An extreme Supreme Court is just getting started overturning established law
In the aftermath of the leak of a Supreme Court opinion draft by Justice Alito that signals the almost certain outcome of the court overturning Roe v. Wade, many are wondering what the next targets of the conservative majority court will be.
via Twitter / @TheAtlantic
The Atlantic recently laid out what those targets could likely be, saying “the Court may eviscerate other major areas of law far sooner—in fact, with cases on its docket this current term. Notably, the Court may soon declare the use of race in college admissions—affirmative action—illegal, and it may also massively constrain the power of the federal government to protect the environment,” because, according to the Atlantic, this court is a “right wing” court with “little commitment to its own precedents.”
Others believe that the court will seek to overturn marriage equality and gay rights soon as well, both big issues for conservatives, especially the evangelical sect of the right who make up the bulk of the pro-life movement celebrating the possible end of Roe v. Wade.
Supreme Court via Flickr / Ian Dick https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a law professor at Stetson University, told the following to Vox recently:
“Justices who comprise the conservative majority on the Supreme Court have long been hostile to the right to privacy that was articulated in Griswold v. Connecticut, which protects the right to use contraception. Strict textualist justices claim the word “privacy” is not in the Constitution and thus the right to privacy does not exist.
This is the same rhetorical move that Justice Alito makes in his leaked opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. He claims that because the word “abortion” is not in the Constitution … consequently the right to abortion does not exist.
via Twitter / @voxdotcom
The problem for our modern society is that many rights we care about have been protected as progeny of Griswold. This decision also gave us Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated an anti-miscegenation law, as well as Windsor and Obergefell, which articulated a right to marriage equality for same-sex couples.
After this [opinion], Loving, Windsor, and Obergefell are all on constitutionally thin ice. And the frustrating thing is Justice Alito’s ignoring the Ninth Amendment, which protects Americans’ unenumerated rights. As Roe recognized 49 years ago, the right to abortion is protected by the Ninth Amendment.
Or at least it did until this opinion becomes the law of the land.”
