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38  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

decades: Conflict over abortion is not a change but a con-
stant.  (And as we  will later discuss, the presence of that 
continuing division provides more of a reason to stick with,
than  to  jettison, existing  precedent.    See  infra,  at  55–57.)
In the end, the majority throws longstanding precedent to
the  winds  without  showing  that  anything  significant  has
changed to justify its radical reshaping of the law.  See ante, 
at 43. 

1 
Subsequent legal developments have only reinforced Roe 
and Casey.  The Court has continued to embrace all the de-
cisions  Roe  and  Casey  cited,  decisions  which  recognize  a 
constitutional  right  for  an  individual  to  make  her  own
choices about “intimate relationships, the family,” and con-
traception.  Casey, 505 U. S., at 857.  Roe and Casey have 
themselves formed the legal foundation for subsequent de-
cisions  protecting  these  profoundly  personal  choices.    As 
discussed earlier, the Court relied on Casey to hold that the 
Fourteenth  Amendment  protects  same-sex  intimate  rela-
tionships.  See  Lawrence,  539  U. S.,  at  578;  supra,  at  23. 
The Court later invoked the same set of precedents to ac-
cord constitutional recognition to same-sex marriage.  See 
Obergefell, 576 U. S., at 665–666; supra, at 23.  In sum, Roe 
and Casey are inextricably interwoven with decades of prec-
edent  about  the  meaning  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment. 
See supra, at 21–24.  While the majority might wish it oth-
erwise,  Roe  and  Casey  are  the  very  opposite  of  “ ‘obsolete
constitutional thinking.’ ”  Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 
236 (1997) (quoting Casey, 505 U. S., at 857).

Moreover, no subsequent factual developments have un-
dermined  Roe  and  Casey.  Women  continue  to  experience
unplanned  pregnancies  and  unexpected  developments  in
pregnancies.  Pregnancies continue to have enormous phys-
ical, social, and economic consequences.  Even an uncompli-