After abortion, gay marriage? Fears US Supreme Court may target other rights
- Leak suggests Supreme Court may overturn Roe vs Wade, allowing US states to make abortion illegal
- Some fear that other rights could next be in the crosshairs of the court’s conservative majority
After abortion, could gay marriage be next? With America’s Supreme Court poised to roll back half a century of abortion rights, activists fear conservatives will set their sights on other constitutional freedoms, starting with same sex unions.
Also under threat could be gay sex or access to contraception, while future rulings could impact new areas such as transgender rights, legal experts say.
“The results of this case, if this opinion is actually the final opinion, will unravel constitutional rights that generations of Americans have taken for granted,” said professor Katherine Franke of Columbia University’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law.
“Its limits are hard to anticipate,” she added.
The Supreme Court’s draft ruling – leaked Monday – would overturn the 1973 Roe vs Wade decision that enshrined abortion rights across the country if confirmed by the court, which has until end June to decide.
Fears that other rights could next be in the crosshairs of the court’s conservative majority stem from Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion, in which he argued that the right to abortion was not protected by the constitution.