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Any thoughts on Justice Thomas' opinion?

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  • Any thoughts on Justice Thomas' opinion?

    Given Thomas' opinion does the possibility of rulings on contraception and SSM raise any concerns? I can imagine the latter probably would not among many here but does that open the way to everything now to be challenged?

    Could possible laws under consideration is some states now criminalise IUDs and emergency contraception? Could a potential case brought to the SCOTUS possibly lead to overturning inter-racial marriages? [as a jocular aside that would certainly place Justice Thomas in an invidious position]!

    What did the ruling intend by the remark:

    "The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion;"? Is that a reference to the wording contained in the original document drawn up in the eighteenth century? Or a reference to the Constitution as it now exists with all its later amendments?


    ​​​​​​​The following article deals with Thomas' opinion.


    https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06...-sex-marriage/

    Tucked inside the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling Friday that overturned the long-held constitutional protection for abortion was a concurring opinion from conservative Justice Clarence Thomas. In it, he pushed the court to revisit cases that have already been decided related to contraception and same-sex marriage.

    Fueling already heightened anxieties from women and LGBTQ groups that the end of Roe could be the tip of the iceberg, Thomas wrote that “in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents.”

    “Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous,’ we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents,” Thomas wrote.

    Experts told The Texas Tribune that Thomas’ opinion signals an openness from the court to reconsidering other settled legal precedents related to rights the court has ruled are protected by the constitution.

    “The Supreme Court’s decision has brought us into a new era where they are taking away rights instead of giving them,” said Rocio Fierro-Pérez, political coordinator for the Texas Freedom Network, which advocates for individual liberties. “Abortion access is one of several fundamental rights that’s under attack including our right to vote, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, and they’re all intertwined with our right to liberty in which Roe v. Wade was grounded.”

    Emily Berman, associate professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center, said Thomas’ opinion sends a strong message.

    “He’s saying ‘This opinion doesn’t do it because people haven’t asked us to, but I think people should ask us and we should reconsider this entire area of law,’” Berman said.

    Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote Friday’s majority opinion that struck down the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade, tried to assuage fears that the court’s ruling could be used to do away with rights the court has previously said are protected by the constitution.

    “We have stated unequivocally that ‘Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion,’” Alito wrote.

    But Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor expressed concern in their dissenting opinion, saying “no one should be confident that this majority is done with its work.” The right to an abortion recognized in Roe v. Wade in 1973 and Casey v. Planned Parenthood in 1992, did not stand alone, but were linked to decades of other “settled freedoms involving bodily integrity, familial relationships, and procreation.”

    The right to an abortion, they said, arose from the right to access contraception, which was established in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965. The decisions in the abortion cases opened the door for the court to protect the right to same sex sexual intimacy and same sex marriage in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 and Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015.

    “They are all part of the same constitutional fabric, protecting autonomous decision making over the most personal of life decisions,” Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan wrote in their dissent.

    “The majority (or to be more accurate, most of it) is eager to tell us today that nothing it does ‘cast[s] doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion,’” they added. “But how could that be? The lone rationale for what the majority does today is that the right to elect an abortion is not ‘deeply rooted in history’: Not until Roe, the majority argues, did people think abortion fell within the Constitution’s guarantee of liberty. The same could be said, though, of most of the rights the majority claims it is not tampering with.”

    Berman said advocates are right to be concerned about the ruling’s impact.

    “Despite the majority’s insistence that abortion is different, the legal argument that they make with respect to why Roe is wrong would apply equally to many other cases involving unenumerated rights such as gay marriage,” Berman said.

    “There’s definite cause for concern that this idea will be extended to apply to other areas and I think gay marriage and contraception are the two most likely victims because those are the ones that don’t have a long history of having been acknowledged as a fundamental right,” she added.

    That encouragement to challenge established law also has birth control advocates concerned.

    With abortion soon outlawed in more than half the states, access to birth control could also be threatened, said Elizabeth Ruzzo, the founder of Adyn, a company that’s designed a test to prevent birth control side effects.

    In May, Louisiana lawmakers considered a bill that would have classified abortion as homicide, which experts said could have criminalized the use of IUDs and emergency contraception. The bill ultimately failed, but Ruzzo fears that now, other states will try to bar contraception through strict abortion laws, even though contraceptives are also used to treat disorders in reproductive organs and manage premenstrual syndrome in teen girls.

    “Unfortunately, birth control is at the forefront right now,” Ruzzo said. “[The ruling] really just has a painful amount of rippling implications for progress that we’ve made toward these really basic freedoms that people have come to expect in their daily lives.”

    Victoria Kirby York, deputy executive director at the National Black Justice Coalition, which advocates for LGBTQ civil rights, said the court’s ruling could also open the door to rolling back rights like interracial marriage, marriage equality and other civil rights.

    “Constitutional rights should not be played with or taken away,” she said. “Constitutional rights should only be expanded to ensure everyone has access to the same rights.”

    Kirby York said the court’s opinion went against how the court had construed the 14th amendment and equal protection under the law in the past, and has now opened the door for other unenumerated rights to be challenged.

    “We will have to have individual cases on these things come before the court,” she said.
    "It ain't necessarily so
    The things that you're liable
    To read in the Bible
    It ain't necessarily so
    ."

    Sportin' Life
    Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

  • #2
    Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
    ....

    What did the ruling intend by the remark:

    "The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion;"? Is that a reference to the wording contained in the original document drawn up in the eighteenth century? Or a reference to the Constitution as it now exists with all its later amendments?

    .....
    Yes.

    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

      “Despite the majority’s insistence that abortion is different, the legal argument that they make with respect to why Roe is wrong would apply equally to many other cases involving unenumerated rights such as gay marriage,” Berman said.
      Let's hope so!

      Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

        "The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion;"? Is that a reference to the wording contained in the original document drawn up in the eighteenth century? Or a reference to the Constitution as it now exists with all its later amendments?
        Yes.

        ETA: Dagnabbit brudda!


        I'm always still in trouble again

        "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
        "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
        "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
          Yes.

          ETA: Dagnabbit brudda!
          What can I say? It's such an obvious answer!
          The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post

            Yes.
            Yes what? The eighteenth century document?
            "It ain't necessarily so
            The things that you're liable
            To read in the Bible
            It ain't necessarily so
            ."

            Sportin' Life
            Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

              Yes what? The eighteenth century document?
              An eighteenth century document that has had 27 amendments, so they build in a mechanism to change it...

              Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by seer View Post
                An eighteenth century document that has had 27 amendments, so they build in a mechanism to change it...
                So there is no need to pretend it is a living breathing document which means whatever we say it means on any given day.

                There is a way to amend that "eighteenth century document" as has been repeatedly shown.

                I'm always still in trouble again

                "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by seer View Post

                  An eighteenth century document that has had 27 amendments, so they build in a mechanism to change it...
                  And made that mechanism purposefully challenging so as not to change with the political winds.
                  The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

                    Yes what?
                    Yes ma'am.
                    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by seer View Post

                      An eighteenth century document that has had 27 amendments, so they build in a mechanism to change it...
                      It also follows then that those amendments can likewise be changed. Am I right?
                      "It ain't necessarily so
                      The things that you're liable
                      To read in the Bible
                      It ain't necessarily so
                      ."

                      Sportin' Life
                      Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

                        It also follows then that those amendments can likewise be changed. Am I right?
                        By the proper process, yes. That's why Seer explained there was a mechanism for that.

                        Originally posted by seer View Post
                        An eighteenth century document that has had 27 amendments, so they build in a mechanism to change it...
                        Are you going somewhere with this?
                        The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post

                          By the proper process, yes. That's why Seer explained there was a mechanism for that.



                          Are you going somewhere with this?
                          I am waiting for some responses to Thomas' opinion. If amendments to the constitution can be challenged where might it all end?
                          "It ain't necessarily so
                          The things that you're liable
                          To read in the Bible
                          It ain't necessarily so
                          ."

                          Sportin' Life
                          Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

                            I am waiting for some responses to Thomas' opinion. If amendments to the constitution can be challenged where might it all end?
                            Ya lost me. What amendment to the constitution was challenged?

                            What I was referencing is that the PROCESS of amending the Constitution was designed to be "quite challenging", as in, nearly impossible unless there's something that has GREAT support.
                            The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

                              I am waiting for some responses to Thomas' opinion. If amendments to the constitution can be challenged where might it all end?
                              I had no problem with Thomas' opinion. What is your point?
                              Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                              Comment

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