AUSTIN, Texas — There are new questions this weekend about how the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade might affect other landmark cases.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote: “In future cases, we should reconsider all of the court’s other substantive due process cases.” Thomas singled out the cases known as Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell.
Here’s a brief discussion of each case:
In the Obergefell case in 2015, the court in a 5-4 decision said that the Fourteenth Amendment requires all states to grant same-sex marriages and that all states must recognize those marriages even if they are from other states.
The Griswold case saw a landmark 1965 decision in which the court invalidated a law prohibiting birth control, arguing that the prohibition violated a fundamental “right to privacy.”
In the Lawrence case in 2003, the Court struck down a Texas law that prohibited certain forms of sexual contact between adults of the same sex.
Bottom line: Three Supreme Court decisions based on fundamental rights to privacy that if reconsidered by the court someday, as Justice Thomas suggested, could possibly be reversed.
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