Immediately after the devastating Roe decision in the US, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas takes aim at gay rights and contraception

And so it begins.

 

In a devastating blow to human rights today (June 24), millions in the US are set to lose safe access to an abortion as the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

 

Currently California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington D.C. protect abortion rights by state law and are safe states to access abortion at the time of writing.

 

As was previously predicted, the far-right appears to have wasted zero time taking aim at other American freedoms, including LGBTQ+ rights.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Friday, in an opinion agreeing with the majority to decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, called for overturning other constitutional rights previously affirmed by the court, including such things as access to contraceptives and LGBTQ rights.

 

In his separate opinion, Thomas acknowledged that Friday’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization does not directly affect any rights besides abortion, per Justice Samuel Alito’s prior statement.

 

However he argued that the constitution’s Due Process Clause does not secure a right to an abortion or any other substantive rights, and he urged the court to apply that reasoning to other landmark cases.

Thomas suggested the court should review other precedents, including its 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage, a 2003 decision striking down laws criminalizing gay sex and a 1965 decision declaring that married couples have a right to use contraception.

 

“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell”, Thomas wrote.

 

Sarah Warbelow, legal director for Human Rights Campaign, called the opinion “stirring up fringe organizations and fringe politicians who want to harm the LGBTQ community.”

 

“There are clearly members of the court who have an outdated notion of what America looks like today and have a fantasy of returning to their painted idealism of a 1940s, 1950s America, certainly not what it really was in the 1940s and ’50s,” she said. “And that is terrifying.”

 

A truly dark day in American politics. See more below:


 

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