next to go?
Clarence Thomas: Supreme Court should 'reconsider' rulings on contraceptives and same-sex marriage
The Supreme Court has officially overturned Roe v. Wade, and Justice Clarence Thomas suggests several other hugely consequential rulings could be next.
Thomas joined the court's other conservative justices on Friday in eliminating the constitutional right to abortion in the United States. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, but Thomas also wrote his own concurring opinion, in which he argues the justices "should reconsider all of this court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell," adding that "we have a duty to 'correct the error' established in those precedents."
In 1965, Griswold v. Connecticut established a constitutional right for married couples to access contraceptives, while the 2003 ruling Lawrence v. Texas said states may not ban sodomy, and 2015's Obergefell v. Hodges established the constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry.
The Supreme Court in overturning Roe v. Wade undid nearly 50 years of precedent, also overturning Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which in 1992 upheld the constitutional right to abortion. Thomas in his opinion argued the court was correct in holding "that there is no constitutional right to abortion" and that "the purported right to abortion is not a form of 'liberty' protected by the Due Process Clause."