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24  DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

nected to reproductive rights.  “The ability of women to par-
ticipate equally” in the “life of the Nation”—in all its eco-
nomic, social, political, and legal aspects—“has been facili-
tated  by  their  ability  to  control  their  reproductive  lives.” 
Id., at 856.  Without the ability to decide whether and when 
to have children, women could not—in the way men took for 
granted—determine  how  they  would  live  their  lives,  and 
how they would contribute to the society around them.

For much that reason, Casey made clear that the prece-
dents Roe most closely tracked were those involving contra-
ception.  Over the course of three cases, the Court had held 
that a right to use and gain access to contraception was part
of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of liberty.  See 
Griswold, 381 U. S. 479; Eisenstadt, 405 U. S. 438; Carey v. 
Population Services Int’l, 431 U. S. 678 (1977).  That clause, 
we explained, necessarily conferred a right “to be free from 
unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fun-
damentally  affecting  a  person  as  the  decision  whether  to
bear  or  beget  a  child.”  Eisenstadt,  405  U. S.,  at  453;  see 
Carey, 431 U. S., at 684–685.  Casey saw Roe as of a piece:
In  “critical  respects  the  abortion  decision  is  of  the  same 
character.”    505  U. S.,  at  852.    “[R]easonable  people,”  the
Court  noted,  could  also  oppose  contraception;  and  indeed,
they could believe that “some forms of contraception” simi-
larly implicate a concern with “potential life.”  Id., at 853, 
859.  Yet the views of others could not automatically prevail 
against a woman’s right to control her own body and make 
her  own  choice  about  whether  to  bear,  and  probably  to
raise, a child.  When an unplanned pregnancy is involved—
because either contraception or abortion is outlawed—“the 
liberty  of  the  woman  is  at  stake  in  a  sense  unique  to  the
human condition.”  Id., at 852.  No State could undertake to 
resolve  the  moral  questions  raised  “in  such  a  definitive 
way” as to deprive a woman of all choice.  Id., at 850. 

Faced with all these connections between Roe/Casey and 
judicial  decisions  recognizing  other  constitutional  rights,