At the heart of Justice Samuel Alito's opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturns Roe v. Wade (1973) and eliminates the constitutional right to abortion, is Alito's objection that "the Constitution makes no mention of abortion." For Alito and the many legal conservatives who think like him, unenumerated constitutional rights are inherently suspect. When a court recognizes an unenumerated right, these conservatives say, that court is almost certainly guilty of judicial activism.
But this conservative mindset is at odds with constitutional text and history, both of which make clear that unenumerated rights are entitled to the same respect as the small handful of rights that the Constitution specifically lists.
