Justice Clarence Thomas: Supreme Court Should Also Reconsider Rulings on Same-Sex Marriage, Contraception

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote Friday that the high court should reconsider rulings on contraception, same-sex relationships, and same-sex marriage in a solo concurring opinion released Friday that struck down Roe v. Wade.

The Republican-appointed justice argued that the Supreme Court should reconsider other cases that fall under prior due process precedents.

“I write separately to emphasize a second, more fundamental reason why there is no abortion guarantee lurking in the Due Process Clause,” Thomas wrote. “Considerable historical evidence indicates that ‘due process of law’ merely required executive and judicial actors to comply with legislative enactments and the common law when depriving a person of life, liberty, or property.”

With Friday’s ruling, the “court declines to disturb substantive due process jurisprudence generally or the doctrine’s application in other, specific contexts,” he also wrote (pdf), adding that cases like Griswold v. Connecticut—giving the right of married persons to obtain contraceptives—as well as Lawrence v. Texas—a ruling on the right to engage in a private, consensual sexual act—and Obergefell v. Hodges—the right to same-sex marriage—should be revisited.

“I agree that ‘[n]othing in [the Court’s] opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion,'” Thomas added while citing Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion released Friday.

The justice argued that based on that precedent, “in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”

The 6–3 decision upheld Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, which directly clashed with Roe v. Wade’s requirement that states allow abortion to the point of fetal viability, around 24 weeks. The ruling also struck down the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision that reaffirmed Roe.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote for the majority in striking down the two landmark decisions. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”

“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” he continued.

As the decision reverberated throughout Washington, crowds of pro-life activists, who had gathered outside the courthouse for days, erupted in cheers.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Emma Craig, 36, of Pro Life San Francisco. “Abortion is the biggest tragedy of our generation and in 50 years we’ll look back at the 50 years we’ve been under Roe v. Wade with shame.”

Mississippi’s law had been blocked by lower courts as a violation of Supreme Court precedent on abortion rights. Abortion is likely to remain legal in Democrat-run states.

More than a dozen states currently have laws protecting abortion rights. Numerous Republican-led states have passed various abortion restrictions in defiance of the Roe precedent in recent years.

Here in Californicator land, the gays are in mortal fear of this decree from the Supremes.

With Roe overturned, rollback of gay marriage and other rights feared!
By JOHN HANNA, Associated Press Jun 24, 2022

https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-health-government-and-politics-marriage-a0cee537c6f9f10d29fa71f6e7a4d19d

People protest about abortion, Friday, June 24, 2022, outside the Supreme Court in Washington. The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years — a decision by its conservative majority to overturn the court’s landmark abortion cases.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision allowing states to ban abortion stirred alarm Friday among LGBTQ advocates, who feared that the ruling could someday allow a rollback of legal protections for gay relationships, including the right for same-sex couples to marry.

In the court’s majority opinion overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, Justice Samuel Alito said the decision applied only to abortion. But critics of the court’s conservative majority gave the statement no credence.

“I don’t buy that at all,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of medicine at Georgetown University and faculty director of its Institute for National and Global Health Law. “It really is much more extreme than the justices are making it out to be.”

He added: “It means that you can’t look to the Supreme Court as an impartial arbiter of constitutional rights because they’re acting more as culture warriors.”

Excerpted:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZbFOxftW7i5-u-E3gdFblQj-ixDovLGuXaj5WqG8O-U/edit

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