"In 1973, this Court struck down an Act of the Texas Legislature that had been in effect since 1857, thereby rendering unconstitutional abortion statutes in dozens of States. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 119. As some of my colleagues on the Court, past and present, ably demonstrated, that decision was grievously wrong. See, e.g., Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 221—223 (1973) (White, J., dissenting); Roe v. Wade, supra, at 171—178 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). Abortion is a unique act, in which a woman’s exercise of control over her own body ends, depending on one’s view, human life or potential human life. Nothing in our Federal Constitution deprives the people of this country of the right to determine whether the consequences of abortion to the fetus and to society outweigh the burden of an unwanted pregnancy on the mother. Although a State may permit abortion, nothing in the Constitution dictates that a State must do so. In the years following Roe, this Court applied, and, worse, extended, that decision to strike down numerous state statutes that purportedly threatened a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion. The Court voided parental consent laws, see Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 75 (1976), legislation requiring that second-trimester abortions take place in hospitals, see Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U.S. 416, 431 (1983), and even a requirement that both parents of a minor be notified before their child has an abortion, see Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U.S. 417, 455 (1990). It was only a slight exaggeration when this Court described, in 1976, a right to abortion “without interference from the State.” Danforth, supra, at 61. The Court’s expansive application of Roe in this period, even more than Roe itself, was fairly described as the “unrestrained imposition of [the Court’s] own, extraconstitutional value preferences” on the American people. Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U.S. 747, 794 (1986) (White, J., dissenting). It appeared that this era of Court-mandated abortion on demand had come to an end, first with our decision in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989), see id., at 557 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (lamenting that the plurality had “discard[ed]” Roe), and then finally (or so we were told) in our decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992). Although in Casey the separate opinions of The Chief Justice and Justice Scalia urging the Court to overrule Roe did not command a majority, seven Members of that Court, including six Members sitting today, acknowledged that States have a legitimate role in regulating abortion and recognized the States’ interest in respecting fetal life at all stages of development. See 505 U.S., at 877 (joint opinion of O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ.); id., at 944 (Rehnquist, C. J., joined by White, Scalia, Thomas, JJ., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part); id., at 979 (Scalia, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J., and White and Thomas, JJ., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). The joint opinion authored by Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter concluded that prior case law “went too far” in “undervalu[ing] the State’s interest in potential life” and in “striking down … some abortion regulations which in no real sense deprived women of the ultimate decision.” Id., at 875.1 Roe and subsequent cases, according to the joint opinion, had wrongly “treat[ed] all governmental attempts to influence a woman’s decision on behalf of the potential life within her as unwarranted,” a treatment that was “incompatible with the recognition that there is a substantial state interest in potential life throughout pregnancy.” Id., at 876. Accordingly, the joint opinion held that so long as state regulation of abortion furthers legitimate interests–that is, interests not designed to strike at the right itself–the regulation is invalid only if it imposes an undue burden on a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion, meaning that it places a substantial obstacle in the woman’s path. Id., at 874, 877."