328
Stevens, J., dissenting
conferred benefits evenly on men and women.25 Later cases confirmed that the holding in Geduldig depended on an analysis of the insurance plan as a benefit program with an overall nondiscriminatory effect.26 Nashville Gas Co. v. Satty, 434 U. S. 136 (1977), applied a statute without an intent requirement to an employer's policy denying accumulated seniority to employees returning from pregnancy leave. Notwithstanding Geduldig, the Court found that the policy burdened only women, and therefore constituted discrimination on the basis of sex. The Court stated that "petitioner has not merely refused to extend to women a benefit that men cannot and do not receive, but has imposed on women a substantial burden that men need not suffer. The distinction between benefits and burdens is more than one of semantics." 434 U. S., at 142.27 The distinction between
25 The Court emphasized that nothing in the record suggested that the actuarial value of the insurance package was greater for men than for women. See 417 U. S., at 496. Indeed, even the exclusion of coverage for pregnancy-related disability benefited both men and women. The Court noted that dual distribution of benefits in the now-famous lines: "The program divides potential recipients into two groups—pregnant women and nonpregnant persons. . . . The fiscal and actuarial benefits of the program thus accrue to members of both sexes." Id., at 497, n. 20.
26 See, e. g., Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. EEOC, 462 U. S. 669, 677, n. 12 (1983) (after quoting the footnote in Geduldig which includes the language on which the Court relies today, we stated: "The principal emphasis in the text of the Geduldig opinion, unlike the quoted footnote, was on the reasonableness of the State's cost justifications for the classification in its insurance program"); Turner v. Utah Dept. of Employment Security, 423 U. S. 44, 45, n. (1975) (per curiam) (observing that the opinion below "ma[de] no mention of coverage limitations or insurance principles central to [Geduldig v.] Aiello"); General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125, 137 (1976) (relying on the reasoning of Geduldig, the Court again emphasized that notwithstanding a pregnancy exclusion, the plan had not been shown to provide women, as a group, with a lower level of health benefits).
27 The abortion-funding cases cited by the Court similarly turn on the distinction between the denial of monetary benefits and the imposition of a burden. See Maher v. Roe, 432 U. S. 464, 475 (1977) ("There is a basic
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