Supreme Court should rethink precedents on contraception access and LGBTQ+ rights, says Justice Thomas

As the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision to strike down the decades-old rulings that once established a constitutional right to choose to have an abortion, Justice Clarence Thomas urged his colleagues to reevaluate other landmark cases protecting contraceptive access, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriages.

In a concurring opinion delivered Friday, Thomas suggested that the logic used by the court's conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey could signal similar outcomes for cases that recognized other personal rights: Griswold v. Connecticut, Lawrence v. Texas, and Obergefell v. Hodges. In the Griswold case, in 1965, the court threw out a state law banning the use of contraception. Lawrence v. Texas, in 2003, established that states cannot criminalize private sex acts between consenting adults. And in Obergefell, in 2015, the court ruled same-sex couples have an equal right to marry.

Thomas argued that since the majority ruled that the right to abortion "is not a form of 'liberty' protected by the Due Process Clause" of the 14th Amendment, the same reasoning should apply more broadly.