Posted at 6:00 a.m.
Could access to contraception, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage be the Supreme Court’s next targets?
At least that’s what conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested. In a personal argument that accompanies the judgment, he called for “reconsidering” the decisions that justify these rights. “In future cases” also concerning privacy, “we should review all the case law,” he said.
Why these auare rights affected?
In order to overturn the Roe v. Wade judgment, the Supreme Court held that the right to abortion was not a form of freedom protected by the 14e amendment to the United States Constitution. This amendment stipulates that “no State […] shall not deprive any person of his life, liberty or property without due legal process”.
However, several other judgments are based on this same amendment, in particular Griswold against Connecticut (1965), which authorizes the right to contraception for married couples, Lawrence against Texas (2003), which authorizes sexual relations between people of the same sex. , and Obergefell v Hodges (2015), which allows same-sex marriage.
“If we believed that the right to abortion was included in the Constitution in the past, why would these other laws be valid? raises Valérie Beaudoin, associate researcher at the Raoul-Dandurand Chair.
Is it probcan this happen?
The reversal of the Roe v. Wade judgment was already exceptional. “As a rule, we add rights. We don’t take anything away,” says Louis-Philippe Lampron, professor at the Faculty of Law at Laval University. But it is not impossible that the Supreme Court will reverse decisions concerning contraception or homosexual marriage, as it has just done with abortion.
For this to happen, a state would have to pass a law limiting access to contraception, for example, which would then be challenged and taken to the Supreme Court. ” We hope […] that they are not going to go ahead with any other judgments in the next few years,” the lawyer said.
Do the American people have a way to contester the annulment of Roe against Wade?
Short answer: no. The interpretation of texts on fundamental rights, in most countries, is a matter for the judiciary, explains Louis-Philippe Lampron. Not even United States President Joe Biden, who called the historic reversal a “tragic mistake” and the result of “extremist ideology,” can change a Supreme Court ruling.
However, because the ruling does not ban abortion (it allows states to restrict it or make it illegal), the American people can challenge it in the political arena. “It’s the most likely action,” says Lampron. That is to say, it would be up to citizens “to put pressure on their government to protect the right to abortion”. It is not a foregone conclusion: in total, 26 states are already planning to ban the practice, according to a count by the Guttmacher Institute.
With Agence France-Presse