"I am a mother and a sister. In addition, I have had the privilege to teach thousands of students -- young men and women -- over the more than 25 years I have been teaching. Each of these individuals has come of age in a era where his or her private decisions to have sex or remain celibate, to use birth control or not, as well as to resort to a safe and legal abortion if needed or to carry a pregnancy to term, were available options. This right has, for women in particular, given them a power over their destinies that women who came before me did not enjoy. The United States, I have always taught, is a land where rights once hard won, are not to be taken for granted, but to be held precious. No right can be more important nor more fundamental than a woman’s right to control her bodily integrity free from governmental interference. As the Court itself has concluded, to do so could be disastrous."