ABSTRACT
A plausible narrower basis of decision, that of vagueness, is brushed aside in the rush toward broader ground. The opinion strikes the reader initially as a sort of guidebook, addressing questions hot before the Court and drawing lines with an apparent precision one generally associates with a commissioner’s regulations. 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 capacity of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb. The Court grants that protecting the fetus is an “important and legitimate” governmental goal, and of course it does not deny that restricting abortion promotes it. Of course the Court has been aware that criticism of much that it has done has been widespread in academic as well as popular circles.
