Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 187

40  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

quartile of wage earners.15 

The majority briefly notes the growing prevalence of safe
haven laws and demand for adoption, see ante, at 34, and 
nn. 45–46, but, to the degree that these are changes at all, 
they too are irrelevant.16  Neither reduces the health risks 
or  financial  costs  of  going  through  pregnancy  and  child-
birth.  Moreover, the choice to give up parental rights after 
giving  birth  is  altogether  different  from  the  choice  not  to 
carry a pregnancy to term.  The reality is that few women 
denied an abortion will choose adoption.17  The vast major-
ity will continue, just as in Roe and Casey’s time, to shoul-
der the costs of childrearing.  Whether or not they choose to
parent, they will experience the profound loss of autonomy 
and  dignity  that  coerced  pregnancy  and  birth  always  im-
pose.18 

—————— 

15 Dept. of Labor, National Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits 
in the United States, Table 31 (Sept. 2020), https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/
benefits/2020/employee-benefits-in-the-united-states-march-2020.pdf#
page=299. 

16 Safe haven laws, which allow parents to leave newborn babies in des-
ignated safe spaces without threat of prosecution, were not enacted as 
an  alternative  to  abortion,  but  in  response  to  rare  situations  in  which 
birthing mothers in crisis would kill their newborns or leave them to die.
See  Centers  for  Disease  Control  and  Prevention  (CDC),  R.  Wilson,  J. 
Klevens, D. Williams, & L. Xu, Infant Homicides Within the Context of 
Safe Haven Laws—United States, 2008–2017, 69 Morbidity and Mortal-
ity Weekly Report 1385 (2020). 

17 A study of women who sought an abortion but were denied one be-
cause of gestational limits found that only 9 percent put the child up for
adoption, rather than parenting themselves.  See G. Sisson, L. Ralph, H. 
Gould, & D. Foster, Adoption Decision Making Among Women Seeking 
Abortion, 27 Women’s Health Issues 136, 139 (2017). 

18 The  majority  finally  notes  the  claim  that  “people  now  have  a  new 
appreciation  of  fetal  life,”  partly  because  of  viewing  sonogram  images. 
Ante, at 34.  It is hard to know how anyone would evaluate such a claim
and as we have described above, the majority’s reasoning does not rely
on any reevaluation of the interest in protecting fetal life.  See supra, at 
26, and n. 7.  It is worth noting that sonograms became widely used in