Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-463_3ebh.pdf
Page Number: 43.0

8 

WHOLE WOMAN’S HEALTH v. JACKSON 

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

to chill the exercise of constitutional rights.  Because S. B. 
8’s architects designed this scheme to evade Young as his-
torically  applied, it  is  especially  perverse for the  Court  to 
shield it from scrutiny based on its novelty.3 
  Next, the Court claims that Young cannot apply because 
state-court clerks are not adverse to the petitioners.  Ante, 
at 5–6.  As THE CHIEF JUSTICE explains, however, ante, at 
3 (opinion concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in 
part), the Texas Legislature has ensured that docketing S. 
B. 8 cases is anything but a neutral action.  With S. B. 8’s 
extreme alterations to court procedure and substantive de-
fenses, the Texas court system no longer resembles a neu-
tral forum for the adjudication of rights; S. B. 8 refashions 
that system into a weapon and points it directly at the pe-
titioners.  Under these circumstances, the parties are suffi-
ciently adverse. 
  Finally, the Court raises “the question of remedy.”  Ante, 
at 6.  For the Court, that question cascades into many oth-
ers  about  the  precise  contours  of  an  injunction  against 
Texas court clerks in light of state procedural rules.  Ante, 
at 6–7.  Vexing though the Court may find these fact-inten-
sive  questions,  they  are  exactly  the  sort  of  tailoring  work 
that District Courts perform every day.  The Court should 
have afforded the District Court an opportunity to craft ap-
propriate relief before throwing up its hands and declaring 
the task unworkable.  For today’s purposes, the answer is 

—————— 

3  The  Court  responds  by  seizing  on  my  mention  of  S.  B.  8’s  chilling 
effect.  Ante, at 16.  No one contends, however, that pre-enforcement re-
view  should  be  available  whenever  a  state  law  chills  the  exercise  of  a 
constitutional right.  Rather, as this Court explained in Young, pre-en-
forcement review is necessary “when the penalties for disobedience are . . . 
so enormous” as to have the same effect “as if the law in terms prohibited 
the [litigant] from seeking judicial construction of laws which deeply af-
fect its rights.”  209 U. S., at 147.  All the more so here, where the State 
achieves its unconstitutional aim using novel procedural machinations 
that the Court fails to acknowledge.