Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-962_n6io.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

Cite as:  595 U. S. ____ (2022) 

1 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

IN RE WHOLE WOMAN’S HEALTH, ET AL. 

ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDAMUS 

No. 21–962.  Decided January 20, 2022

 JUSTICE  SOTOMAYOR,  with  whom  JUSTICE  BREYER  and 
JUSTICE KAGAN join, dissenting from denial of mandamus. 
It  has  been  over  four  months  since  Texas  Senate  Bill  8 
(S. B. 8) took effect.  The law immediately devastated access 
to  abortion  care  in  Texas  through  a  complicated  private-
bounty-hunter scheme that violates nearly 50 years of this
Court’s precedents.  Today, for the fourth time, this Court
declines  to  protect  pregnant  Texans  from  egregious  viola-
tions of their constitutional rights.1  One month after direct-
ing  that  the  petitioners’  suit  could  proceed  in  part,  the
Court  countenances  yet  another  violation  of  its  own  com-
mands.  Instead of stopping a Fifth Circuit panel from in-
dulging  Texas’  newest  delay  tactics,  the  Court  allows  the 
State yet again to extend the deprivation of the federal con-
stitutional rights of its citizens through procedural manip-
ulation.  The Court may look the other way, but I cannot. 

I 

S. B. 8 amounts to a ban on abortion care after six weeks 
from the last menstrual period, before many women realize
they are pregnant.  See Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, 
594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting) (slip
op.,  at  1)  (Whole  Woman’s  Health  I).    The  law  authorizes 
any person—regardless of relationship (or lack thereof ) to 
the woman, provider, or procedure at issue—to sue, for at 
least $10,000, anyone who provides abortion care, assists in 
—————— 

1 See Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, 595 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2021) 
(SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting); United States v. Texas, 595 U. S. ___, ___– 
___ (2021) (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting); Whole Woman’s Health v. Jack-
son, 594 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2021) (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting).