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WHOLE WOMAN’S HEALTH v. JACKSON
attorney general’s enforcement authority to the Texas Occupational Code, and S. B. 8 is not codified within “this subtitle.” Nor have the petitioners identified for us any “rule or order adopted by the” Texas Medical Board that the attorney general might enforce against them. And even if the attorney general did have some enforcement power under S. B. 8 that could be enjoined, the petitioners have identified no authority that might allow a federal court to parlay any defendant’s enforcement authority into an injunction against any and all unnamed private parties who might seek to bring their own S. B. 8 suits. Consistent with historical practice, a court exercising equitable authority may enjoin named defendants from taking unlawful actions. But under traditional equitable principles, no court may “enjoin the world at large,” Alemite Mfg. Corp. v. Staff, 42 F. 2d 832 (CA2), or purport to enjoin challenged “laws themselves.” Whole Woman’s Health, 594 U. S., at ___ (citing California v. Texas, 593 U. S. ___, ___ (slip op, at 8)). Pp. 9–11.
(3) The petitioners name other defendants (Stephen Carlton, Katherine Thomas, Allison Benz, and Cecile Young), each of whom is an executive licensing official who may or must take enforcement actions against the petitioners if the petitioners violate the terms of Texas’s Health and Safety Code, including S. B. 8. Eight Members of the Court hold that sovereign immunity does not bar a pre-enforcement challenge to S. B. 8 against these defendants. Pp. 11–14.
(4) The sole private defendant, Mr. Dickson, should be dismissed. Given that the petitioners do not contest Mr. Dickson’s sworn declarations stating that he has no intention to file an S. B. 8 suit against them, the petitioners cannot establish “personal injury fairly traceable to [Mr. Dickson’s] allegedly unlawful conduct.” See California, 593 U. S., at ___ (slip op, at 9). P. 14.
(c) The Court holds that the petitioners may bring a pre-enforcement challenge in federal court as one means to test S. B. 8’s compliance with the Federal Constitution. Other pre-enforcement challenges are possible too; one such case is ongoing in state court in which the plaintiffs have raised both federal and state constitutional claims against S. B. 8. Any individual sued under S. B. 8 may raise state and federal constitutional arguments in his or her defense without limitation. Whatever a state statute may or may not say about a defense, applicable federal constitutional defenses always stand available when properly asserted. See U. S. Const., Art. VI. Many federal constitutional rights are as a practical matter asserted typically as defenses to state-law claims, not in federal pre-enforcement cases like this one. See, e.g., Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U. S. 443 (First Amendment used as a defense to a state tort suit). Other viable avenues to contest the law’s compliance with the Federal Constitution also may be possible and the
