As always, you can find the Dobbs v. Jackson decision here.

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The next sentence is a single simple claim that makes an important distinction:

“In interpreting what is meant by the Fourteenth Amendment’s reference to ‘liberty,’ we must guard against the natural human tendency to confuse what that Amendment protects with our own ardent views about the liberty that Americans should enjoy.”

Nothing controversial here. Justices need to make sure they’re not just exercising their will without regard to what the Fourteenth Amendment requires. Now we just have to figure out what the Fourteenth Amendment requires in a way that doesn’t presuppose our preferences.

Really, this sentence expresses why I’m writing these blog posts and why I’m starting with the Dobbs decision. No small number of people in America are upset because, as they see it, the Dobbs majority picked and chose among principles to fashion the Dobbs decision in a way that aligned with their “own ardent views about the liberty that Americans should enjoy” and not with what the law and/or justice demand. And defenders of Dobbs are convinced that Roe and Casey were unjust and unfaithful to what the law demands.

I might not settle anything by doing this project, but I will sharpen the elements of debate so I’m not wasting time and energy arguing to re-establish points long settled, or taking as given points that were never established in the first place.

This sentence is true:

• “In interpreting what is meant by the Fourteenth Amendment’s reference to ‘liberty,’ we must guard against the natural human tendency to confuse what that Amendment protects with our own ardent views about the liberty that Americans should enjoy.”