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Page Number: 151.0

4  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

trip not to “New York [or] California” but to Toronto.  Ante, 
at 4 (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring).

Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result
of  today’s  decision  is  certain:  the  curtailment  of  women’s
rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens.  Yes-
terday,  the  Constitution  guaranteed  that  a  woman  con-
fronted with an unplanned pregnancy could (within reason-
able limits) make her own decision about whether to bear a
child, with all the life-transforming consequences that act 
involves.  And in thus safeguarding each woman’s reproduc-
tive freedom, the Constitution also protected “[t]he ability
of women to participate equally in [this Nation’s] economic 
and social life.”  Casey, 505 U. S., at 856.  But no longer.  As 
of today, this Court holds, a State can always force a woman 
to  give  birth,  prohibiting  even  the  earliest  abortions.    A 
State can thus transform what, when freely undertaken, is 
a  wonder  into  what,  when  forced,  may  be  a  nightmare. 
Some  women,  especially  women  of  means,  will  find  ways 
around the State’s assertion of power.  Others—those with-
out money or childcare or the ability to take time off from
work—will not be so fortunate.  Maybe they will try an un-
safe method of abortion, and come to physical harm, or even 
die.  Maybe they will undergo pregnancy and have a child,
but  at  significant  personal  or  familial  cost.    At  the  least, 
they will incur the cost of losing control of their lives.  The 
Constitution will, today’s majority holds, provide no shield, 
despite its guarantees of liberty and equality for all.

And no one should be confident that this majority is done
with its work.  The right Roe and Casey recognized does not 
stand  alone.  To  the  contrary,  the  Court  has  linked  it  for
decades to other settled freedoms involving bodily integrity,
familial relationships, and procreation.  Most obviously, the
right  to  terminate  a  pregnancy  arose  straight  out  of  the
right to purchase and use contraception.  See Griswold v. 
Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 
U. S. 438 (1972).  In turn, those rights led, more recently,