Supreme Court Justice Thomas says gay rights rulings open to be tossed

Judge Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court on Friday said the groundbreaking High Court ruling, which established gay and contraceptive rights, should now be reconsidered. The federal right to abortion has been revoked.

Thomas writes that these decisions were “apparently wrong decisions.”

The case he mentioned was Griswold v. Connecticut, a 1965 decision, and the Supreme Court stated that the couple had the right to access contraceptives. Lawrence v. Texas established the right to engage in private sexual activity in 2003. And Obergefellv said he had the right to same-sex marriage. Hodges’ 2015 decision.

Thomas’s recommendation to reconsider the lack of legal precedent in the trio of decisions does not force his colleagues in the Supreme Court to take the actions he proposed.

But it’s an implicit invitation To conservative lawmakers in individual states to pass legislation It may go against the Supreme Court’s past decisions, with a view to the Supreme Court’s potential to overturn these decisions.

It’s a plot taken by conservative legislators in multiple states, and over the years, hoping that the challenge to them will reach the Supreme Court and, as a result, the right to federal abortion will be overturned. Has passed a restrictive abortion law.

That’s what happened On Friday supreme court, It completely overturned Roe by supporting the Mississippi abortion law, which imposes far stricter procedural restrictions than those granted in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. It also overturned another case dating back to the 1990s, which revealed that it had a constitutional right to abortion.

In his consensus that he wrote siding with other conservative judges when voting to overthrow Law, Thomas called for a reconsideration of other old cases unrelated to abortion. I quoted the reason for abandoning that decision.

“The court well explains, under the precedent of our substantive due process, why the right to abortion is not in the form of’freedom’protected by the Due Process Clause,” he writes. ..

The provisions ensure that no state “takes away a person’s life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

Thomas argued that the right to abortion under that clause was “not deeply rooted in the history and traditions of the country, nor implied in the notion of orderly freedom.” “”

By overturning Law in Friday’s ruling, Thomas said the three cases he is currently talking about should be reconsidered by the court as “not a problem.”

However, he writes that they are all based on the interpretation of the Due Process Clause.

Specifically, he said, they are based on the idea of ​​”substantive due process.”[s] All grounds for the Constitution. “” “”

Thomas said that constitutional provisions that guarantee only “processes” for robbing a person’s life, liberty, or property cannot be used “to define the substance of those rights.”

In a Friday law-related decision, Thomas said, “It should not be understood to cast doubt on cases unrelated to abortion … in future cases, of the court’s due process cases, including Griswold. I agreed that everything needs to be reconsidered. ” , Lawrence, and Obergefell. “

“Because the substantive due process decision is” obviously wrong “… we have a duty
“Correct the mistakes” established in those precedents, Thomas added.