Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1323_c07d.pdf
Page Number: 20.0

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

15 

Opinion of BREYER, J. 

go through the process of applying for and maintaining ad-
mitting privileges, they are far better positioned than their 
patients to address the burdens of compliance.  See Single-
ton,  428  U. S.,  at  117  (plurality  opinion)  (observing  that
“the physician is uniquely qualified to litigate the constitu-
tionality of the State’s interference with, or discrimination 
against,”  a  woman’s  decision  to  have  an  abortion).    They
are, in other words, “the least awkward” and most “obvious” 
claimants here.  Craig, 429 U. S., at 197. 

Our dissenting colleagues suggest that this case is differ-
ent because the plaintiffs have challenged a law ostensibly 
enacted to protect the women whose rights they are assert-
ing.  See  post,  at  25–26  (opinion  of  ALITO,  J.);  post,  at  7 
(opinion of GORSUCH, J.).  But that is a common feature of 
cases in which we have found third-party standing.  The re-
striction on sales of 3.2% beer to young men challenged by
a drive-through convenience store in Craig was defended on 
“public health and safety grounds,” including the premise 
that  young  men  were  particularly  susceptible  to  driving 
while intoxicated.  429 U. S., at 199–200; see Hager, Gender 
Discrimination  and  the  Courts:  New  Ground  to  Cover, 
Washington Post, Sept. 26, 1976, p. 139.  And the rule re-
quiring approval from the Department of Labor for attorney
fee  arrangements  challenged  by  a  lawyer  in  Triplett  was 
“designed to protect [their clients] from their improvident 
contracts, in the interest not only of themselves and their
families but of the public.” 494 U. S., at 722 (internal quo-
tation marks omitted).

Nor  is  this  the  first  abortion  case  to  address  provider
standing  to  challenge  regulations  said  to  protect  women. 
Both the hospitalization requirement in Akron, 462 U. S., 
at 435, and the hospital-accreditation requirement in Doe, 
410 U. S., at 195, were defended as health and safety regu-
lations.  And the ban on saline amniocentesis in Danforth 
was based on the legislative finding “that the technique is 
deleterious to maternal health.”  428 U. S., at 76 (internal