Judicial branch · Landmark case
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey
505 U.S. 833 (1992) · Plurality Opinion
What you should know
This page explains the Court’s holding in plain language, where the official text lives, and what to check next.
Supreme Court findings are not news summaries. The controlling document is the Court’s opinion, plus any concurrences or dissents. Use this profile to understand the holding, then verify language, syllabus, and docket history on official sources before relying on a secondary account. This ruling was itself overruled thirty years later — see the note below.
A three-justice joint opinion — O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter — reaffirmed what they called the “essential holding” of Roe v. Wade: a state cannot prohibit abortion before fetal viability. But the same opinion replaced Roe’s strict-scrutiny, trimester-based framework with a new “undue burden” standard, which upheld most of Pennsylvania’s abortion restrictions (informed consent, a 24-hour waiting period, parental consent for minors) while striking down a requirement that a married woman notify her husband before obtaining an abortion.
Background
Pennsylvania passed a law requiring abortion providers to give patients specific information and observe a 24-hour waiting period, requiring minors to get parental consent, and requiring married women to certify they had notified their husbands, with limited exceptions. Planned Parenthood challenged the law as unconstitutional under Roe. The case gave the Court, now with a different composition than in 1973, its clearest opportunity to overturn Roe outright.
Five justices agreed against overturning Roe’s core holding, but no single opinion commanded a majority on every question. The joint opinion by O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter became controlling, replacing strict scrutiny with the more permissive “undue burden” test: a law is invalid only if its purpose or effect is to place a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking a pre-viability abortion.
The controlling abortion-rights standard for 30 years — until it wasn’t.
Casey’s undue-burden standard governed how courts evaluated abortion restrictions from 1992 until 2022, when Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overruled both Casey and Roe entirely, holding the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion and returning the question to individual states.
Vote and authorship
| Joint opinion (controlling) | O’Connor, Kennedy, Souter |
|---|---|
| Concurrence in part / dissent in part | Stevens, J.; Blackmun, J. |
| Concurrence in part / dissent in part | Rehnquist, C.J., joined by White, Scalia, Thomas; Scalia, J., separately |
| Overruled by | Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) |
A State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.
Joint opinion of O’Connor, Kennedy & Souter · Planned Parenthood v. Casey
How it fits in government
Judicial branch
A rare instance of a controlling opinion built entirely from a joint writing by three justices rather than a traditional majority opinion — and a real example of stare decisis reasoning being applied to preserve a precedent’s core while changing its legal test.
Fourteenth Amendment
The Due Process Clause is the constitutional basis both this ruling and Roe rested on — the same clause Dobbs later read differently.
State & local government
States regulate abortion procedure and access — this ruling defined, for three decades, exactly how far those regulations could go before crossing into unconstitutional territory.
Official records visitors may need
SupremeCourt.gov
Opinions, docket search, rules, and Court information.
Oyez
Case abstract, oral argument audio, and justice votes.
Opinion text (Justia)
Readable public text of the case.
GovInfo · U.S. Courts
Official publications and related federal court materials.
Related research paths
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
The 2022 case that overruled both Casey and Roe entirely.
Roe v. Wade
The 1973 ruling this case reaffirmed in part and modified.
Stare decisis
The legal principle of respecting prior rulings, central to this opinion’s reasoning.
Landmark cases guide
Other holdings that define individual rights and due process.