The Court held that the right to abortion is incorporated to the states via which mechanism?

• A. First Amendment
• B. Fourth Amendment
• C. Ninth Amendment
• D. Fourteenth Amendment due process clause

Answer: (D)

The key idea here is how rights are applied to state governments through incorporation. The Court treated the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause as binding the states to respect certain fundamental liberties, including bodily autonomy in abortion. Because of this, abortion rights were understood as a liberty protected by due process, so state laws banning or heavily restricting abortion before viability could be challenged as unconstitutional. That’s why this mechanism—incorporation via the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause—explains the correct answer. (Note: later developments, such as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, changed the federal status of abortion rights by overruling Roe, returning the regulation of abortion to the states.)