The United States Supreme Court on Friday morning issued its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which has effectively nulled the landmark supreme court cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which guaranteed and reaffirmed a nationwide right to abortion through the U.S. constitution’s guaranteed right to privacy. The opinion had originally leaked in May, thanks to the work of a Supreme Court whistleblower. The leak caused the Supreme Court to go into turmoil and shook national faith in the judicial body.
In the ruling, which was written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court said, “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” meaning that the court is returning the issue of abortion rights to individual states. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joined Alito’s opinion, while Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and John Roberts also filed their own concurring opinions. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and dissented.
In his solo opinion, Clarence Thomas explicitly stated it should reconsider two major LGBTQ+ victories, Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges. Lawrence guaranteed that struck down nationwide sodomy bans, also based on the guaranteed right to privacy, while Obergefell made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states.
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The ruling will have both immediate and long-lasting consequences. In the near-term, it will set off so-called “trigger laws” in several states, revoking access to abortion for millions in states that do not affirm a person’s right to reproductive care. The ruling also has very long-lasting implications for many of the most marginalized in the United States, including women, people of color and LGBTQ+ people.
“Abortion access has always been an LGBTQ+ rights issue because queer and trans people have always gotten abortions, despite the fact that the issue is often framed as one that only concerns heterosexual, cisgender women,” James Factora wrote in Them when a leaked version of the opinion hit the internet in May. “Moreover, the right to abortion has always been a queer issue because it is a fundamental question of bodily autonomy, a connection Alito draws out in his opinion. He notes that one of the central tenets of Roe is the right to privacy, which Casey further defined as the freedom to make “intimate and personal choices'' that are “central to personal dignity and autonomy.”
Many advocates see this decision not as a stopping point for the abortion debate, but rather as just one star in a regressive constellation of upcoming decisions, rulings and laws that are set to remake America in the GOP’s image. During his short presidency, Trump was not only able to appoint three Supreme Court justices, he also remade the federal judiciary with many more anti-abortion and right-leaning judges.
As Chase Strangio wrote in an op-ed to open pride month, “Dobbs is not a turning point. Rather, it’s a reflection of where we currently are— a reminder of the grim realities that many in the LGBTQ+ community already face. In other words, we are asking the wrong questions. Instead of wondering “What’s next?,” we should be asking, “How did we get here and where do we go?”
Strangio’s closing words reverberate even more loudly today. “Just as marriage equality did not bring liberation to our communities, neither will the fall of Roe or Obergefell or any other legal precedent mark the end of our fights for transformative justice and liberation,” he wrote. “The law is only one tool and the more marginal it is forced to become, the more potential we may find in our collective organizing, care and action.”
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