Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 172

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

25 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

the majority tells everyone not to worry.  It can (so it says) 
neatly  extract  the  right  to  choose  from  the  constitutional
edifice  without  affecting  any  associated  rights.  (Think  of
someone  telling  you  that  the  Jenga  tower  simply  will  not 
collapse.)  Today’s  decision,  the  majority  first  says,  “does 
not undermine” the decisions cited by Roe and Casey—the 
ones involving “marriage, procreation, contraception, [and]
family relationships”—“in any way.”  Ante, at 32; Casey, 505 
U. S., at 851.  Note that this first assurance does not extend 
to rights recognized after Roe and Casey, and partly based
on  them—in  particular,  rights  to  same-sex  intimacy  and
marriage.  See supra, at 23.6  On its later tries, though, the 
majority includes those too: “Nothing in this opinion should 
be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not con-
cern abortion.”  Ante, at 66; see ante, at 71–72.  That right
is unique, the majority asserts, “because [abortion] termi-
nates life or potential life.”  Ante, at 66 (internal quotation 
marks omitted); see ante, at 32, 71–72.  So the majority de-
picts today’s decision as “a restricted railroad ticket, good
for this day and train only.”  Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 
649, 669 (1944) (Roberts, J., dissenting).  Should the audi-
ence for these too-much-repeated protestations be duly sat-
isfied?  We think not. 

The first problem with the majority’s account comes from 
JUSTICE  THOMAS’s  concurrence—which  makes  clear  he  is 
not  with  the  program.  In  saying  that  nothing  in  today’s 
opinion  casts  doubt  on  non-abortion  precedents,  JUSTICE 
THOMAS explains, he means only that they are not at issue 
—————— 

6 And note, too, that the author of the majority opinion recently joined
a statement, written by another member of the majority, lamenting that 
Obergefell  deprived  States  of  the  ability  “to  resolve  th[e]  question  [of
same-sex marriage] through legislation.”  Davis v. Ermold, 592 U. S. ___, 
___ (2020) (statement of THOMAS, J.) (slip op., at 1).  That might sound 
familiar.  Cf. ante, at 44 (lamenting that Roe “short-circuited the demo-
cratic process”).  And those two Justices hardly seemed content to let the
matter rest: The Court, they said, had “created a problem that only it can
fix.”  Davis, 592 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4).