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WHOLE WOMAN’S HEALTH v. JACKSON 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

“[d]ue to Texas’ SB 8 law,” it is “unable to provide abortion 
procedures at this time.”  Planned Parenthood South Texas, 
https: //www.plannedparenthood.org / planned- parenthood-
south-texas.  And  the  applicants,  with  supporting  affida-
vits,  claim  that  clinics  will  be  unable  to  run  the  financial 
and other risks that come from waiting for a private person
to  sue  them  under  the  Texas  law;  they  will  simply  close, 
depriving care to more than half the women seeking abor-
tions  in  Texas  clinics.  See,  e.g.,  App.  to  Application  105,
148–150, 178–179.  We have permitted those whom a law
threatens  with  constitutional  harm  to  bring  pre-enforce-
ment challenges to the law where the harm is less serious
and the threat of enforcement less certain than the harm 
(and the threat) here.  See Virginia v. American Booksellers 
Assn., Inc., 484 U. S. 383, 392–393 (1988); Babbitt v. Farm 
Workers, 442 U. S. 289, 298 (1979); see also Susan B. An-
thony  List  v.  Driehaus,  573  U. S.  149,  164  (2014)  (finding 
substantial threat of future enforcement where statute per-
mits “ ‘any person’ ” to file a complaint and “the universe of 
potential complainants is not restricted”).

I recognize that Texas’s law delegates the State’s power
to  prevent  abortions  not  to  one  person  (such  as  a  district
attorney) or to a few persons (such as a group of government 
officials or private citizens) but to any person.  But I do not 
see  why  that  fact  should  make  a  critical  legal  difference.
That  delegation  still  threatens  to  invade  a  constitutional 
right,  and  the  coming  into  effect  of  that  delegation  still 
threatens imminent harm.  Normally, where a legal right is 
“ ‘invaded,’ ” the law provides “ ‘a legal remedy by suit or ac-
tion at law.’ ” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 163 (1803) 
(quoting  3  W.  Blackstone  Commentaries  *23).    It  should 
prove  possible  to  apply  procedures  adequate  to  that  task
here,  perhaps  by  permitting  lawsuits  against  a  subset  of 
delegatees (say, those particularly likely to exercise the del-
egated powers), or perhaps by permitting lawsuits against