Page:Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.pdf/187

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

40

DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION

Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., dissenting

quartile of wage earners.^[1]

The majority briefly notes the growing prevalence of safe haven laws and demand for adoption, see ante, at 34, and nn. 45-46, but, to the degree that these are changes at all, they too are irrelevant.^[2] Neither reduces the health risks or financial costs of going through pregnancy and childbirth. Moreover, the choice to give up parental rights after giving birth is altogether different from the choice not to carry a pregnancy to term. The reality is that few women denied an abortion will choose adoption.^[3] The vast majority will continue, just as in Roe and Casey's time, to shoulder the costs of childrearing. Whether or not they choose to parent, they will experience the profound loss of autonomy and dignity that coerced pregnancy and birth always impose.^[4]

↑ Dept. of Labor, National Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in the United States, Table (Sept. 2020), https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2020/employee-benefits-in-the-united-states-march-2020.pdf#page=299.
↑ Safe haven laws, which allow parents to leave newborn babies in designated safe spaces without threat of prosecution, were not enacted as an alternative to abortion, but in response to rare situations in which birthing mothers in crisis would kill their newborns or leave them to die. See Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), R. Wilson, J. Klevens, D. Williams, & L. Xu, Infant Homicides Within the Context of Safe Haven Laws-United States, 2008-2017, 69 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 1385 (2020).
↑ A study of women who sought an abortion but were denied one because of gestational limits found that only 9 percent put the child up for adoption, rather than parenting themselves. See G. Sisson, L. Ralph, H. Gould, & D. Foster, Adoption Decision Making Among Women Seeking Abortion, 27 Women's Health Issues 136, 139 (2017).
↑ The majority finally notes the claim that "people now have a new appreciation of fetal life," partly because of viewing sonogram images. Ante, at 34. It is hard to know how anyone would evaluate such a claim and as we have described above, the majority's reasoning does not rely on any reevaluation of the interest in protecting fetal life. See supra, at 26, and n. 7. It is worth noting that sonograms became widely used in

[1] Dept. of Labor, National Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in the United States, Table (Sept. 2020), https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2020/employee-benefits-in-the-united-states-march-2020.pdf#page=299.

[2] Safe haven laws, which allow parents to leave newborn babies in designated safe spaces without threat of prosecution, were not enacted as an alternative to abortion, but in response to rare situations in which birthing mothers in crisis would kill their newborns or leave them to die. See Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), R. Wilson, J. Klevens, D. Williams, & L. Xu, Infant Homicides Within the Context of Safe Haven Laws-United States, 2008-2017, 69 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 1385 (2020).

[3] A study of women who sought an abortion but were denied one because of gestational limits found that only 9 percent put the child up for adoption, rather than parenting themselves. See G. Sisson, L. Ralph, H. Gould, & D. Foster, Adoption Decision Making Among Women Seeking Abortion, 27 Women's Health Issues 136, 139 (2017).

[page40-4] The majority finally notes the claim that "people now have a new appreciation of fetal life," partly because of viewing sonogram images. Ante, at 34. It is hard to know how anyone would evaluate such a claim and as we have described above, the majority's reasoning does not rely on any reevaluation of the interest in protecting fetal life. See supra, at 26, and n. 7. It is worth noting that sonograms became widely used in

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]