Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-1140_5368.pdf
Page Number: 43

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

17 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

tive  statements,  ante,  at  13—is  truthful  and  nonmislead-
ing  information.  Abortion  is  a  controversial  topic  and  a 
source  of  normative  debate,  but  the  availability  of  state
resources is not a normative statement or a fact of debat-
able  truth.  The  disclosure  includes  information  about 
resources  available  should  a  woman  seek  to  continue  her 
pregnancy  or  terminate  it,  and  it  expresses  no  official
preference  for  one  choice  over  the  other.  Similarly,  the
majority  highlights  an  interest  that  often  underlies  our 
decisions  in  respect  to  speech  prohibitions—the  market-
place of ideas.  But that marketplace is fostered, not hin-
dered, by providing information to patients to enable them
to  make  fully  informed  medical  decisions  in  respect  to 
their pregnancies. 

Of  course,  one  might  take  the  majority’s  decision  to 
mean that speech about abortion is special, that it involves 
in this case not only professional medical matters, but also
views  based  on  deeply  held  religious  and  moral  beliefs 
about the nature of the practice.  To that extent, arguably,
the speech here is different from that at issue in Zauderer. 
But assuming that is so, the law’s insistence upon treating
like  cases  alike  should  lead  us  to  reject  the  petitioners’ 
arguments  that  I  have  discussed.    This  insistence,  the 
need 
for  evenhandedness,  should  prove  particularly
weighty  in  a  case  involving  abortion  rights.    That  is  be-
cause  Americans  hold  strong,  and  differing,  views  about 
the  matter.  Some  Americans  believe  that  abortion  in-
volves  the  death  of  a  live  and  innocent  human  being.
Others  believe  that  the  ability  to  choose  an  abortion  is 
“central  to  personal  dignity  and  autonomy,”  Casey,  505 
U. S., at 851, and note that the failure to allow women to 
choose an abortion involves the deaths of innocent women. 
We have previously noted that we cannot try to adjudicate 
who is right and who is wrong in this moral debate.  But 
we  can  do  our  best  to  interpret  American  constitutional 
law so that it applies fairly within a Nation whose citizens