Ruth Bader Ginsburg reads a summary of the dissent by Justices Stevens, Souter, Breyer and herself from the bench:

The Court asserts that its ruling furthers the Government’s interest in “promoting fetal life.” But the Act scarcely furthers that interest, for it targets only a method of abortion. The woman may abort the fetus, so long as her doctor uses another method, one her doctor judges less safe for her. The Court further pretends that its decision protects women. Women might come to regret their physician-counseled choice of an intact D&E and suffer from “[s]evere depression and loss of esteem,” the Court worries. Notably, the solution the Court approves is not to require doctors to inform women adequately of the different procedures they might choose, and the risks each entails. Instead, the Court shields women by denying them any choice in the matter. This way of protecting women recalls ancient notions about women’s place in society and under the Constitution — ideas that have long since been discredited.

If there is anything at all redemptive about today’s opinion, it is that the Court is not willing to foreclose entirely a challenge to the constitutionality of the Act. But the “as-applied challenge[s] in discrete case[s]” the Court would allow put women’s health in danger and place doctors in an untenable position. Even if courts were able slowly to carve out health exceptions for “discrete and well-defined instances” through hard fought, protracted piecemeal litigation, women whose circumstances have not been anticipated by prior litigation could well remain unprotected. In treating those women, physicians would risk criminal prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment if they exercise their best judgment as to the safest medical procedure for their patients. The Court is thus gravely mistaken to conclude that narrow, as-applied challenges are “the proper manner to protect the health of the woman.”