Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-463_3ebh.pdf
Page Number: 25.0

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WHOLE WOMAN’S HEALTH v. JACKSON 

THOMAS, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part 
Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

  To begin, there is no freestanding constitutional right to 
pre-enforcement review in federal court.  See Thunder Ba-
sin Coal Co. v. Reich, 510 U. S. 200, 220 (1994) (Scalia, J., 
concurring  in  part  and  concurring  in  judgment).    Such  a 
right would stand in significant tension with the longstand-
ing  Article  III  principle  that  federal  courts  generally may 
not “give advisory rulings on the potential success of an af-
firmative  defense  before  a  cause  of  action  has  even  ac-
crued.”  MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., 549 U. S. 118, 
142  (2007)  (THOMAS,  J.,  dissenting);  see  also  Coffman  v. 
Breeze Corps., 323 U. S. 316, 324 (1945) (a party may not 
“secur[e] an advisory opinion in a controversy which has not 
arisen”). 
  That said, a party subject to imminent threat of state en-
forcement proceedings may seek a kind of pre-enforcement 
review in the form of a “negative injunction.”  This proce-
dural device permits a party to assert “in equity . . . a de-
fense  that  would  otherwise  have  been  available  in  the 
State’s enforcement proceedings at law.”  Virginia Office for 
Protection  and  Advocacy  v.  Stewart,  563  U. S.  247,  262 
(2011)  (Kennedy,  J.,  concurring);  accord, Douglas  v.  Inde-
pendent Living Center of Southern Cal., Inc., 565 U. S. 606, 
620 (2012) (ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting).  In Ex parte Young, 
this  Court  recognized  that  use  of  this  negative  injunction 
against a governmental defendant provides a narrow excep-
tion  to  sovereign  immunity.    See  209  U. S.,  at  159–160.  
That exception extends no further than permitting private 
parties  in  some  circumstances  to  prevent  state  officials 
from bringing an action to enforce a state law that is con-
trary to federal law. 
  The  negative  injunction  remedy  against  state  officials 
countenanced in Ex parte Young is a “standard tool of eq-
uity,”  J.  Harrison,  Ex Parte  Young,  60  Stan.  L. Rev.  989, 
990 (2008), that federal courts have authority to entertain 
under their traditional equitable jurisdiction, see Judiciary