Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21a85_5h25.pdf
Page Number: 6.0

6 

UNITED STATES v. TEXAS 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 
Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

care.  Id., at *41.  To be sure, the court agreed, “[p]regnant 
people from Texas are scared and are frantically trying to 
get appointments” in other States.  Id., at *43 (internal quo-
tation  marks  omitted).    The  court  found,  however,  that 
many patients are unable to seek out-of-state care based on 
financial  constraints,  dangerous  family  situations,  immi-
gration status, or other reasons.  Id., at *42.  These individ-
uals  “are  being  forced  to  carry  their  pregnancy  to  term 
against their will or to seek ways to end their pregnancies 
on their own.”  Id., at *41 (internal quotation marks omit-
ted). 
  The court also found that patients who are able to leave 
Texas  have  encountered  restrictions  and  backlogs  exacer-
bated by S. B. 8, citing evidence of the Act’s “stunning” and 
“crushing”  impacts  on  clinics  in  Oklahoma,  Kansas,  Colo-
rado, New Mexico, and Nevada.  Id., at *43–*45.  An Okla-
homa  provider,  for  example,  reported  a  “staggering  646% 
increase of Texan patients per day,” occupying between 50% 
and 75% of capacity.  Id., at *43 (internal quotation marks 
omitted).  A Kansas clinic similarly reported that about half 
of its patients now come from Texas.  Id., at *44.  The Dis-
trict  Court  found  that  this  “constant  stream  of  Texas  pa-
tients has created backlogs that in some places prevent res-
idents  from  accessing  abortion  services  in  their  own 
communities.”  Id., at *45. 
  I cannot capture the totality of this harm in these pages.  
But as these excerpts illustrate, the State (empowered by 
this Court’s inaction) has so thoroughly chilled the exercise 
of the right recognized in Roe as to nearly suspend it within 
its  borders  and  strain  access  to  it  in  other  States.    The 
State’s gambit has worked.  The impact is catastrophic. 
  These  ruinous  effects  were  foreseeable  and  intentional.  
Were there any doubt, proponents of S. B. 8 have boasted 
in this very litigation that “Texas has boxed out the judici-
ary”  and  crowed  that  “[a]bortion  . . .  is  a  court-invented