By placing discretion in the hands of an official to grant or deny a license, such a statute creates a threat of censorship that by its very existence chills free speech.

We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.

If there is any truth to the old proverb that "one who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client," the Court now bestows a constitutional right on one to make a fool of himself.

The states are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life, to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies.

I am more optimistic though, that this court will eventually conclude that the effort to eliminate arbitrariness while preserving fairness in the infliction of [death] is so plainly doomed to failure that is - and the death penalty - must be abandoned altogether. I may not live to see that day, but I have faith that eventually it will arrive.

The mandated description of fetal characteristics at two-week intervals, no matter how objective, is plainly overinclusive. [It is] not medical information that is always relevant to the woman's decision, and it may serve to confuse and punish her and to heighten her anxiety.

We're all eccentrics. We're nine prima donnas.