On Friday morning, in a move the right has been preparing for decades, the Supreme Court sentenced Roe v. Wade, foiling nearly 50 years of precedent and depriving women of the right to make decisions about their own bodies. As an immediate consequence, abortions will be severely limited or completely banned in nearly half of the country and it is impossible not to consider the consequences of this choice, which will be responsible for the deaths of many people. Yet all this does not interest the conservative members of the Supreme Court, and not only: one of them has specified that other fundamental rights are at stake.
In the terrifying opinion expressed on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health – the case the court used as a pretext to overthrow Roe – the judge Clarence Thomas wrote that, now that the Court’s conservative henchmen team have eliminated the national right to abortion, should think about eliminating the rules that protect contraception, same-sex marriage and same-sex sexual activity. Arguing that all decisions that were part of the “due process” are hogwash, Thomas writes: “For this reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all substantive due process precedents of this Court, including Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell.” Griswold was the historic decision in which the court ruled that the Constitution protects the right of married couples to purchase and use contraception. Lawrence, who overturned a Texas sodomy law, made same-sex sexual activity legal. Obergefell said same-sex couples have a legal right to marry.
Many will argue that the idea that the court can overturn these sentences is ridiculous and paranoid, but it is the same consideration that many have made when those who predicted how it would go with Roe warned of the danger (in his opinion on the possibility that the 1973 decision was overturned, Samuel Alito called these fears “unfounded”).
Source: Vanity Fair
