Litigants distinguish precedents by pointing to facts the earlier rulings never addressed.

Evidence

Those who defended the laws insisted that even if the right to privacy includes the choice whether to procreate, that choice had been made when the woman became pregnant. They further argued that the state’s valid interest in the life of the fetus, and in the safety of medical procedures for abortion, distinguished this situation from those on which the Court had already ruled. They thus concluded that the Court’s rulings in Griswold and Eisenstadt did not require invalidation of the Texas law. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2534

Categorization

• DEFINE: Illustrates the lawyer’s toolkit of precedent application: analogy versus factual distinction.