928
Opinion of Blackmun, J.
at 153. Because motherhood has a dramatic impact on a woman's educational prospects, employment opportunities, and self-determination, restrictive abortion laws deprive her of basic control over her life. For these reasons, "the decision whether or not to beget or bear a child" lies at "the very heart of this cluster of constitutionally protected choices." Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U. S. 678, 685 (1977).
A State's restrictions on a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy also implicate constitutional guarantees of gender equality. State restrictions on abortion compel women to continue pregnancies they otherwise might terminate. By restricting the right to terminate pregnancies, the State conscripts women's bodies into its service, forcing women to continue their pregnancies, suffer the pains of childbirth, and in most instances, provide years of maternal care. The State does not compensate women for their services; instead, it assumes that they owe this duty as a matter of course. This assumption—that women can simply be forced to accept the "natural" status and incidents of motherhood—appears to rest upon a conception of women's role that has triggered the protection of the Equal Protection Clause. See, e. g., Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U. S. 718, 724- 726 (1982); Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190, 198-199 (1976).4 The joint opinion recognizes that these assumptions about women's place in society "are no longer consistent with our
4 A growing number of commentators are recognizing this point. See, e. g., L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law § 15-10, pp. 1353-1359 (2d ed. 1988); Siegel, Reasoning from the Body: A Historical Perspective on Abortion Regulation and Questions of Equal Protection, 44 Stan. L. Rev. 261, 350-380 (1992); Sunstein, Neutrality in Constitutional Law (With Special Reference to Pornography, Abortion, and Surrogacy), 92 Colum. L. Rev. 1, 31-44 (1992); cf. Rubenfeld, The Right of Privacy, 102 Harv. L. Rev. 737, 788-791 (1989) (similar analysis under the rubric of privacy); MacKinnon, Reflections on Sex Equality Under Law, 100 Yale L. J. 1281, 1308-1324 (1991).
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