the possession of handguns in the home. The city of Chicago (Chicago or City) and the village of Oak Park, a Chicago suburb, have laws that are similar to the District of Columbia’s, but Chicago and Oak Park argue that their laws are constitutional because the Second Amendment has no application to the States. We have previously held that most of the provisions of the Bill of Rights apply with full force to both the Federal Government and the States. Applying the standard that is well established in our case law, we hold that the Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States.

I

Otis McDonald, Adam Orlov, Colleen Lawson, and David Lawson (Chicago petitioners) are Chicago residents who would like to keep handguns in their homes for self-*904defense but are prohibited from doing so by Chicago’s firearms laws. A City ordinance provides that “[n]o person shall . . . possess . . . any firearm unless such person is the holder of a valid registration certificate for such firearm.” Chicago, Ill., Municipal Code § 8-20-040(a) (2009). The Code then prohibits registration of most handguns, thus effectively banning handgun possession by almost all private citizens who reside in the City. § 8-20-050(c). Like Chicago, Oak Park makes it “unlawful for any person to possess ... any firearm,” a term that includes “pistols, revolvers, guns and small arms . . . commonly known as handguns.” Oak Park, Ill., Village Code §§ 27-2-1 (2007), 27-1-1 (2009).

Chicago enacted its handgun ban to protect its residents “from the loss of property and injury or death from firearms.”

[561 U.S. 751]

See Chicago, Ill., Journal of Proceedings of the City Council, p. 10049 (Mar. 19, 1982). The Chicago petitioners and their amici, however, argue that the handgun ban has left them vulnerable to criminals. Chicago Police Department statistics, we are told, reveal that the City’s handgun murder rate has actually increased since the ban was enacted1 and that Chicago residents now face one of the highest murder rates in the country and rates of other violent crimes that exceed the average in comparable cities.2

Several of the Chicago petitioners have been the targets of threats and violence. For instance, Otis McDonald, who is in his late seventies, lives in a high-crime neighborhood. He is a community activist involved with alternative policing strategies, and his efforts to improve his neighborhood have subjected him to violent threats from drug dealers. App. 16-17; Brief for State Firearm Associations as Amici Curiae 20-21; Brief for State of Texas et al. as Amici Curiae 7-8. Colleen Lawson is a Chicago resident whose home has been targeted by burglars. “In Mrs. Lawson’s judgment, possessing a handgun in Chicago would decrease her chances of suffering serious injury or death should she ever be threatened again in her home.”3 McDonald, Lawson, and the other Chicago petitioners own handguns that they store outside of the city limits, but they would like to keep their handguns in their homes for protection. See App. 16-19, 43-44 (McDonald), 20-24 (C. Lawson), 19, 36 (Orlov), 20-21, 40 (D. Lawson).

[561 U.S. 752]

After our decision in Heller, the Chicago petitioners and two groups4 filed suit against the City in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. They sought a declaration that the handgun ban and several related Chicago ordinances violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Another action challenging the Oak Park law was filed in the same District Court *905by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and two Oak Park residents. In addition, the NRA and others filed a third action challenging the Chicago ordinances. All three cases were assigned to the same District Judge.

The District Court rejected plaintiffs’ argument that the Chicago and Oak Park laws are unconstitutional. See App. 83-84; NRA, Inc. v. Oak Park, 617 F. Supp. 2d 752, 754 (ND Ill. 2008). The court noted that the Seventh Circuit had “squarely upheld the constitutionality of a ban on handguns a quarter century ago,” id., at 753 (citing Quilici v. Morton Grove, 695 F.2d 261 (CA7 1982)), and that Heller had explicitly refrained from “opin[ing] on the subject of incorporation vel non of the Second Amendment,” NRA, 617 F. Supp. 2d, at 754. The court observed that a district judge has a “duty to follow established precedent in the Court of Appeals to which he or she is beholden, even though the logic of more recent caselaw may point in a different direction.” Id., at 753.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed, relying on three 19th-century cases— United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 23 L. Ed. 588 (1876), Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 6 S. Ct. 580, 29 L. Ed. 615 (1886), and Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535, 14 S. Ct. 874, 38 L. Ed. 812 (1894)—that were decided in the wake of this Court’s interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 21 L. Ed. 394 (1873). The Seventh Circuit described the rationale of those cases as “defunct” and recognized that they did not consider the question whether the

[561 U.S. 753]

F ourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause incorporates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. NRA, Inc. v. Chicago, 567 F.3d 856, 857, 858 (2009). Nevertheless, the Seventh Circuit observed that it was obligated to follow Supreme Court precedents that have “direct application,” and it declined to predict how the Second Amendment would fare under this Court’s modern “selective incorporation” approach. Id., at 857-858 (internal quotation marks omitted).

We granted certiorari. 557 U.S. 965, 130 S. Ct. 48, 174 L. Ed. 2d 632 (2009).

II

A

Petitioners argue that the Chicago and Oak Park laws violate the right to keep and bear arms for two reasons. Petitioners’ primary submission is that this right is among the “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” and that the narrow interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause adopted in the Slaughter-House Cases, supra, should now be rejected. As a secondary argument, petitioners contend that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause “incorporates” the Second Amendment right.

Chicago and Oak Park (municipal respondents) maintain that a right set out in the Bill of Rights applies to the States only if that right is an indispensable attribute of any “ ‘civilized’ ” legal system. Brief for Municipal Respondents 9. If it is possible to imagine a civilized country that does not recognize the right, the municipal respondents tell us, then that right is not protected by due process. Ibid-Paid since there are civilized countries that ban or strictly regulate the private possession of handguns, the municipal respondents maintain that due process does not preclude such *906measures. Id., at 21-23. In light of the parties’ far-reaching arguments, we begin by recounting this Court’s analysis over the years of the relationship between the provisions of the Bill of Rights and the States.

[561 U.S. 754]

B

The Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, originally applied only to the Federal Government. In Barron ex rel. Tiernan v. Mayor of Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243, 8 L. Ed. 672 (1833), the Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice Marshall, explained that this question was “of great importance” but “not of much difficulty.” Id., at 247, 8 L. Ed. 672. In less than four pages, the Court firmly rejected the proposition that the first eight Amendments operate as limitations on the States, holding that they apply only to the Federal Government. See also Lessee of Livingston v. Moore, 7 Pet. 469, 551-552, 8 L. Ed. 751 (1833) (“[I]t is now settled that those amendments [in the Bill of Rights] do not extend to the states”).

The constitutional Amendments adopted in the aftermath of the Civil War fundamentally altered our country’s federal system. The provision at issue in this case, § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, provides, among other things, that a State may not abridge “the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” or deprive “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

Four years after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, this Court was asked to interpret the Amendment’s reference to “the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” The Slaughter-House Cases, supra, involved challenges to a Louisiana law permitting the creation of a state-sanctioned monopoly on the butchering of animals within the city of New Orleans. Justice Samuel Miller’s opinion for the Court concluded that the Privileges or Immunities Clause protects only those rights “which owe their existence to the Federal government, its National character, its Constitution, or its laws.” Id., at 79, 21 L. Ed. 394. The Court held that other fundamental rights— rights that predated the creation of the Federal Government and that “the State governments were created to establish and secure”—were not protected by the Clause. Id., at 76, 21 L. Ed. 394.

[561 U.S. 755]

In drawing a sharp distinction between the rights of federal and state citizenship, the Court relied on two principal arguments. First, the Court emphasized that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause spoke of “the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United. States,” and the Court contrasted this phrasing with the wording in the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment and in the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV, both of which refer to state citizenship.5 (Emphasis added.) Second, the Court stated that a contrary reading would “radically chang[e] the whole theory of the relations of the State and Federal governments to each other and of both these governments to the people,” and the Court refused to con-*907elude that such a change had been made “in the absence of language which expresses such a purpose too clearly to admit of doubt.” Id., at 78, 21 L. Ed. 394. Finding the phrase “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” lacking by this high standard, the Court reasoned that the phrase must mean something more limited.

Under the Court’s narrow reading, the Privileges or Immunities Clause protects such things as the right

“to come to the seat of government to assert any claim [a citizen] may have upon that government, to transact any business he may have with it, to seek its protection, to share its offices, to engage in administering its functions . . . [and to] become a citizen of any State of the Union by a bona fide residence therein, with the same rights as other citizens of that State.” Id., at 79-80, 21 L. Ed. 394 (internal quotation marks omitted).

[561 U.S. 756]

Finding no constitutional protection against state intrusion of the kind envisioned by the Louisiana statute, the Court upheld the statute. Four Justices dissented. Justice Field, joined by Chief Justice Chase and Justices Swayne and Bradley, criticized the majority for reducing the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause to “a vain and idle enactment, which accomplished nothing, and most unnecessarily excited Congress and the people on its passage.”Id., at 96, 21 L. Ed. 394; see also id., at 104, 21 L. Ed. 394. Justice Field opined that the Privileges or Immunities Clause protects rights that are “in their nature . . . fundamental,” including the right of every man to pursue his profession without the imposition of unequal or discriminatory restrictions. Id., at 96-97, 21 L. Ed. 394 (internal quotation marks omitted). Justice Bradley’s dissent observed that “we are not bound to resort to implication ... to find an authoritative declaration of some of the most important privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States. It is in the Constitution itself.” Id., at 118, 21 L. Ed. 394. Justice Bradley would have construed the Privileges or Immunities Clause to include those rights enumerated in the Constitution as well as some un-enumerated rights. Id., at 119, 21 L. Ed. 394. Justice Swayne described the majority’s narrow reading of the Privileges or Immunities Clause as “turn[ing] . . . what was meant for bread into a stone.” Id., at 129, 21 L. Ed. 394 (dissenting opinion).

Today, many legal scholars dispute the correctness of the narrow Slaughter-House interpretation. See, e.g., Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489, 522, n. 1, 527, 119 S. Ct. 1518, 143 L. Ed. 2d 689 (1999) (Thomas, J., dissenting) (scholars of the Fourteenth Amendment agree “that the Clause does not mean what the Court said it meant in 1873”); Amar, Substance and Method in the Year 2000, 28 Pepperdine L. Rev. 601, 631, n. 178 (2001) (“Virtually no serious modern scholar— left, right, and center—thinks that this [interpretation] is a plausible reading of the Amendment”); Brief for Constitutional Law Professors as Amici Curiae 33 (claiming an “overwhelming consensus among leading constitutional

[561 U.S. 757]

scholars” that the opinion is “egregiously wrong”); C. Black, A New Birth of Freedom 74-75 (1997).

Three years after the decision in the Slaughter-House Cases, the Court decided Cruikshank, the first of the three 19th-century cases on which the *908Seventh Circuit relied. 92 U.S. 542, 23 L. Ed. 588. In that case, the Court reviewed convictions stemming from the infamous Colfax Massacre in Louisiana on Easter Sunday 1873. Dozens of blacks, many unarmed, were slaughtered by a rival band of armed white men.6 Cruikshank himself allegedly marched unarmed African-American prisoners through the streets and then had them summarily executed.7 Ninety-seven men were indicted for participating in the massacre, but only nine went to trial. Six of the nine were acquitted of all charges; the remaining three were acquitted of murder but convicted under the Enforcement Act of 1870, 16 Stat. 140, for banding and conspiring together to deprive their victims of various constitutional rights, including the right to bear arms.8

The Court reversed all of the convictions, including those relating to the deprivation of the victims’ right to bear arms. Cruikshank, 92 U.S., at 553, 559, 23 L. Ed. 588. The Court wrote that the right of bearing arms for a lawful purpose “is not a right granted by the Constitution” and is not “in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.” Id., at 553, 23 L. Ed. 588. “The second amendment,” the Court continued, “declares that it shall not be infringed; but this . . . means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress.” Ibid. “Our later decisions in Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 265 [6 S. Ct. 580, 29 L. Ed. 615]

[561 U.S. 758]

(1886), and Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535, 538 [14 S. Ct. 874, 38 L. Ed. 812] (1894), reaffirmed that the Second Amendment applies only to the Federal Government.” Heller, 554 U.S., at 620, n. 23, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637.

C

As previously noted, the Seventh Circuit concluded that Cruikshank, Presser, and Miller doomed petitioners’ claims at the Court of Appeals level. Petitioners argue, however, that we should overrule those decisions and hold that the right to keep and bear arms is one of the “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” In petitioners’ view, the Privileges or Immunities Clause protects all of the rights set out in the Bill of Rights, as well as some others, see Brief for Petitioners 10, 14, 15-21, but petitioners are unable to identify the Clause’s full scope, Tr. of Oral Arg. 5-6, 8-11. Nor is there any consensus on that question among the scholars who agree that the Slaughter-House Cases’ interpretation is flawed. See Saenz, supra, at 522, n. 1, 119 S. Ct. 1518, 143 L. Ed. 2d 689 (Thomas, J., dissenting).

We see no need to reconsider that interpretation here. For many decades, the question of the rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment against state infringement has been analyzed under the Due Process Clause of that Amendment and not under the Privileges or Immunities Clause. We therefore decline to disturb the Slaughter-House holding.

At the same time, however, this Court’s decisions in Cruikshank, *909 Presser, and Miller do not preclude us from considering whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment right binding on the States. See Heller, 554 U.S., at 620, n. 23, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637. None of those cases “engage[d] in the sort of Fourteenth Amendment inquiry required by our later cases.” Ibid. As explained more fully below, Cruikshank, Presser, and Miller all preceded the era in which the Court began the process of “selective incorporation” under the Due Process Clause, and we have never previously addressed the question whether the

[561 U.S. 759]

right to keep and bear arms applies to the States under that theory.

Indeed, Cruikshank has not prevented us from holding that other rights that were at issue in that case are binding on the States through the Due Process Clause. In Cruikshank, the Court held that the general “right of the people peaceably to assemble for lawful purposes,” which is protected by the First Amendment, applied only against the Federal Government and not against the States. See 92 U.S., at 551-552, 23 L. Ed. 588. Nonetheless, over 60 years later the Court held that the right of peaceful assembly was a “fundamental righ [t] . . . safeguarded by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364, 57 S. Ct. 255, 81 L. Ed. 278 (1937). We follow the same path here and thus consider whether the right to keep and bear arms applies to the States under the Due Process Clause.

D

1

In the late 19th century, the Court began to consider whether the Due Process Clause prohibits the States from infringing rights set out in the Bill of Rights. See Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 4 S. Ct. 111, 28 L. Ed. 232 (1884) (due process does not require grand jury indictment); Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226, 17 S. Ct. 581, 41 L. Ed. 979 (1897) (due process prohibits States from taking of private property for public use without just compensation). Five features of the approach taken during the ensuing era should be noted.

First, the Court viewed the due process question as entirely separate from the question whether a right was a privilege or immunity of national citizenship. See Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 99, 29 S. Ct. 14, 53 L. Ed. 97 (1908).

Second, the Court explained that the only rights protected against state infringement by the Due Process Clause were those rights “of such a nature that they are included in the conception of due process of law.” Ibid. See also, e.g., Adamson

[561 U.S. 760]

v. California, 332 U.S. 46, 67 S. Ct. 1672, 91 L. Ed. 1903 (1947); Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, 62 S. Ct. 1252, 86 L. Ed. 1595 (1942); Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 58 S. Ct. 149, 82 L. Ed. 288 (1937); Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 56 S. Ct. 444, 80 L. Ed. 660 (1936); Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S. Ct. 55, 77 L. Ed. 158 (1932). While it was “possible that some of the personal rights safeguarded by the first eight Amendments against National action [might] also be safeguarded against state action,” the Court stated, this was “not because those rights are enumerated in the first eight Amendments.” Twining, 211 U.S., at 99, 29 S. Ct. 14, 53 L. Ed. 97.

The Court used different formula*910tions in describing the boundaries of due process. For example, in Twining, the Court referred to “immutable principles of justice which inhere in the very idea of free government which no member of the Union may disregard.”Id., at 102, 29 S. Ct. 14, 53 L. Ed. 97 (internal quotation marks omitted). In Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105, 54 S. Ct. 330, 78 L. Ed. 674 (1934), the Court spoke of rights that are “so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.” And in Palko, the Court famously said that due process protects those rights that are “the very essence of a scheme of ordered liberty” and essential to “a fair and enlightened system of justice.” 302 U.S., at 325, 58 S. Ct. 149, 82 L. Ed. 288.

Third, in some cases decided during this era the Court “can be seen as having asked, when inquiring into whether some particular procedural safeguard was required of a State, if a civilized system could be imagined that would not accord the particular protection.” Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 149, n. 14, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491 (1968). Thus, in holding that due process prohibits a State from taking private property without just compensation, the Court described the right as “a principle of natural equity, recognized by all temperate and civilized governments, from a deep and universal sense of its justice.” Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., supra, at 238, 17 S. Ct. 581, 41 L. Ed. 979. Similarly, the Court found that due process did not provide a right against compelled incrimination in part because this right “has no place in the jurisprudence of civilized and free

[561 U.S. 761]

countries outside the domain of the common law.” Twining, supra, at 113, 29 S. Ct. 14, 53 L. Ed. 97.

Fourth, the Court during this era was not hesitant to hold that a right set out in the Bill of Rights failed to meet the test for inclusion within the protection of the Due Process Clause. The Court found that some such rights qualified. See, e.g., Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 666, 45 S. Ct. 625, 69 L. Ed. 1138 (1925) (freedom of speech and press); Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 51 S. Ct. 625, 75 L. Ed. 1357 (1931) (same); Powell, supra (assistance of counsel in capital cases); De Jonge, supra (freedom of assembly); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 60 S. Ct. 900, 84 L. Ed. 1213 (1940) (free exercise of religion). But others did not. See, e.g., Hurtado, supra (grand jury indictment requirement); Twining, supra (privilege against self-incrimination).

Finally, even when a right set out in the Bill of Rights was held to fall within the conception of due process, the protection or remedies afforded against state infringement sometimes differed from the protection or remedies provided against abridgment by the Federal Government. To give one example, in Betts the Court held that, although the Sixth Amendment required the appointment of counsel in all federal criminal cases in which the defendant was unable to retain an attorney, the Due Process Clause required appointment of counsel in state criminal proceedings only where “want of counsel in [the] particular case . . . resulted] in a conviction lacking in . . . fundamental fairness.” 316 U.S., at 473, 62 S. Ct. 1252, 86 L. Ed. 1595. Similarly, in Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S. Ct. 1359, 93 L. Ed. 1782 (1949), the Court held that the “core of the Fourth Amendment” was implicit in the concept of ordered liberty and thus “enforceable against the States through the Due *911Process Clause” but that the exclusionary rule, which applied in federal cases, did not apply to the States. Id., at 27-28, 33, 69 S. Ct. 1359, 93 L. Ed. 1782.

2

An alternative theory regarding the relationship between the Bill of Rights and § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment was

[561 U.S. 762]

championed by Justice Black. This theory held that § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment totally incorporated all of the provisions of the Bill of Rights. See, e.g., Adamson, supra, at 71-72, 67 S. Ct. 1672, 91 L. Ed. 1903 (Black, J., dissenting); Duncan, supra, at 166, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 l. Ed. 2d 491 (Black, J., concurring). As Justice Black noted, the chief congressional proponents of the Fourteenth Amendment espoused the view that the Amendment made the Bill of Rights applicable to the States and, in so doing, overruled this Court’s decision in Barron.9 Adamson, supra, at 72, 67 S. Ct. 1672, 91 L. Ed. 1903 (dissenting opinion).10 Nonetheless,

[561 U.S. 763]

the Court never has embraced Justice Black’s “total incorporation” theory.

*9123

While Justice Black’s theory was never adopted, the Court eventually moved in that direction by initiating what has been called a process of “selective incorporation,” i.e., the Court began to hold that the Due Process Clause fully incorporates particular rights contained in the first eight Amendments. See, e.g., Gideon v. Wainright, 372 U.S. 335, 341, 83 S. Ct. 792, 9 L. Ed. 2d 799 (1963); Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 5-6, 84 S. Ct. 1489, 12 L. Ed. 2d 653 (1964); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 403-404, 85 S. Ct. 1065, 13 L. Ed. 2d 923 (1965); Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 18, 87 S. Ct. 1920, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1019 (1967); Duncan, 391 U.S., at 147-148, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491; Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 794, 89 S. Ct. 2056, 23 L. Ed. 2d 707 (1969).

[561 U.S. 764]

The decisions during this time abandoned three of the previously noted characteristics of the earlier period.11 The Court made it clear that the governing standard is not whether any “civilized system [can] be imagined that would not accord the particular protection.” Duncan, 391 U.S., at 149, n. 14, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491. Instead, the Court inquired whether a particular Bill of Rights guarantee is fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty and system of justice. Id., at 149, and n. 14, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491; see also id., at 148, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491 (referring to those “fundamental principles of liberty and justice which he at the base of all our civil and political institutions” (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted)).

The Court also shed any reluctance to hold that rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights met the requirements for protection under the Due Process Clause. The Court eventually incorporated almost all of the provisions of the Bill of Rights.12

[561 U.S. 765]

Only a *913handful of the Bill of Rights protections remain unincorporated.13

Finally, the Court abandoned “the notion that the Fourteenth Amendment applies to the States only a watered-down, subjective version of the individual guarantees of the Bill of Rights,” stating that it would be “incongruous” to apply different standards “depending on whether the claim was asserted in a state or federal court.” Malloy, 378 U.S., at 10-11, 84 S. Ct. 1489, 12 L. Ed. 2d 653 (internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, the Court decisively held that incorporated Bill of Rights protections “are all to be enforced against the States under the Fourteenth Amendment according to the same standards that protect those personal rights against federal encroachment.” Id., at 10, 84 S. Ct. 1489, 12 L. Ed. 2d 653; see also Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655-656, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081 (1961); Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 33-34, 83 S. Ct. 1623, 10 L. Ed. 2d 726 (1963);

[561 U.S. 766]

Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 110, 84 S. Ct. 1509, 12 L. Ed. 2d 723 (1964); Pointer, 380 U.S., at 406, 85 S. Ct. 1065, 13 L. Ed. 2d 923; Duncan, supra, at 149, 157-158, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491; Benton, 395 U.S., at 794-795, 89 S. Ct. 2056, 23 L. Ed. 2d 707; Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 48-49, 105 S. Ct. 2479, 86 L. Ed. 2d 29 (1985).14

Employing this approach, the Court overruled earlier decisions in which it *914had held that particular Bill of Rights guarantees or remedies did not apply to the States. See, e.g., Mapp, supra (overruling in part Wolf, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S. Ct. 1359, 93 L. Ed. 1782); Gideon, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S. Ct. 792, 9 L. Ed. 2d 799 (overruling Betts, 316 U.S. 455, 62 S. Ct. 1252, 86 L. Ed. 1595); Malloy, supra (overruling Adamson, 332 U.S. 46, 67 S. Ct. 1672, 91 L. Ed. 1903, and Twining, 211 U.S. 78, 29 S. Ct. 14, 53 L. Ed. 97); Benton, 395 U.S., at 794, 89 S. Ct. 2056, 23 L. Ed. 2d 707 (overruling Palko, 302 U.S. 319, 58 S. Ct. 149, 82 L. Ed. 288).

[561 U.S. 767]

III

With this framework in mind, we now turn directly to the question whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is incorporated in the concept of due process. In answering that question, as just explained, we must decide whether the right to keep and bear arms is fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty, Duncan, 391 U.S., at 149, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491, or as we have said in a related context, whether this right is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 721, 117 S. Ct. 2258, 138 L. Ed. 2d 772 (1997) (internal quotation marks omitted).

A

Our decision in Heller points unmistakably to the answer. Self-defense is a basic right, recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present day,15 and in Heller, we held that individual self-defense is “the central component” of the Second Amendment right. 554 U.S., at 599, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637; see also id., at 628, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (stating that the “inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right”). Explaining that “the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute” in the home, ibid., we found that this right applies to handguns because they are “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,” id., at 628-629, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (some internal quotation marks omitted); see also id., at 628, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (noting that handguns are “overwhelmingly chosen by American society for [the] lawful purpose” of self-defense); id., at 629, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (“[T]he American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon”). Thus, we concluded,

[561 U.S. 768]

citizens must be permitted “to use [handguns] for the core lawful purpose of *915self-defense.” Id., at 630, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637.

Heller makes it clear that this right is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” Glucksberg, supra, at 721, 117 S. Ct. 2258, 138 L. Ed. 2d 772 (internal quotation marks omitted). Heller explored the right’s origins, noting that the 1689 English Bill of Rights explicitly protected a right to keep arms for self-defense, 554 U.S., at 592-593, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, and that by 1765, Blackstone was able to assert that the right to keep and bear arms was “one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen,” id., at 594, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637.

Blackstone’s assessment was shared by the American colonists. As we noted in Heller, King George Ill’s attempt to disarm the colonists in the 1760’s and 1770’s “provoked polemical reactions by Americans invoking their rights as Englishmen to keep arms.”16 Ibid.; see also L. Levy, Origins of the Bill of Rights 137-143 (1999) (hereinafter Levy).

The right to keep and bear arms was considered no less fundamental by those who drafted and ratified the Bill of Rights. “During the 1788 ratification debates, the fear that the federal government would disarm the people in order to impose rule through a standing army or select militia was pervasive in Antifederalist rhetoric.” Heller, supra, at 598, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (citing Letters from The Federal Farmer III (Oct. 10, 1787), in 2 The Complete Anti-Federalist 234, 242 (H. Storing ed. 1981)); see also Federal Farmer: An Additional Number of Letters to the Republican, Letter XVIII (Jan. 25, 1788), in 17 Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution 360, 362-363 (J. Kaminski & G. Sala-dino eds. 1995); S. Halbrook, The Founders’ Second Amendment 171-278

[561 U.S. 769]

(2008). Federalists responded, not by arguing that the right was insufficiently important to warrant protection but by contending that the right was adequately protected by the Constitution’s assignment of only limited powers to the Federal Government. Heller, supra, at 599, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637; cf. The Federalist No. 46, p. 296 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison). Thus, Antifederalists and Federalists alike agreed that the right to bear arms was fundamental to the newly formed system of government. See Levy 143-149; J. Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right 155-164 (1994). But those who were fearful that the new Federal Government would infringe traditional rights such as the right to keep and bear arms insisted on the adoption of the Bill of Rights as a condition for ratification of the Constitution. See 1 Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 327-331 (J. Elliot 2d ed. 1854); 3 id., at 657-661; 4 id., at 242-246, 248-249; see also Levy 26-34; 1 A. Kelly, W. Harbison, & H. Belz, The American Constitu*916tion: Its Origins and Development 110, 118 (7th ed. 1991). This is surely powerful evidence that the right was regarded as fundamental in the sense relevant here.

This understanding persisted in the years immediately following the ratification of the Bill of Rights. In addition to the four States that had adopted Second Amendment analogues before ratification, nine more States adopted state constitutional provisions protecting an individual right to keep and bear arms between 1789 and 1820. Heller, supra, at 600-603, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637. F ounding-era legal commentators confirmed the importance of the right to early Americans. St. George Tucker, for example, described the right to keep and bear arms as “the true palladium of liberty” and explained that prohibitions on the right would place liberty “on the brink of destruction.” 1 Blackstone’s Commentaries, Editor’s App. 300 (S. Tucker ed. 1803); see also W. Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America 125-126 (2d ed. 1829); 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of

[561 U.S. 770]

the United States § 1890, p. 746 (1833) (“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them”).

B

1

By the 1850’s, the perceived threat that had prompted the inclusion of the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights—the fear that the National Government would disarm the universal militia—had largely faded as a popular concern, but the right to keep and bear arms was highly valued for purposes of self-defense. See M. Doubler, Civilian in Peace, Soldier in War 87-90 (2003); Amar, Bill of Rights 258-259. Abolitionist authors wrote in support of the right. See L. Spooner, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery 66 (1860); J. Tiffany, A Treatise on the Unconstitutionality of American Slavery 117-118 (1849). And when attempts were made to disarm “Free-Soilers” in “Bloody Kansas,” Senator Charles Sumner, who later played a leading role in the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, proclaimed that “[n]ever was [the rifle] more needed in just self-defense than now in Kansas.” The Crime Against Kansas: The Apologies for the Crime: The True Remedy, Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner in the Senate of the United States 64-65 (1856). Indeed, the 1856 Republican Party Platform protested that in Kansas the constitutional rights of the people had been “fraudulently and violently taken from them” and the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” had been “infringed.” National Party Platforms 1840-1972, p. 27 (D. Johnson & K. Porter comp. 5th ed. 1973).17

[561 U.S. 771]

After the Civil War, many of the over 180,000 African-Americans who *917served in the Union Army returned to the States of the old Confederacy, where systematic efforts were made to disarm them and other blacks. See Heller, 554 U.S., at 614, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637; E. Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877, p. 8 (1988) (hereinafter Foner). The laws of some States formally prohibited African-Americans from possessing firearms. For example, a Mississippi law provided that “no freedman, free negro or mulatto, not in the military service of the United States government, and not licensed so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry fire-arms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk or bowie knife.” Certain Offenses of Freedmen, 1865 Miss. Laws p. 165, § 1, in 1 Documentary History of Reconstruction 289 (W. Fleming ed. 1950); see also Regulations for Freedmen in Louisiana, in id., at 279-280; H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 233, 236 (1866) (describing a Kentucky law); E. McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America During the Period of Reconstruction 40 (1871) (describing a Florida law); id., at 33 (describing an Alabama law).18

[561 U.S. 772]

Throughout the South, armed parties, often consisting of ex-Confederate soldiers serving in the state militias, forcibly took firearms from newly freed slaves. In the first session of the 39th Congress, Senator Henry Wilson told his colleagues: “In Mississippi rebel State forces, men who were in the rebel armies, are traversing the State, visiting the freedmen, disarming them, perpetrating murders and outrages upon them; and the same things are done in other sections of the country.” 39th Cong. Globe 40 (1865). The Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction—which was widely reprinted in the press and distributed by Members of the 39th Congress to their constituents shortly after Congress approved the Fourteenth Amendment19—contained numerous examples of such abuses. See, e.g., H. R. Rep. No. 30, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 2, pp. 219, 229, 272, pt. 3, pp. 46, 140, pt. 4, pp. 49-50 (1866); see also S. Exec. Doc. No. 2, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 23-24, 26, 36 (1865). In one town, the “marshal [took] all arms from returned colored soldiers, and [was] very prompt in shooting the blacks whenever an opportunity occurred].” H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 70, at 238 (internal quotation marks omitted). As Senator Wilson put it during the debate on a failed proposal to disband Southern militias: “There is one unbroken chain of testimony from all people that are loyal to this country, that the greatest outrages are *918perpetrated by armed men who go up and down the country searching houses, disarming people, committing outrages of every kind and description.” 39th Cong. Globe 915 (1866).20

[561 U.S. 773]

Union Army commanders took steps to secure the right of all citizens to keep and bear arms,21 but the 39th Congress concluded that legislative action was necessary. Its efforts to safeguard the right to keep and bear arms demonstrate that the right was still recognized to be fundamental.

The most explicit evidence of Congress’ aim appears in § 14 of the Freedmen’s Bureau Act of 1866, which provided that “the right ... to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty, personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal, including the constitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the citizens . . . without respect to race or color, or previous condition of slavery.” 14 Stat. 176-177 (emphasis added).22 Section 14 thus explicitly guaranteed that “all the citizens,” black and white, would have “the constitutional right to bear arms.”

[561 U.S. 774]

The Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27, which was considered at the same time as the Freedmen’s Bureau Act, similarly sought to protect the right of all citizens to keep and bear arms.23 Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act guaranteed the “full and equal *919benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens.” Ibid. This language was virtually identical to language in § 14 of the Freedmen’s Bureau Act, 14 Stat. 176 (“the right ... to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty, personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal”). And as noted, the latter provision went on to explain that one of the “laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty, personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal” was “the constitutional right to bear arms.” Ibid. Representative Bingham believed that the Civil Rights Act protected the same rights as enumerated in the Freedmen’s Bureau bill, which of course explicitly mentioned the right to keep

[561 U.S. 775]

and bear arms. 39th Cong. Globe 1292. The unavoidable conclusion is that the Civil Rights Act, like the Freedmen’s Bureau Act, aimed to protect “the constitutional right to bear arms” and not simply to prohibit discrimination. See also Amar, Bill of Rights 264-265 (noting that one of the “core purposes of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and of the Fourteenth Amendment was to redress the grievances” of freedmen who had been stripped of their arms and to “affirm the full and equal right of every citizen to self-defense”).

Congress, however, ultimately deemed these legislative remedies insufficient. Southern resistance, Presidential vetoes, and this Court’s pre-Civil-War precedent persuaded Congress that a constitutional amendment was necessary to provide full protection for the rights of blacks.24 Today, it is generally accepted that the Fourteenth Amendment was understood to provide a constitutional basis for protecting the rights set out in the Civil Rights Act of 1866. See General Building Contractors Assn., Inc. v. Pennsylvania, 458 U.S. 375, 389, 102 S. Ct. 3141, 73 L. Ed. 2d 835 (1982); see also Amar, Bill of Rights 187; Calabresi & Fine, Two Cheers for Professor Balkin’s Originalism, 103 Nw. U. L. Rev. 663, 669-670 (2009).

In debating the Fourteenth Amendment, the 39th Congress referred to the right to keep and bear arms as a fundamental right deserving of protection. Senator Samuel Pomeroy described three “indispensable” “safeguards of liberty under our form of Government.” 39th Cong. Globe 1182. One of these, he said, was the right to keep and bear arms:

“Every man . . . should have the right to bear arms for the defense of himself and family and his homestead. And if the cabin door of the freedman is broken open

[561 U.S. 776]

and the intruder enters for purposes as vile as were known to slavery, then should a well-loaded musket be in the hand of the occupant to send the polluted wretch to another world, where his wretchedness will forever remain complete.” Ibid.

*920Even those who thought the Fourteenth Amendment unnecessary believed that blacks, as citizens, “have equal right to protection, and to keep and bear arms for self-defense.” Id., at 1073 (Sen. James Nye); see also Foner 258-259.25

Evidence from the period immediately following the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment only confirms that the right to keep and bear arms was considered fundamental. In an 1868 speech addressing the disarmament of freedmen, Representative Stevens emphasized the necessity of the right: “Disarm a community and you rob them of the means of defending life. Take away their weapons of defense and you take away the inalienable right of defending liberty.” “The fourteenth amendment, now so happily adopted, settles the whole question.” Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., 1967. And in debating the Civil Rights Act of 1871, Congress routinely referred to the right to keep and bear arms and decried the continued disarmament of blacks in the South. See Halbrook, Freedmen 120-131. Finally, legal commentators from the period emphasized the fundamental nature of the right. See, e.g., T. Farrar, Manual of the Constitution of the United States of America § 118, p. 145 (1867);

[561 U.S. 777]

J. Pomeroy, An Introduction to the Constitutional Law of the United States § 239, pp. 152-153 (3d ed. 1875).

The right to keep and bear arms was also widely protected by state constitutions at the time when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. In 1868, 22 of the 37 States in the Union had state constitutional provisions explicitly protecting the right to keep and bear arms. See Calabresi & Agudo, Individual Rights Under State Constitutions When the Fourteenth Amendment Was Ratified in 1868: What Rights Are Deeply Rooted in American History and Tradition? 87 Texas L. Rev. 7, 50 (2008).26 Quite a few of these state constitutional guarantees, moreover, explicitly protected the right to keep and bear arms as an individual right to self-defense. See Ala. Const., Art. I, § 28 (1868); Conn. Const., Art. I, § 17 (1818); Ky. Const., Art. XIII, § 25 (1850); Mich. Const., Art. XVIII, § 7 (1850); Miss. Const., Art. I, § 15 (1868); Mo. Const., Art. I, § 8 (1865); Tex. Const., Art. I, § 13 (1869); see also Mont. Const., Art. III, § 13 (1889); Wash. Const., Art. I, § 24 (1889); Wyo. Const., Art. I, § 24 (1889); see also State v. McAdams, 714 P.2d 1236, 1238 (Wyo. 1986). What is more, state constitutions adopted during the Reconstruction era by former Confederate States included a right to keep and bear arms. See, e.g., Ark. Const., Art. I, §5 (1868); Miss. Const., Art. I, § 15 (1868); Tex. Const., Art. I, § 13 (1869). A clear majority of the States in 1868, therefore, recognized the right to keep *921and bear arms as being among the foundational rights necessary to our system of government.27

[561 U.S. 778]

In sum, it is clear that the Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty.

2

Despite all this evidence, municipal respondents contend that Congress, in the years immediately following the Civil War, merely sought to outlaw “discriminatory measures taken against freedmen, which it addressed by adopting a non-discrimination principle” and that even an outright ban on the possession of firearms was regarded as acceptable, “so long as it was not done in a discriminatory manner.” Brief for Municipal Respondents 7. They argue that Members of Congress overwhelmingly viewed § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment “as an antidiscrimination rule,” and they cite statements to the effect that the section would outlaw discriminatory measures. Id., at 64. This argument is implausible.

First, while § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment contains “an antidis-crimination rule,” namely, the Equal Protection Clause, municipal respondents can hardly mean that § 1 does no more than prohibit discrimination. If that were so, then the First Amendment, as applied to the States, would not prohibit nondiscriminatory abridgments of the rights to freedom of speech or freedom of religion; the Fourth Amendment, as applied to the States, would not prohibit all unreasonable searches and seizures but only discriminatory searches and seizures—and so on. We assume that this is not municipal respondents’ view, so what they must mean is that the Second Amendment should be singled out for

[561 U.S. 779]

special—and specially unfavorable—treatment. We reject that suggestion.

Second, municipal respondents’ argument ignores the clear terms of the Freedmen’s Bureau Act of 1866, which acknowledged the existence of the right to bear arms. If that law had used language such as “the equal benefit of laws concerning the bearing of arms,” it would be possible to interpret it as simply a prohibition of racial discrimination. But § 14 speaks of and protects “the constitutional right to bear arms,” an unmistakable reference to the right protected by the Second Amendment. And it protects the “full and equal benefit” of this right in the States. 14 Stat. 176-177. It would have been nonsensical for Congress to guarantee the full and equal benefit of a constitutional right that does not exist.

Third, if the 39th Congress had outlawed only those laws that discriminate on the basis of race or previous condition of servitude, African-Americans in the South would likely have remained vulnerable to attack *922by many of their worst abusers: the state militia and state peace officers. In the years immediately following the Civil War, a law banning the possession of guns by all private citizens would have been nondiscriminatory only in the formal sense. Any such law—like the Chicago and Oak Park ordinances challenged here—presumably would have permitted the possession of guns by those acting under the authority of the State and would thus have left firearms in the hands of the militia and local peace officers. And as the Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction revealed, see supra, at 772, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 917-918, those groups were widely involved in harassing blacks in the South.

Fourth, municipal respondents’ purely antidiscrimination theory of the Fourteenth Amendment disregards the plight of whites in the South who opposed the Black Codes. If the 39th Congress and the ratifying public had simply prohibited racial discrimination with respect to the bearing of arms, opponents of the Black Codes would have been left without

[561 U.S. 780]

the means of self-defense—as had abolitionists in Kansas in the 1850’s.

Fifth, the 39th Congress’ response to proposals to disband and disarm the Southern militias is instructive. Despite recognizing and deploring the abuses of these militias, the 39th Congress balked at a proposal to disarm them. See 39th Cong. Globe 914; Hal-brook, Freedmen 20-21. Disarmament, it was argued, would violate the members’ right to bear arms, and it was ultimately decided to disband the militias but not to disarm their members. See Act of Mar. 2, 1867, § 6, 14 Stat. 487; Halbrook, Freedmen 68-69; Cramer 858-861. It cannot be doubted that the right to bear arms was regarded as a substantive guarantee, not a prohibition that could be ignored so long as the States legislated in an evenhanded manner.

IV

Municipal respondents’ remaining arguments are at war with our central holding in Heller, that the Second Amendment protects a personal right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense within the home. Municipal respondents, in effect, ask us to treat the right recognized in Heller as a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees that we have held to be incorporated into the Due Process Clause.

Municipal respondents’ main argument is nothing less than a plea to disregard 50 years of incorporation precedent and return (presumably for this case only) to a bygone era. Municipal respondents submit that the Due Process Clause protects only those rights “ ‘recognized by all temperate and civilized governments, from a deep and universal sense of [their] justice.’ ” Brief for Municipal Respondents 9 (quoting Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 166 U.S., at 238, 17 S. Ct. 581, 41 L. Ed. 979). According to municipal respondents, if it is possible to imagine any civilized legal system that does not recognize a particular right, then the Due Process Clause does not make that right binding

[561 U.S. 781]

on the States. Brief for Municipal Respondents 9. Therefore, municipal respondents continue, because such countries as England, Canada, Australia, Japan, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, and New Zealand either ban or severely limit handgun ownership, it must follow that no right to *923possess such weapons is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Id., at 21-23.

This line of argument is, of course, inconsistent with the long-established standard we apply in incorporation cases. See Duncan, 391 U.S., at 149, and n. 14, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491. And the present-day implications of municipal respondents’ argument are stunning. For example, many of the rights that our Bill of Rights provides for persons accused of criminal offenses are virtually unique to this country.28 If our understanding of the right to a jury trial, the right against self-incrimination,

[561 U.S. 782]

and the right to counsel were necessary attributes of any civilized country, it would follow that the United States is the only civilized Nation in the world.

Municipal respondents attempt to salvage their position by suggesting that their argument applies only to substantive as opposed to procedural rights. Brief for Municipal Respondents 10, n. 3. But even in this trimmed form, municipal respondents’ argument flies in the face of more than a half century of precedent. For example, in Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1, 8, 67 S. Ct. 504, 91 L. Ed. 711 (1947), the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Yet several of the countries that municipal respondents recognize as civilized have established state churches.29 If we were to adopt municipal respondents’ theory, all of this Court’s Establishment Clause precedents involving actions taken by state and local governments would go by the boards.

*924Municipal respondents maintain that the Second Amendment differs from all of the other provisions of the Bill of Rights because it concerns the right to possess a deadly implement and thus has implications for public safety. Brief for Municipal Respondents 11. And they note that there is intense disagreement on the question whether the private

[561 U.S. 783]

possession of guns in the home increases or decreases gun deaths and injuries. Id., at 11, 13-17.

The right to keep and bear arms, however, is not the only constitutional right that has controversial public safety implications. All of the constitutional provisions that impose restrictions on law enforcement and on the prosecution of crimes fall into the same category. See, e.g., Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 591, 126 S. Ct. 2159, 165 L. Ed. 2d 56 (2006) (“The exclusionary rule generates ‘substantial social costs,’ United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 907 [104 S. Ct. 3405, 82 L. Ed. 2d 677] (1984), which sometimes include setting the guilty free and the dangerous at large”); Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 522, 92 S. Ct. 2182, 33 L. Ed. 2d 101 (1972) (reflecting on the serious consequences of dismissal for a speedy trial violation, which means “a defendant who may be guilty of a serious crime will go free”); Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 517, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966) (Harlan, J., dissenting); id., at 542, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (White, J., dissenting) (objecting that the Court’s rule “[i]n some unknown number of cases . . . will return a killer, a rapist or other criminal to the streets ... to repeat his crime”); Mapp, 367 U.S., at 659, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081. Municipal respondents cite no case in which we have refrained from holding that a provision of the Bill of Rights is binding on the States on the ground that the right at issue has disputed public safety implications.

We likewise reject municipal respondents’ argument that we should depart from our established incorporation methodology on the ground that making the Second Amendment binding on the States and their subdivisions is inconsistent with principles of federalism and will stifle experimentation. Municipal respondents point out—quite correctly— that conditions and problems differ from locality to locality and that citizens in different jurisdictions have divergent views on the issue of gun control. Municipal respondents therefore urge us to allow state and local governments to enact any gun control law that they deem to be reasonable, including a complete ban on the possession of handguns in the home for self-defense. Brief for Municipal Respondents 18-20, 23.

[561 U.S. 784]

There is nothing new in the argument that, in order to respect federalism and allow useful state experimentation, a federal constitutional right should not be fully binding on the States. This argument was made repeatedly and eloquently by Members of this Court who rejected the concept of incorporation and urged retention of the two-track approach to incorporation. Throughout the era of “selective incorporation,” Justice Harlan in particular, invoking the values of federalism and state experimentation, fought a determined rearguard action to preserve the two-track approach. See, e.g., Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 500-503, 77 S. Ct. 1304, 1 L. Ed. 2d 1498 (1957) (Harlan, J., concurring in result in part and dissenting in part); Mapp, supra, at 678-680, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081 *925(Harlan, J., dissenting); Gideon, 372 U.S., at 352, 83 S. Ct. 792, 9 L. Ed. 2d 799 (Harlan, J., concurring); Malloy, 378 U.S., at 14-33, 84 S. Ct. 1489, 12 L. Ed. 2d 653 (Harlan, J., dissenting); Pointer, 380 U.S., at 408-409, 85 S. Ct. 1065, 13 L. Ed. 2d 923 (Harlan, J., concurring in result); Washington, 388 U.S., at 23-24, 87 S. Ct. 1920, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1019 (Harlan, J., concurring in result); Duncan, 391 U.S., at 171-193, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491 (Harlan, J., dissenting); Benton, 395 U.S., at 808-809, 89 S. Ct. 2056, 23 L. Ed. 2d 707 (Harlan, J., dissenting); Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 117, 90 S. Ct. 1893, 26 L. Ed. 2d 446 (1970) (Harlan, J., dissenting in part and concurring in result in part).

Time and again, however, those pleas failed. Unless we turn back the clock or adopt a special incorporation test applicable only to the Second Amendment, municipal respondents’ argument must be rejected. Under our precedents, if a Bill of Rights guarantee is fundamental from an American perspective, then, unless stare decisis counsels otherwise,30

[561 U.S. 785]

that guarantee is fully binding on the States and thus limits (but by no means eliminates) their ability to devise solutions to social problems that suit local needs and values. As noted by the 38 States that have appeared in this case as amici supporting petitioners, “[sítate and local experimentation with reasonable firearms regulations will continue under the Second Amendment.” Brief for State of Texas et al. 23.

Municipal respondents and their amici complain that incorporation of the Second Amendment right will lead to extensive and costly litigation, but this argument applies with even greater force to constitutional rights and remedies that have already been held to be binding on the States. Consider the exclusionary rule. Although the exclusionary rule “is not an individual right,” Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 141, 129 S. Ct. 695, 172 L. Ed. 2d 496 (2009), but a “judicially created rule,” id., at 139, 129 S. Ct. 695, 172 L. Ed. 2d 496, this Court made the rule applicable to the States. See Mapp, supra, at 660, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081. The exclusionary rule is said to result in “tens of thousands of contested suppression motions each year.” Stuntz, The Virtues and Vices of the Exclusionary Rule, 20 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 443, 444 (1997).

Municipal respondents assert that, although most state constitutions protect firearms rights, state courts have held that these rights are subject to “interest-balancing” and have sustained a variety of restrictions. Brief for Municipal Respondents 23-31. In Heller, however, we expressly rejected *926the argument that the scope of the Second Amendment right should be determined by judicial interest balancing, 554 U.S., at 633-635, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, and this Court decades ago

[561 U.S. 786]

abandoned “the notion that the Fourteenth Amendment applies to the States only a watered-down, subjective version of the individual guarantees of the Bill of Rights,” Malloy, supra, at 10-11, 84 S. Ct. 1489, 12 L. Ed. 2d 653 (internal quotation marks omitted).

As evidence that the Fourteenth Amendment has not historically been understood to restrict the authority of the States to regulate firearms, municipal respondents and supporting amici cite a variety of state and local firearms laws that courts have upheld. But what is most striking about their research is the paucity of precedent sustaining bans comparable to those at issue here and in Heller. Municipal respondents cite precisely one case (from the late 20th century) in which such a ban was sustained. See Brief for Municipal Respondents 26-27 (citing Kalodimos v. Morton Grove, 103 Ill. 2d 483, 470 N.E.2d 266 (1984)); see also Reply Brief for Respondent NRA et al. 23, n. 7 (asserting that no other court has ever upheld a complete ban on the possession of handguns). It is important to keep in mind that Heller, while striking down a law that prohibited the possession of handguns in the home, recognized that the right to keep and bear arms is not “a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” 554 U.S., at 626, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637. We made it clear in Heller that our holding did not cast doubt on such longstanding regulatory measures as “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” Id., at 626-627, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d at 678. We repeat those assurances here. Despite municipal respondents’ doomsday proclamations, incorporation does not imperil every law regulating firearms.

Municipal respondents argue, finally, that the right to keep and bear arms is unique among the rights set out in the first eight Amendments “because the reason for codifying the Second Amendment (to protect the militia) differs from the

[561 U.S. 787]

purpose (primarily, to use firearms to engage in self-defense) that is claimed to make the right implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Brief for Municipal Respondents 36-37. Municipal respondents suggest that the Second Amendment right differs from the rights heretofore incorporated because the latter were “valued for [their] own sake.” Id., at 33. But we have never previously suggested that incorporation of a right turns on whether it has intrinsic as opposed to instrumental value, and quite a few of the rights previously held to be incorporated—for example the right to counsel and the right to confront and subpoena witnesses—are clearly instrumental by any measure. Moreover, this contention repackages one of the chief arguments that we rejected in Heller, i.e., that the scope of the Second Amendment right is defined by the immediate threat that led to the inclusion of that right in the Bill of Rights. In Heller, we recognized that the codification of this right was prompted by fear that the Federal Government would disarm *927and thus disable the militias, but we rejected the suggestion that the right was valued only as a means of preserving the militias. 554 U.S., at 598-599, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637. On the contrary, we stressed that the right was also valued because the possession of firearms was thought to be essential for self-defense. As we put it, self-defense was “the central component of the right itself.” Id., at 599, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637

V

A

We turn, finally, to the two dissenting opinions. Justice Stevens’ eloquent opinion covers ground already addressed, and therefore little need be added in response. Justice Stevens would “ ‘ground the prohibitions against state action squarely on due process, without intermediate reliance on any of the first eight Amendments.’ ” Post, at 865, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 974 (quoting Malloy, 378 U.S., at 24, 84 S. Ct. 1489, 12 L. Ed. 2d 653 (Harlan, J., dissenting)). The question presented in this case, in his view, “is whether the particular

[561 U.S. 788]

right asserted by petitioners applies to the States because of the Fourteenth Amendment itself, standing on its own bottom.” Post, at 883, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 986. He would hold that “ [t]he rights protected against state infringement by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause need not be identical in shape or scope to the rights protected against Federal Government infringement by the various provisions of the Bill of Rights.” Post, at 866, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 975.

As we have explained, the Court, for the past half century, has moved away from the two-track approach. If we were now to accept Justice Stevens’ theory across the board, decades of decisions would be undermined. We assume that this is not what is proposed. What is urged instead, it appears, is that this theory be revived solely for the individual right that Heller recognized, over vigorous dissents.

The relationship between the Bill of Rights’ guarantees and the States must be governed by a single, neutral principle. It is far too late to exhume what Justice Brennan, writing for the Court 46 years ago, derided as “the notion that the Fourteenth Amendment applies to the States only a watered-down, subjective version of the individual guarantees of the Bill of Rights.” Malloy, supra, 10-11, 84 S. Ct. 1489, 12 L. Ed. 2d 653 (internal quotation marks omitted).

B

Justice Breyer’s dissent makes several points to which we briefly respond. To begin, while there is certainly room for disagreement about Heller’s analysis of the history of the right to keep and bear arms, nothing written since Heller persuades us to reopen the question there decided. Few other questions of original meaning have been as thoroughly explored.

Justice Breyer’s conclusion that the Fourteenth Amendment does not incorporate the right to keep and bear arms appears to rest primarily on four factors: First, “there is no popular consensus” that the right is fundamental, post, at

[561 U.S. 789]

920, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 1009; second, the right does not protect minorities or persons neglected by those holding political power, post, at 921-922, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 1009-1010; third, incorporation of the Second Amendment right would “amount to a significant incursion on a traditional and important area of state concern, alter*928ing the constitutional relationship between the States and the Federal Government” and preventing local variations, ibid.; and fourth, determining the scope of the Second Amendment right in cases involving state and local laws will force judges to answer difficult empirical questions regarding matters that are outside their area of expertise, post, at 922-927, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 1010-1013. Even if we believed that these factors were relevant to the incorporation inquiry, none of these factors undermines the case for incorporation of the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

First, we have never held that a provision of the Bill of Rights applies to the States only if there is a “popular consensus” that the right is fundamental, and we see no basis for such a rule. But in this case, as it turns out, there is evidence of such a consensus. An amicus brief submitted by 58 Members of the Senate and 251 Members of the House of Representatives urges us to hold that the right to keep and bear arms is fundamental. See Brief for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchi-son et al. 4. Another brief submitted by 38 States takes the same position. Brief for State of Texas et al. 6.

Second, petitioners and many others who live in high-crime areas dispute the proposition that the Second Amendment right does not protect minorities and those lacking political clout. The plight of Chicagoans living in high-crime areas was recently highlighted when two Illinois legislators representing Chicago districts called on the Governor to deploy the Illinois National Guard to patrol the City’s streets.31 The legislators noted that the number of Chicago homicide victims during the current year equaled the number of

[561 U.S. 790]

American soldiers killed during that same period in Afghanistan and Iraq and that 80% of the Chicago victims were black.32 Amici supporting incorporation of the right to keep and bear arms contend that the right is especially important for women and members of other groups that may be especially vulnerable to violent crime.33 If, as petitioners believe, their safety and the safety of other law-abiding members of the community would be enhanced by the possession of handguns in the home for self-defense, then the Second Amendment right protects the rights of minorities and other residents of high-crime areas whose needs are not being met by elected public officials.

Third, Justice Breyer is correct that incorporation of the Second Amendment right will to some extent limit the legislative freedom of the States, but this is always true when a Bill of Rights provision is incorporated. Incorporation always restricts experimentation and local variations, but that has not stopped the Court from incorporating virtually every other provision of the Bill of Rights. “[T]he *929enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.” Heller, 554 U.S., at 636, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637. This conclusion is no more remarkable with respect to the Second Amendment than it is with respect to all the other limitations on state power found in the Constitution.

Finally, Justice Breyer is incorrect that incorporation will require judges to assess the costs and benefits of firearms

[561 U.S. 791]

restrictions and thus to make difficult empirical judgments in an area in which they lack expertise. As we have noted, while his opinion in Heller recommended an interest-balancing test, the Court specifically rejected that suggestion. See supra, at 785-786, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 925-926. “The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon.” Heller, supra, at 634, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637.

In Heller, we held that the Second Amendment protects the right to possess a handgun in the home for the purpose of self-defense. Unless considerations of stare decisis counsel otherwise, a provision of the Bill of Rights that protects a right that is fundamental from an American perspective applies equally to the Federal Government and the States. See Duncan, 391 U.S., at 149, and n. 14, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491. We therefore hold that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.

It is so ordered.

SEPARATE OPINIONS

Justice Scalia,

concurring.

I join the Court’s opinion. Despite my misgivings about substantive due process as an original matter, I have acquiesced in the Court’s incorporation of certain guarantees in the Bill of Rights “because it is both long established and narrowly limited.” Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 275, 114 S. Ct. 807, 127 L. Ed. 2d 114 (1994) (Scalia, J., concurring). This case does not require me to reconsider that view, since straightforward application of settled doctrine suffices to decide it.

I write separately only to respond to some aspects of Justice Stevens’ dissent. Not that aspect which disagrees with the majority’s application of our precedents to this case,

[561 U.S. 792]

which is fully covered by the Court’s opinion. But much of what Justice Stevens writes is a broad condemnation of the theory of interpretation which underlies the Court’s opinion, a theory that makes the traditions of our people paramount. He proposes a different theory, which he claims is more “cau-tiou[s]” and respectful of proper limits on the judicial role. Post, at 912, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 1004. It is that claim I wish to address.

I

A

After stressing the substantive dimension of what he has renamed the “liberty clause,” post, at 861-864, *930177 L. Ed. 2d, at 971-974,1 Justice Stevens proceeds to urge readoption of the theory of incorporation articulated in Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325, 58 S. Ct. 149, 82 L. Ed. 288 (1937), see post, at 871-877, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 978-982. But in fact he does not favor application of that theory at all. For whether Palko requires only that “a fair and enlightened system of justice would be impossible without” the right sought to be incorporated, 302 U.S., at 325, 58 S. Ct. 149, 82 L. Ed. 288, or requires in addition that the right be rooted in the “traditions and conscience of our people,” ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted), many of the rights Justice Stevens thinks are incorporated could not pass muster under either test: abortion, post, at 864, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 973 (citing Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 847, 112 S. Ct. 2791, 120 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1992)); homosexual sodomy, post, at 873, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 979 (citing Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 572, 123 S. Ct. 2472, 156 L. Ed. 2d 508 (2003)); the right to have excluded from criminal trials evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, post, at 875, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 980 (citing Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 650, 655-657, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081 (1961)); and the right to teach one’s

[561 U.S. 793]

children foreign languages, post, at 864, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 973 (citing Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399-403, 43 S. Ct. 625, 67 L. Ed. 1042 (1923)), among others.

That Justice Stevens is not applying any version of Palko is clear from comparing, on the one hand, the rights he believes are covered, with, on the other hand, his conclusion that the right to keep and bear arms is not covered. Rights that pass his test include not just those “relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, and child rearing and education,” but also rights against “ [government action that shocks the conscience, pointlessly infringes settled expectations, trespasses into sensitive private realms or life choices without adequate justification, [or] perpetrates gross injustice.” Post, at 879, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 983 (internal quotation marks omitted). Not all such rights are in, however, since only “some fundamental aspects of personhood, dignity, and the like” are protected, post, at 880, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 984 (emphasis added). Exactly what is covered is not clear. But whatever else is in, he knows that the right to keep and bear arms is out, despite its being as “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 721, 117 S. Ct. 2258, 138 L. Ed. 2d 772 (1997) (internal quotation marks omitted), as a right can be, see District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 593-595, 599, 603, 614-616, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008). I can find no other explanation for such certitude except that Justice Stevens, despite his forswearing of “personal and private notions,” post, at 878, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 982 (internal quotation marks omitted), deeply believes it should be out.

*931The subjective nature of Justice Stevens’ standard is also apparent from his claim that it is the courts’ prerogative—indeed their duty—to update the Due Process Clause so that it encompasses new freedoms the Framers were too narrowminded to imagine, post, at 875-877, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 980-982, and n. 21. Courts, he proclaims, must “do justice to [the Clause’s] urgent call and its open texture” by exercising the “interpretive discretion the latter embodies.” Post, at 877, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 982. (Why the people are not up to the task of deciding what new rights to

[561 U.S. 794]

protect, even though it is they who are authorized to make changes, see U. S. Const., Art. V, is never explained.2) And it would be “judicial abdication” for a judge to “tur[n] his back” on his task of determining what the Fourteenth Amendment covers by “outsourcing]” the job to “historical sentiment,” post, at 876, 877, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 981, 982—that is, by being guided by what the American people throughout our history have thought. It is only we judges, exercising our “own reasoned judgment,” post, at 872, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 978, who can be entrusted with deciding the Due Process Clause’s scope—which rights serve the Amendment’s “central values,” post, at 880, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 983—which basically means picking the rights we want to protect and discarding those we do not.

B

Justice Stevens resists this description, insisting that his approach provides plenty of “guideposts” and “constraints” to keep courts from “injecting excessive subjectivity” into the process.3 Post, at 877, 878, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 982, 983. Plenty indeed—and

[561 U.S. 795]

that alone is a problem. The ability of omnidirectional guideposts to constrain is inversely proportional to their number. But even individually, each lodestar or limitation he lists either is incapable of restraining judicial whimsy or cannot be squared with the precedents he seeks to preserve.

He begins with a brief nod to history, post, at 877-878, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 982-983, but as he has just made clear, he thinks historical inquiry unavailing, post, at 875-877, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 980-982. Moreover, trusting the meaning of the Due Process Clause to what has historically been protected is circular, see post, at 875-876, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 980-981, since that would mean no new rights could get in.

*932Justice Stevens moves on to the “most basic” constraint on subjectivity his theory offers: that he would “esche[w] attempts to provide any all-purpose, top-down, totalizing theory of ‘liberty.’ ” Post, at 878, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 982. The notion that the absence of a coherent theory of the Due Process Clause will somehow curtail judicial caprice is at war with reason. Indeterminacy means opportunity for courts to impose whatever rule they like; it is the problem, not the solution. The idea that interpretive pluralism would reduce courts’ ability to impose their will on the ignorant masses is not merely naive, but absurd. If there are no right answers, there are no wrong answers either.

Justice Stevens also argues that requiring courts to show “respect for the democratic process” should serve as a constraint. Post, at 880, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 983. That is true, but Justice Stevens would have them show respect in an extraordinary manner. In his view, if a right “is already being given careful consideration in, and subjected to ongoing calibration by, the States, judicial enforcement may not be appropriate.” Ibid. In other words, a right, such as the right to keep and bear arms, that has long been recognized but on which the States are considering restrictions, apparently deserves less protection, while a privilege the political branches (instruments of the democratic process) have withheld entirely and continue to withhold, deserves more. That topsy-turvy approach

[561 U.S. 796]

conveniently accomplishes the objective of ensuring that the rights this Court held protected in Casey, Lawrence, and other such cases fit the theory— but at the cost of insulting rather than respecting the democratic process.

The next constraint Justice Stevens suggests is harder to evaluate. He describes as “an important tool for guiding judicial discretion” “sensitivity to the interaction between the intrinsic aspects of liberty and the practical realities of contemporary society.” Post, at 880, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 984. I cannot say whether that sensitivity will really guide judges because I have no idea what it is. Is it some sixth sense instilled in judges when they ascend to the bench? Or does it mean judges are more constrained when they agonize about the cosmic conflict between liberty and its potentially harmful consequences? Attempting to give the concept more precision, Justice Stevens explains that “sensitivity is an aspect of a deeper principle: the need to approach our work with humility and caution.” Post, at 881, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 984. Both traits are undeniably admirable, though what relation they bear to sensitivity is a mystery. But it makes no difference, for the first case Justice Stevens cites in support, see ibid.., Casey, 505 U.S., at 849, 112 S. Ct. 2791, 120 L. Ed. 2d 674, dispels any illusion that he has a meaningful form of judicial modesty in mind.

Justice Stevens offers no examples to illustrate the next constraint: stare decisis, post, at 881, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 984. But his view of it is surely not very confining, since he holds out as a “canonical” exemplar of the proper approach, see post, at 873, 909, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 979, 1002, Lawrence, which overruled a case decided a mere 17 years earlier, Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 106 S. Ct. 2841, 92 L. Ed. 2d 140 (1986), see 539 U.S., at 578, 123 S. Ct. 2472, 156 L. Ed. 2d 508 (it “was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today”). Moreover, Justice Stevens would apply that constraint unevenly: He ap*933parently approves those Warren Court cases that adopted jot-for-jot incorporation of procedural protections for criminal defendants, post, at 868, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 976, but would abandon those Warren Court rulings that undercut his

[561 U.S. 797]

approach to substantive rights, on the basis that we have “cut back” on cases from that era before, post, at 869, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 977.

Justice Stevens also relies on the requirement of a “careful description of the asserted fundamental liberty interest” to limit judicial discretion. Post, at 882, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 985 (internal quotation marks omitted). I certainly agree with that requirement, see Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 302, 113 S. Ct. 1439, 123 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1993), though some cases Justice Stevens approves have not applied it seriously, see, e.g., Lawrence, supra, at 562, 123 S. Ct. 2472, 156 L. Ed. 2d 508 (“The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and in its more transcendent dimensions”). But if the “careful description” requirement is used in the manner we have hitherto employed, then the enterprise of determining the Due Process Clause’s “conceptual core,” post, at 879, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 983, is a waste of time. In the cases he cites we sought a careful, specific description of the right at issue in order to determine whether that right, thus narrowly defined, was fundamental. See, e.g., Glucksberg, 521 U.S., at 722-728, 117 S. Ct. 2258, 138 L. Ed. 2d 772; Reno, supra, at 302-306, 113 S. Ct. 1439, 123 L. Ed. 2d 1; Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 125-129, 112 S. Ct. 1061, 117 L. Ed. 2d 261 (1992); Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U.S. 261, 269-279, 110 S. Ct. 2841, 111 L. Ed. 2d 224 (1990); see also Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793, 801-808, 117 S. Ct. 2293, 138 L. Ed. 2d 834 (1997). The threshold step of defining the asserted right with precision is entirely unnecessary, however, if (as Justice Stevens maintains) the “conceptual core” of the “liberty clause,” post, at 879, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 983, includes a number of capacious, hazily defined categories. There is no need to define the right with much precision in order to conclude that it pertains to the plaintiffs “ability independently to define [his] identity,” his “right to make certain unusually important decisions that will affect his own, or his family’s, destiny,” or some aspect of his “[s] elf-determination, bodily integrity, freedom of conscience, intimate relationships, political equality, dignity [or] respect.” Post, at 879, 880, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 983, 984. (internal quotation marks omitted). Justice Stevens must therefore have in mind some other use for the careful-description

[561 U.S. 798]

requirement—perhaps just as a means of ensuring that courts “procee[d] slowly and incrementally,” post, at 881, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 984. But that could be achieved just as well by having them draft their opinions in longhand.4

II

If Justice Stevens’ account of the *934constraints of his approach did not demonstrate that they do not exist, his application of that approach to the case before us leaves no doubt. He offers several reasons for concluding that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is not fundamental enough to be applied against the States.5 None is persuasive, but more pertinent to my purpose, each is either intrinsically indeterminate, would preclude incorporation of rights we have already held incorporated, or both. His approach

[561 U.S. 799]

therefore does nothing to stop a judge from arriving at any conclusion he sets out to reach.

Justice Stevens begins with the odd assertion that “firearms have a fundamentally ambivalent relationship to liberty,” since sometimes they are used to cause (or sometimes accidentally produce) injury to others. Post, at 891, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 990. The source of the rule that only nonam-bivalent liberties deserve due process protection is never explained—proof that judges applying Justice Stevens’ approach can add new elements to the test as they see fit. The criterion, moreover, is inherently manipulable. Surely Justice Stevens does not mean that the Clause covers only rights that have zero harmful effect on anyone. Otherwise even the First Amendment is out. Maybe what he means is that the right to keep and bear arms imposes too great a risk to others’ physical well-being. But as the plurality explains, ante, at 782-783, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 924, other rights we have already held incorporated pose similarly substantial risks to public safety. In all events, Justice Stevens supplies neither a standard for how severe the impairment on others’ liberty must be for a right to be disqualified, nor (of course) any method of measuring the severity.

Justice Stevens next suggests that the Second Amendment right is not fundamental because it is “different in kind” from other rights we have recognized. Post, at 893, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 992. In one respect, of course, the right to keep and bear arms is different from some other rights we have held the Clause protects and he would recognize: It is deeply grounded in our Nation’s history and tradition. But Justice Stevens has a different distinction in mind: Even though he does “not doubt for a moment that many Americans . . . see [firearms] as critical to their way of life as well as to their security,” he pronounces that owning a handgun is not “critical to leading a life of autonomy, dignity, or political equality.”6 Ibid.

[561 U.S. 800]

Who says? Deciding what is essential to an enlightened, liberty-*935filled life is an inherently political, moral judgment—the antithesis of an objective approach that reaches conclusions by applying neutral rules to verifiable evidence.7

No determination of what rights the Constitution of the United States covers would be complete, of course, without a survey of what other countries do. Post, at 895-896, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 993-994. When it comes to guns, Justice Stevens explains, our Nation is already an outlier among “advanced democracies”; not even our “oldest allies” protect as robust a right as we do, and we should not widen the gap. Ibid. Never mind that he explains neither which countries qualify as “advanced democracies” nor why others are irrelevant. For there is an even clearer indication that this criterion lets judges pick which rights States must respect and those they can ignore: As the plurality shows, ante, at 781-782, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 923, and nn. 28-29, this follow-the-foreign-crowd requirement would foreclose rights

[561 U.S. 801]

that we have held (and Justice Stevens accepts) are incorporated, but that other“advanced” nations do not recognize—from the exclusionary rule to the Establishment Clause. Ajudge applying Justice Stevens’ approach must either throw all of those rights overboard or, as cases Justice Stevens approves have done in considering unenumerated rights, simply ignore foreign law when it undermines the desired conclusion, see, e.g., Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S. Ct. 2791, 120 L. Ed. 2d 674 (making no mention of foreign law).

Justice Stevens also argues that since the right to keep and bear arms was codified for the purpose of “prevent [ing] elimination of the militia,” it should be viewed as “ ‘a federalism provision’ ” logically incapable of incorporation. Post, at 897, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 994 (quoting Elk Grove Unified School Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1, 45, 124 S. Ct. 2301, 159 L. Ed. 2d 98 (2004) (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment); some internal quotation marks omitted). This criterion, too, evidently applies only when judges want it to. The opinion Justice Stevens quotes for the “federalism provision” principle, Justice Thomas’s concurrence in Newdow, argued that incorporation of the Establishment Clause “makes little sense” because that Clause was originally understood as a limit on congressional interference with state establishments of religion. Id., at 49-51, 124 S. Ct. 2301, *936159 L. Ed. 2d 98. Justice Stevens, of course, has no problem with applying the Establishment Clause to the States. See, e.g., id., at 8, n. 4, 124 S. Ct. 2301, 159 L. Ed. 2d 98 (opinion for the Court by Stevens, J.) (acknowledging that the Establishment Clause “applies] to the States by incorporation into the Fourteenth Amendment”). While he insists that Clause is not a “federalism provision,” post, at 897, n. 40, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 995, he does not explain why it is not, but the right to keep and bear arms is (even though only the latter refers to a “right of the people”). The “federalism” argument prevents the incorporation of only certain rights.

Justice Stevens next argues that even if the right to keep and bear arms is “deeply rooted in some important senses,” the roots of States’ efforts to regulate guns run just as deep. Post, at 899, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 996 (internal quotation marks omitted).

[561 U.S. 802]

But this too is true of other rights we have held incorporated. No fundamental right—not even the First Amendment—is absolute. The traditional restrictions go to show the scope of the right, not its lack of fundamental character. At least that is what they show (Justice Stevens would agree) for other rights. Once again, principles are applied selectively.

Justice Stevens’ final reason for rejecting incorporation of the Second Amendment reveals, more clearly than any of the others, the game that is afoot. Assuming that there is a “plausible constitutional basis” for holding that the right to keep and bear arms is incorporated, he asserts that we ought not to do so for prudential reasons. Post, at 902, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 997. Even if we had the authority to withhold rights that are within the Constitution’s command (and we assuredly do not), two of the reasons Justice Stevens gives for abstention show just how much power he would hand to judges. The States’ “right to experiment” with solutions to the problem of gun violence, he says, is at its apex here because “the best solution is far from clear.” Post, at 902-903, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 998 (internal quotation marks omitted). That is true of most serious social problems— whether, for example, “the best solution” for rampant crime is to admit confessions unless they are affirmatively shown to have been coerced, but see Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444-445, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966), or to permit jurors to impose the death penalty without a requirement that they be free to consider “any relevant mitigating factor,” see Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 112, 102 S. Ct. 869, 71 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1982), which in turn leads to the conclusion that defense counsel has provided inadequate defense if he has not conducted a “reasonable investigation” into potentially mitigating factors, see, e.g., Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 534, 123 S. Ct. 2527, 156 L. Ed. 2d 471 (2003), inquiry into which question tends to destroy any prospect of prompt justice, see, e.g., Wong v. Belmontes, 558 U.S. 15, 130 S. Ct. 383, 175 L. Ed. 2d 328 (2009) (per curiam) (reversing grant of habeas relief for sentencing on a crime committed in 1981). The obviousness of the optimal answer is

[561 U.S. 803]

in the eye of the beholder. The implication of Justice Stevens’ call for abstention is that if We The Court conclude that They The People’s answers to a problem are silly, we are free to “interven [e],” post, at 902, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 997, but if we too are uncertain of the right answer, *937or merely think the States may be on to something, we can loosen the leash.

A second reason Justice Stevens says we should abstain is that the States have shown they are “capable” of protecting the right at issue, and if anything have protected it too much. Post, at 904, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 999. That reflects an assumption that judges can distinguish between a proper democratic decision to leave things alone (which we should honor), and a case of democratic market failure (which we should step in to correct). I would not—and no judge should—presume to have that sort of omniscience, which seems to me far more “arrogant,” post, at 896, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 994, than confining courts’ focus to our own national heritage.

Ill

Justice Stevens’ response to this concurrence, post, at 906-911, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 1000-1003, makes the usual rejoinder of “living Constitution” advocates to the criticism that it empowers judges to eliminate or expand what the people have prescribed: The traditional, historically focused method, he says, reposes discretion in judges as well.8 Historical analysis can be difficult; it sometimes requires resolving threshold questions, and making nuanced

[561 U.S. 804]

judgments about which evidence to consult and how to interpret it.

I will stipulate to that.9 But the question to be decided is not whether the historically focused method is a perfect means of restraining aristocratic judicial Constitution-writing; but whether it is the best means available in an imperfect world. Or indeed, even more narrowly than that: whether it is demonstrably much better than what Justice Stevens proposes. I think it beyond all serious dispute that it is much less subjective, and intrudes much less upon the democratic process. It is less subjective because it depends upon a body of evidence susceptible of reasoned analysis rather than a variety of vague ethico-political First Principles whose combined conclusion can be found to point in any direction the judges favor. In the most controversial matters brought before this Court—for example, the constitutionality of prohibiting abortion, assisted suicide, or homosexual sodomy, or the constitutionality of the death penalty—any historical methodology, under any plausible standard of proof, would lead to the same conclusion.10 Moreover, the methodological differences that divide historians, and the *938varying interpretive assumptions they bring to their work, post, at 907-908, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 1000-1002, are nothing compared to the differences among the American people (though perhaps not among graduates of prestigious law schools) with regard to the moral judgments Justice Stevens would have courts pronounce. And whether or not special expertise is needed

[561 U.S. 805]

to answer historical questions, judges most certainly have no “comparative . . . advantage,” post, at 880, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 984 (internal quotation marks omitted), in resolving moral disputes. What is more, his approach would not eliminate, but multiply, the hard questions courts must confront, since he would not replace history with moral philosophy, but would have courts consider both.

And the Court’s approach intrudes less upon the democratic process because the rights it acknowledges are those established by a constitutional history formed by democratic decisions; and the rights it fails to acknowledge are left to be democratically adopted or rejected by the people, with the assurance that their decision is not subject to judicial revision. Justice Stevens’ approach, on the other hand, deprives the people of that power, since whatever the Constitution and laws may say, the list of protected rights will be whatever courts wish it to be. After all, he notes, the people have been wrong before, post, at 910, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 1002, and courts may conclude they are wrong in the future. Justice Stevens abhors a system in which “majorities or powerful interest groups always get their way ’’post, at 911, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 1003, but replaces it with a system in which unelected and life-tenured judges always get their way. That such usurpation is effected unabashedly, see post, at 908, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 1001—with “the judge’s cards . . . laid on the table,” ibid.— makes it even worse. In a vibrant democracy, usurpation should have to be accomplished in the dark. It is Justice Stevens’ approach, not the Court’s, that puts democracy in peril.

Justice Thomas,

concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

I agree with the Court that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the right to keep and bear arms set forth in the Second Amendment “fully applicable to the States.” Ante, at 750, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 903. I write separately because I believe there is a more straightforward path to this conclusion, one that is more

[561 U.S. 806]

faithful to the Fourteenth Amendment’s text and history. I therefore do not join Parts II-C, IV, and V of the principal opinion.

Applying what is now a well-settled test, the Court concludes that the right to keep and bear arms applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause because it is “fundamental” to the American “scheme of ordered liberty,” ante, at 767, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 914 (citing Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 149, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491 (1968)), and “‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,’ ” ante, at 767, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 914 (quoting Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 721, 117 S. Ct. 2258, 138 L. Ed. 2d 772 (1997)). I agree with that description of the right. But I cannot agree that it is enforceable against the States through a Clause that *939speaks only to “process.” Instead, the right to keep and bear arms is a privilege of American citizenship that applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause.

I

In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), this Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense, striking down a District of Columbia ordinance that banned the possession of handguns in the home. Id., at 635, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637. The question in this case is whether the Constitution protects that right against abridgment by the States.

As the Court explains, if this case were litigated before the Fourteenth Amendment’s adoption in 1868, the answer to that question would be simple. In Barron ex rel. Tiernan v. Mayor of Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243, 8 L. Ed. 672 (1833), this Court held that the Bill of Rights applied only to the Federal Government. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Marshall recalled that the founding generation added the first eight Amendments to the Constitution in response to An-tifederalist concerns regarding the extent of federal—not state—power, and held that if “the framers of these amendments [had] intended them to be limitations on the powers of the state governments,”

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“they would have declared this purpose in plain and intelligible language.”Id., at 250, 8 L. Ed. 751. Finding no such language in the Bill of Rights, Chief Justice Marshall held that it did not in any way restrict state authority. Id., at 248-250, 8 L. Ed. 751; see Lessee of Livingston v. Moore, 7 Pet. 469, 551-552, 8 L. Ed. 751 (1833) (reaffirming Barron’s holding); Permoli v. Municipality No. 1 of New Orleans, 3 How. 589, 609-610, 11 L. Ed. 739 (1845) (same).

Nearly three decades after Barron, the Nation was splintered by a civil war fought principally over the question of slavery. As was evident to many throughout our Nation’s early history, slavery, and the measures designed to protect it, were irreconcilable with the principles of equality, government by consent, and inalienable rights proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence and embedded in our constitutional structure. See, e.g., 3 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 212 (M. Farrand ed. 1911) (remarks of Luther Martin) (“[S]lavery is inconsistent with the genius of republicanism, and has a tendency to destroy those principles on which it is supported, as it lessens the sense of the equal rights of mankind” (emphasis deleted)); A. Lincoln, Speech at Peoria, Ill. (Oct. 16, 1854), reprinted in 2 The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln 266 (R. Basler ed. 1953) (“[N]o man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle—the sheet anchor of American republicanism. ... Now the relation of masters and slaves is, pro tanto, a total violation of this principle”).

After the war, a series of constitutional amendments were adopted to repair the Nation from the damage slavery had caused. The provision at issue here, § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, significantly altered our system of government. The first sentence of that section provides that “[a] 11 persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State *940wherein they reside.” This unambiguously overruled this Court’s contrary holding in Dred Scott v. Sandford,

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19 How. 393, 15 L. Ed. 691 (1857), that the Constitution did not recognize black Americans as citizens of the United States or their own State. Id., at 405-406, 15 L. Ed. 691.

The meaning of § l’s next sentence has divided this Court for many years. That sentence begins with the command that “[n]o State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” On its face, this appears to grant the persons just made United States citizens a certain collection of rights— i.e., privileges or immunities—attributable to that status.

This Court’s precedents accept that point, but define the relevant collection of rights quite narrowly. In the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 21 L. Ed. 394 (1873), decided just five years after the Fourteenth Amendment’s adoption, the Court interpreted this text, now known as the Privileges or Immunities Clause, for the first time. In a closely divided decision, the Court drew a sharp distinction between the privileges and immunities of state citizenship and those of federal citizenship, and held that the Privileges or Immunities Clause protected only the latter category of rights from state abridgment. Id., at 78, 21 L. Ed. 394. The Court defined that category to include only those rights “which owe their existence to the Federal government, its National character, its Constitution, or its laws.” Id., at 79, 21 L. Ed. 394. This arguably left open the possibility that certain individual rights enumerated in the Constitution could be considered privileges or immunities of federal citizenship. See ibid- (listing “[t]he right to peaceably assemble” and “the privilege of the writ of ha-beas corpus” as rights potentially protected by the Privileges or Immunities Clause). But the Court soon rejected that proposition, interpreting the Privileges or Immunities Clause even more narrowly in its later cases.

Chief among those cases is United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 23 L. Ed. 588 (1876). There, the Court held that members of a white militia who had brutally murdered as many as 165 black Louisianians congregating outside a courthouse had

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not deprived the victims of their privileges as American citizens to peaceably assemble or to keep and bear arms. Ibid.; see L. Keith, The Colfax Massacre 109 (2008). According to the Court, the right to peaceably assemble codified in the First Amendment was not a privilege of United States citizenship because “ [t]he right . . . existed long before the adoption of the Constitution.” 92 U.S., at 551, 23 L. Ed. 588 (emphasis added). Similarly, the Court held that the right to keep and bear arms was not a privilege of United States citizenship because it was not “in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.” Id., at 553, 23 L. Ed. 588. In other words, the reason the Framers codified the right to bear arms in the Second Amendment—its nature as an inalienable right that preexisted the Constitution’s adoption— was the very reason citizens could not enforce it against States through the Fourteenth.

That circular reasoning effectively has been the Court’s last word on the *941Privileges or Immunities Clause.1 In the intervening years, the Court has held that the Clause prevents state abridgment of only a handful of rights, such as the right to travel, see Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489, 503, 119 S. Ct. 1518, 143 L. Ed. 2d 689 (1999), that are not readily described as essential to liberty.

As a consequence of this Court’s marginalization of the Clause, litigants seeking federal protection of fundamental rights turned to the remainder of § 1 in search of an alternative fount of such rights. They found one in a most curious place— that section’s command that every State guarantee “due process” to any person before depriving him of “life, liberty, or property.” At first, litigants argued that this Due Process Clause “incorporated” certain procedural rights codified in the Bill of Rights against the States. The Court

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generally rejected those claims, however, on the theory that the rights in question were not sufficiently “fundamental” to warrant such treatment. See, e.g., Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 4 S. Ct. 111, 28 L. Ed. 232 (1884) (grand jury indictment requirement); Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.S. 581, 20 S. Ct. 448, 44 L. Ed. 597 (1900) (12-person jury requirement); Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 29 S. Ct. 14, 53 L. Ed. 97 (1908) (privilege against self-incrimination).

That changed with time. The Court came to conclude that certain Bill of Rights guarantees were sufficiently fundamental to fall within § l’s guarantee of “due process.” These included not only procedural protections listed in the first eight Amendments, see, e.g., Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 89 S. Ct. 2056, 23 L. Ed. 2d 707 (1969) (protection against double jeopardy), but substantive rights as well, see, e.g., Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 666, 45 S. Ct. 625, 69 L. Ed. 1138 (1925) (right to free speech); Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 707, 51 S. Ct. 625, 75 L. Ed. 1357 (1931) (same). In the process of incorporating these rights against the States, the Court often applied them differently against the States than against the Federal Government on the theory that only those “fundamental” aspects of the right required Due Process Clause protection. See, e.g., Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, 473, 62 S. Ct. 1252, 86 L. Ed. 1595 (1942) (holding that the Sixth Amendment required the appointment of counsel in all federal criminal cases in which the defendant was unable to retain an attorney, but that the Due Process Clause required appointment of counsel in state criminal cases only where “want of counsel . . . resulted] in a conviction lacking in . . . fundamental fairness”). In more recent years, this Court has “abandoned the notion” that the guarantees in the Bill of Rights apply differently when incorporated against the States than they do when applied to the Federal Government. Ante, at 765, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 926 (opinion of the Court) (internal quotation marks omitted). But our cases continue to adhere to the view that a right is incorporated through the Due Process Clause only if it is sufficiently “fundamental,” *942 ante, at 784-785, 789-791, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 925, 928 (plurality opinion)—a term the Court has long struggled to define.

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While this Court has at times concluded that a right gains “fundamental” status only if it is essential to the American “scheme of ordered liberty” or “ ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,’ ” ante, at 767, 177 L. Ed. 2d, at 914 (opinion of the Court) (quoting Glucksberg, 521 U.S., at 721, 117 S. Ct. 2258, 138 L. Ed. 2d 772), the Court has just as often held that a right warrants Due Process Clause protection if it satisfies a far less measurable range of criteria, see Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 562, 123 S. Ct. 2472, 156 L. Ed. 2d 508 (2003) (concluding that the Due Process Clause protects “liberty of the person both in its spatial and in its more transcendent dimensions”). Using the latter approach, the Court has determined that the Due Process Clause applies rights against the States that are not mentioned in the Constitution at all, even without seriously arguing that the Clause was originally understood to protect such rights. See, e.g., Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 25 S. Ct. 539, 49 L. Ed. 937 (1905); Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S. Ct. 705, 35 L. Ed. 2d 147 (1973); Lawrence, supra.