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, that definition of liberty is still questioned. . . .

[T]he 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 Court is not asked to [overrule prior decisions] very often. . . . But when the Court does [so], 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. . . .

Discussion Questions

a. What is the significance of the first sentence in this excerpt?

b. In your opinion, is this defense of the principle of stare decisis persuasive?

c. If you were attempting to get this case overruled, what arguments might you make to counter this position?