Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 190.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

43 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

tion after 12 to 14 weeks, but they often have liberal excep-
tions  to  those  time  limits,  including  to  prevent  harm  to  a 
woman’s physical or mental health.  See id., at 24–27; Brief 
for  European  Law  Professors  as  Amici  Curiae  16–17,  Ap-
pendix.  They also typically make access to early abortion
easier,  for  example,  by  helping  cover  its  cost.21   Perhaps
most notable, more than 50 countries around the world—in 
Asia,  Latin  America,  Africa,  and  Europe—have  expanded 
access to abortion in the past 25 years.  See Brief for Inter-
national and Comparative Legal Scholars as Amici Curiae 
28–29.  In light of that worldwide liberalization of abortion
laws, it is American States that will become international 
outliers after today.

In sum, the majority can point to neither legal nor factual
developments in support of its decision.  Nothing that has 
happened in this country or the world in recent decades un-
dermines the core insight of Roe and Casey.  It continues to 
be true that, within the constraints those decisions estab-
lished,  a  woman,  not  the  government,  should  choose 
whether she will bear the burdens of pregnancy, childbirth,
and parenting. 

2 
In support of its holding, see ante, at 40, the majority in-
vokes two watershed cases overruling prior constitutional 
precedents: West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish and Brown v. 
Board of Education.  But those decisions, unlike today’s, re-
sponded to changed law and to changed facts and attitudes 
that  had  taken  hold  throughout  society.    As  Casey  recog-
nized,  the  two  cases  are  relevant  only  to  show—by  stark 
contrast—how  unjustified  overturning  the  right  to  choose
is.  See 505 U. S., at 861–864. 

West Coast Hotel overruled Adkins v. Children’s Hospital 

—————— 

21 See D. Grossman, K. Grindlay, & B. Burns, Public Funding for Abor-
tion Where Broadly Legal, 94 Contraception 451, 458 (2016) (discussing
funding of abortion in European countries).