Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-463_3ebh.pdf
Page Number: 18

Cite as:  595 U. S. ____ (2021) 

13 

Opinion of the Court 
Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

charged with enforcing “other laws that regulate . . . abor-
tion.”    Consider,  for  example,  Texas  Occupational  Code 
§164.055,  titled  “Prohibited  Acts  Regarding  Abortion.”  
That provision states that the Texas Medical Board “shall 
take an appropriate disciplinary action against a physician 
who violates . . . Chapter 171, Health and Safety Code,” a 
part of Texas statutory law that includes S. B. 8.  Accord-
ingly, it appears Texas law imposes on the licensing-official 
defendants a duty to enforce a law that “regulate[s] or pro-
hibit[s]  abortion,”  a  duty  expressly  preserved  by  S. B. 8’s 
saving clause.  Of course, Texas courts and not this one are 
the  final  arbiters  of  the  meaning  of  state  statutory  direc-
tions.    See  Railroad  Comm’n  of  Tex.  v.  Pullman  Co.,  312 
U. S. 496, 500 (1941).  But at least based on the limited ar-
guments put to us at this stage of the litigation, it appears 
that the licensing defendants do have authority to enforce 
S. B. 8.4 
  In the face of this conclusion, JUSTICE THOMAS advances 
an  alternative  argument.    He  stresses  that  to  maintain  a 
suit consistent with this Court’s Ex parte Young and Article 
III precedents, “it is not enough that petitioners ‘feel inhib-
ited’ ”  or  “ ‘chill[ed]’ ”  by  the  abstract  possibility  of  an  en-
forcement action against them.  Post, at 6–7.  Rather, they 
must  show  at  least  a  credible  threat  of  such  an  action 
against them.  Post, at 7.  Again, we agree with these obser-
vations in principle and disagree only on their application 

—————— 

4 Tending to confirm our understanding of the statute is the fact that 
S. B. 8  expressly  prohibits  “enforcement  of  Chapters  19  and  22,  Penal 
Code, in response to violations of this subchapter.”  Tex. Health & Safety 
Code Ann. §171.207(a).  This language suggests that the Texas Legisla-
ture knew how to prohibit collateral enforcement mechanisms when it 
adopted S. B. 8, and understood that it was necessary to do so.  To read 
S. B. 8 as barring any collateral enforcement mechanisms without a spe-
cific exclusion would thus threaten to render this statutory language su-
perfluous.    See  Kallinen  v.  Houston,  462  S.  W.  3d  25,  28  (Tex.  2015) 
(courts  should  avoid  treating  any  statutory  language  as  surplusage); 
Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S. 759, 778 (1988) (same).