Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 148

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

1 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 
BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 19–1392 
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THOMAS E. DOBBS, STATE HEALTH OFFICER OF 
THE MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, 
ET AL., PETITIONERS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S 
HEALTH ORGANIZATION, ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT 

[June 24, 2022] 

JUSTICE  BREYER,  JUSTICE  SOTOMAYOR,  and  JUSTICE 

KAGAN, dissenting. 

For half a century, Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), and 
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 
833  (1992),  have  protected  the  liberty  and  equality  of 
women.  Roe held, and Casey reaffirmed, that the Constitu-
tion  safeguards  a  woman’s  right  to  decide  for  herself 
whether  to  bear  a  child.  Roe  held,  and  Casey  reaffirmed, 
that in the first stages of pregnancy, the government could 
not make that choice for women.  The government could not 
control a woman’s body or the course of a woman’s life: It 
could not determine what the woman’s future would be.  See 
Casey, 505 U. S., at 853; Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U. S. 124, 
171–172  (2007)  (Ginsburg,  J.,  dissenting).    Respecting  a 
woman  as  an  autonomous  being,  and  granting  her  full 
equality, meant giving her substantial choice over this most
personal and most consequential of all life decisions. 

Roe and Casey well understood the difficulty and divisive-
ness of the abortion issue.  The Court knew that Americans 
hold  profoundly  different  views  about  the  “moral[ity]”  of 
“terminating a pregnancy, even in its earliest stage.”  Ca-
sey, 505 U. S., at 850.  And the Court recognized that “the