I see several paragraphs explaining why a right to "privacy" is derived from several US amendments, but I see nothing explaining why such a right would be infringed by outlawing abortion. I especially see no reasoning as to how an inalienable right to something as fundamental as "privacy" somehow stops being infringed by an abortion past a certain term limit in accordance with Casey balancing tests even though it was infringed before that time. I also don't see how the concepts of "privacy" and "personal autonomy" have anything to do with each other.

"Personal autonomy" sounds to me a lot more like something that would actually apply, and also be subject to balancing tests since one could then actually argue about the personhood of the fetus vis-a-vis the mother. But if it were about that, and about extending general rights implied by I/III/IV/V, then why is it that every time I hear the matter discussed even by supporters, it's always XIV, XIV, XIV in the rhetoric? And if XIV really allows the nation to override the states on this for due process reasons, why couldn't they pass a federal abortion law in 49 years?

Finally: what actually is the argument linking due process to privacy, in this particular case, anyway? The best explanation I've gotten is "in order to arrest or prosecute you for abortion, the state would have to find out that you had one, which violates your privacy". But - why wouldn't the same reasoning apply to any crime not committed in the public sphere?

@KarlKnechtel "Right to privacy" in US legal speak means something else than it does in normal English. Roughly speaking, the "right to privacy" in legal speak means that the government cannot interfere in your personal life. It is not (just) about personal data or finding out what you do when you're alone. For example, it covers getting a medical treatment or procedure. Like all rights, it is not absolute, and it can be suspended/overridden by governments when there is a valid reason to do so. SCOTUS decided which reasons are valid in which situations.

@KarlKnechtel Roe v. Wade decided (roughly speaking) that protecting the unborn child is not a valid reason to block a woman's right to get an abortion when the pregnancy is in the first semester, because then the unborn child is not yet viable, but that later in the pregnancy the child may be viable, and therefore protecting the child becomes a valid reason at that stage. Note that in both situations the woman's right to privacy is violated. Dobbs overturns all that, ruling that (if I understood correctly) right to privacy does not apply to abortions to begin with.

That sounds a lot more like "liberty" than "privacy".

@MarcPaul: This is an unnatural use of "viable" that's made the debates through the years hard to understand. My biology textbooks in college classified a zygote as viable unless it had certain genetic deformities that would prevent a baby from ever being born.

Ugh "have a different vision of how the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted that is less protective of individual rights like the rights to privacy and autonomy" Really? I find none of this except in fringe groups.

You can hardly call it "a well settled precedent" when it's been the constant source of intense controversy and disagreement, even among people who agree with the basic idea it embodies, for half a century. That's literally the precise opposite of "well-settled."

@KarlKnechtel " why wouldn't the same reasoning apply to any crime not committed in the public sphere?" Because not everything people do in private is a purely private matter. If first trimester fetuses aren't people then getting an abortion is a private matter in the sense that it doesn't involve anyone but the woman. If I'm building a bomb in my basement then that obviously has implications for other people

@MasonWheeler "Well-settled" means widely accepted as legally binding. The establishment clause of the 1st Amendment, for example, has been controversial since its enactment, but no one should seriously claim that a state could declare that the Southern Baptist faith was the official religion of the state at any time in the 20th or 21st centuries.

@KarlKnechtel You could compare with the case laws concerning the right to privacy under the Quebec Charter, which if literally translated from French, means the right to private life.

@KarlKnechtel you now understand why it was indeed a "bad law"...

@Joshua this sense of "viable" is shorthand for "viable outside the womb," which a zygote certainly is not.

@KarlKnechtel To see why laws outlawing abortion were seen to violate a right to privacy, you have to look at much earlier cases. For example, Pacific Railroad v. Botsford, a Supreme Court case from 1891 which held that American law has always rejected the notion that the government has authority over a woman's body and that "no order of process, commanding such an exposure or submission, was ever known to the common law[.]" Even in 1891, it was understood that due process deprived the government of the authority to control a woman's physical body.

@KarlKnechtel All rights are held in balance as a matter of course. There is no truly absolute right that trumps and takes priorities over any and all others. The government has certain rights, the woman has certain rights. Roe was about deciding the balance between those: the right of a woman to make her medical decisions and control her body without the government's interference, and the right/interest of the state to protect children and adequately ensure reproduction. The decision was that before a point, the woman's rights won; after it, the state won. That's standard judicial fare.

In neither case does the other entity's right cease to exist. It is just held that in the competition between them, one takes priority over the other depending on circumstances. After viability the woman still has a right to privacy and to make her own medical decisions, but it was held that the state's right/interest in protecting the putative child was of higher priority. And before viability the state still had the right/interest in such protection, but the woman's right has higher priority.

This answer is well reasoned and supported but I don't believe it does a good job of answering the OP's question. This answer reads as a defense of Roe with a few handouts on the opinions of conservatives on why they didn't like Roe rather than an answer on why Roe is "bad law" or wasn't well reasoned. It's obvious to me that this answer does not agree that Roe was "bad law" which should be irrelevant to the answer. I would like to see more sources sited for "bad law" arguments (bad precedent/poorly argued) as well as less argument that is opinion based (abortion is bad/good).

Great answer overall, in covering both sides. You really lost me on this statement though "generally have a different vision of how the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted that is less protective of individual rights" - in general (and disclaimer: historically)conservatives uphold greater personal rights for privacy, limited search, etc. And especially fight for stronger individual rights in the case of the 2nd amendment. I think this is a one-off exception (and as you describe, not against the personal right, but seen more as equating to murder, precluding the right), not general.

One more point that is probably worth adding; overturning Roe didn't set any national precedent to outlaw abortion. All it did was return that authority to the states to make their own choices at a more local level.

@phoog: The main problem is others want to use it in the sense of a molar pregnancy is not viable. And that's what makes the debate so hard to follow.

@TCooper Conservatives are overwhelmingly and vocally against reproductive and sexual rights and freedoms, which Roe is very much a part of; and there's an increasingly large and vocal number of them clearly against gender and racial equality and rights. Conservatives invented modern "cancel culture" with any number of religiously motivated boycotts and invectives (D&D is devil worship! etc.) decades ago. It is beyond ludicrous to think that one party can claim principle ownership of advocating for rights; especially so with the present day conservatives.

@TCooper Further, Dobbs did far more than "return" the power to the states. It gaslighted Congress by saying "well you should have passed a law to protect this thing that until today this court had said was already protected by the Constitution, which made any law protecting it wildly unnecessary and gratuitous, except as a recognition that everybody knew we had no intention of upholding 50+ years of precedent from the start, regardless of what we swore to get here". And Republicans are already flirting with a nationwide abortion ban, which would REMOVE this power from the states wholesale.

@Spartacus Counterpoint: OP has accepted this answer, suggesting that it in fact answers their question very well indeed.

@zibadawatimmy You're parroting liberal media, I'd recommend actually meeting and conversing with conservatives in your day to day life. No one is seriously considering a nationwide ban on abortion, and only few extremist are against racial or gender rights. By that logic the entire democratic party is anti-religion and wants to eradicate it from the US. Real people, and vast majorities in both parties aren't as polarized as the loud minorities that media (on both sides) use to push agendas. Most Americans agree on most things.