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Page Number: 169.0

22  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

medical risk.  Just as one example, an American woman is
14 times more likely to die by carrying a pregnancy to term 
than by having an abortion.  See Whole Woman’s Health v. 
Hellerstedt, 579 U. S. 582, 618 (2016).  That women happily
undergo  those  burdens  and  hazards  of  their  own  accord 
does not lessen how far a State impinges on a woman’s body
when it compels her to bring a pregnancy to term.  And for 
some  women,  as  Roe  recognized,  abortions  are  medically
necessary to prevent harm.  See 410 U. S., at 153.  The ma-
jority  does  not  say—which  is  itself  ominous—whether  a 
State  may  prevent  a  woman  from  obtaining  an  abortion 
when  she  and  her  doctor  have  determined  it  is  a  needed 
medical treatment. 
  So too, Roe and Casey fit neatly into a long line of deci-
sions protecting from government intrusion a wealth of pri-
vate choices about family matters, child rearing, intimate
relationships, and procreation.  See Casey, 505 U. S., at 851, 
857; Roe, 410 U. S., at 152–153; see also ante, at 31–32 (list-
ing the myriad decisions of this kind that Casey relied on).
Those  cases  safeguard  particular  choices  about  whom  to 
marry; whom to have sex with; what family members to live
with;  how  to  raise  children—and  crucially,  whether  and 
when to have children.  In varied cases, the Court explained
that those choices—“the most intimate and personal” a per-
son  can  make—reflect  fundamental  aspects  of  personal 
identity;  they  define  the  very  “attributes  of  personhood.” 
Casey, 505 U. S., at 851.  And they inevitably shape the na-
ture and future course of a person’s life (and often the lives 
of  those  closest  to  her).  So,  the  Court  held,  those  choices 
belong to the individual, and not the government.  That is 
the essence of what liberty requires.

And  liberty  may  require  it,  this  Court  has  repeatedly
said, even when those living in 1868 would not have recog-
nized the claim—because they would not have seen the per-
son making it as a full-fledged member of the community.
Throughout our history, the sphere of protected liberty has