Referring to the disputed Mississippi law at the heart of the Dobbs case, he added, "I am not sure, for example, that a ban on terminating a pregnancy from the moment of conception must be treated the same under the Constitution as a ban after fifteen weeks."

Roberts, who has forcefully pushed for conservative outcomes on race and religion, had tried to move incrementally here.

He attempted to split the difference, to uphold the disputed Mississippi law that prohibits abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy but to hold off on confronting Roe.

"I would take a more measured course," he wrote and urging -- in vain -- some judicial restraint, said, "If it is not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case, then it is necessary not to decide more."

Yet as much as the reversal of Roe represents a significant defeat for Roberts and is a singular, staggering moment for the country, the chief is down but not out.

Still, Friday's Dobbs decision was monumental and will demarcate the Roberts Court era, even as he was outflanked on abortion-rights precedent by Justice Samuel Alito, who penned the Dobbs decision, and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

In doing so, they wrote, "this Court betrays its guiding principles." They said they felt sorrow for the court itself although more "for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection."

The right wing grew weary of waiting for 'another day'

Roberts' fate on the losing side of Dobbs was foreshadowed last year when he heatedly dissented as the same five conservatives who controlled in the Mississippi dispute allowed Texas to put into effect a six-week ban on abortion, known as S.B.8.

Her appointment transformed what was a 5-4 conservative-liberal court into a 6-3 bench, where Roberts no longer holds the crucial fifth vote for either wing.

Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences."

Kavanaugh, who has sometimes joined Roberts in compromise, stuck with a line of arguments he had tried out at oral arguments, that reversing Roe puts the court in a "position of neutrality" on the abortion dilemma.

Roberts declined to address that assertion in his concurring opinion, but dissenting Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan wrote that eliminating the right to abortion "is not taking a 'neutral' position."

Roe and the 1992 case that broadly reaffirmed it, Planned Parenthood v.