WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court decision ending the constitutional right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade in 1973 has put other hard-won rights at risk, including the rights to same-sex marriage and contraception.
The level of risk depends on which opinion you read. The majority ruling written by Justice Samuel Alito said, “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”
But Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion, made it clear that other rights based on due process need to be reassessed “in future cases.”
“We should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas said, referring to the landmark Supreme Court rulings that legalized contraception, same-sex intercourse and same-sex marriage.
The dissenting justices equated the consequences of the fall of Roe to a Jenga tower, rejecting the majority’s assertion that other rights weren’t at risk:
“The majority tells everyone not to worry,” the dissenting opinion says. “It can (so it says) neatly extract the right to choose from the constitutional edifice without affecting any associated rights. (Think of someone telling you that the Jenga tower simply will not collapse.)”
Legal experts have said that a ruling overturning Roe could quickly be used by conservatives to begin challenging same-sex marriage and other rights in Republican-controlled states, resulting in fresh lawsuits that could make their way back to the Supreme Court.
