The tone of the majority’s criticism is as harsh as its substance. It describes Roe, which the dissent supports, as “egregiously wrong” and “deeply damaging,” with “constitutional analysis … far outside the bounds of any reasonable interpretation of the various constitutional provisions to which it vaguely pointed.” Indeed, the majority opinion uses the phrase “egregiously wrong” seven times. The majority, responding to the dissent’s charge that the majority has abandoned stare decisis, irritably retorts that “we have done no such thing, and it is the dissent’s understanding … that breaks with tradition.” It also rails against Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s concurrence, claiming that its “most fundamental defect is its failure to offer any principled basis for its approach.”

This harsh language provoked Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh to write a separate concurrence specifically distancing himself from it. While agreeing with both the outcome and the court’s overruling of its previous rulings in Roe and Casey, he described the interests on both sides of the abortion debate as “extraordinarily weighty.” Kavanaugh also asserted: “I have deep and unyielding respect for the Justices who wrote the Casey plurality opinion. And I respect the Casey plurality’s good-faith effort to locate some middle ground or compromise.” Kavanaugh closes by praising “All of the Justices, past and present, who … grappled with the divisive issue of abortion” and underlining his belief in their “good faith,” “careful deliberation” and “sincere understandings of the Constitution and precedent.”