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Page Number: 205.0

58  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

eight weeks of pregnancy, and three States enacted all-out 
bans.29    Mississippi  itself  decided  in  2019  that  it  had  not 
gone far enough: The year after enacting the law under re-
view, the State passed a 6-week restriction.  A state senator 
who championed both Mississippi laws said the obvious out 
loud.  “[A] lot of people thought,” he explained, that “finally, 
we have” a conservative Court “and so now would be a good 
time to start testing the limits of Roe.”30  In its petition for
certiorari, the State had exercised a smidgen of restraint. 
It had urged the Court merely to roll back Roe and Casey, 
specifically  assuring  the  Court  that  “the  questions  pre-
sented in this petition do not require the Court to overturn”
those  precedents.  Pet.  for  Cert.  5;  see  ante,  at  5–6 
(ROBERTS,  C. J.,  concurring  in  judgment).    But  as  Missis-
sippi grew ever more confident in its prospects, it resolved 
to go all in.  It urged the Court to overrule Roe and Casey. 
Nothing but everything would be enough. 

Earlier this Term, this Court signaled that Mississippi’s 
stratagem  would  succeed.    Texas  was  one  of  the  fistful  of 
States to have recently banned abortions after six weeks of 
pregnancy.    It  added  to  that  “flagrantly  unconstitutional” 
restriction  an  unprecedented  scheme  to  “evade  judicial 

—————— 

29 Guttmacher Institute, E. Nash, State Policy Trends 2021: The Worst 
Year  for  Abortion  Rights  in  Almost  Half  a  Century  (Dec.  16,  2021), 
https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2021/12/state-policy-trends-2021-worst-
year-abortion-rights-almost-half-century;  Guttmacher  Institute,  E. 
Nash, L. Mohammed, O. Cappello, & S. Naide, State Policy Trends 2020: 
Reproductive Health and Rights in a Year Like No Other (Dec. 15, 2020), 
https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2020/12/state-policy-trends-2020-
reproductive-health-and-rights-year-no-other;  Guttmacher  Institute,  E. 
Nash, L. Mohammed, O. Cappello, & S. Naide, State Policy Trends 2019: 
A Wave of Abortion Bans, But Some States Are Fighting Back (Dec. 10,
2019),  https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2019/12/state-policy-trends-
2019-wave-abortion-bans-some-states-are-fighting-back. 

30 A. Pittman, Mississippi’s Six-Week Abortion Ban at 5th Circuit Ap-
peals  Court  Today,  Jackson  Free  Press  (Oct.  7,  2019),  https://www. 
jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/oct/07/mississippis-six-week-abortion-ban-
5th-circuit-app/.