Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Samuel Alito did not participate. Abortion In Gonzales v. Carhart (2007), Roberts voted with the majority to uphold the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for a five-justice majority, distinguished Stenberg v. Carhart, and concluded that the Court's previous decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey did not prevent Congress from banning the procedure. The decision left the door open for future as-applied challenges, and did not address the broader question of whether Congress had the authority to pass the law. Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion, contending that the Court's prior decisions in Roe v. Wade and Casey should be reversed; Roberts declined to join that opinion. In 2018, Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh joined four more liberal justices in declining to hear a case brought by the states of Louisiana and Kansas to deny Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, thereby letting stand lower court rulings in favor of Planned Parenthood. Roberts also joined with liberal justices in 5–4 decisions temporarily blocking a Louisiana abortion restriction (2019) and later striking down that law (June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo (2020)). The law at issue in June was similar to one the court struck down in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt (2016), which Roberts had voted to uphold; in his June opinion, Roberts wrote that while he believed Whole Woman's Health was wrongly decided he was joining the majority in June out of respect for stare decisis. It was the first time in his 15 years on the Supreme Court that Roberts had cast a vote to invalidate a law that regulated abortion. In September 2021, the Supreme Court declined an emergency petition to temporarily block enforcement of the Texas Heartbeat Act, which bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy except to save the mother's life. In a 5–4 vote, Roberts joined Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan in the minority. In 2022, Roberts declined to join the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade. Roberts wrote a concurring opinion supporting only the decision to uphold the Mississippi abortion statute, stating that the right to an abortion should "extend far enough to ensure a reasonable opportunity to choose, but need not extend any further". Roberts also declined to join the dissenting opinion of Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Capital punishment On November 4, 2016, Roberts was the deciding