The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
What if Roe is overturned?
Many fear more than just abortion rights at risk
A leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion, which would overturn Roe v. Wade, has set off a flurry of speculation about a post-Roe America including warnings that other major rulings on same sex marriage and the right to contraception could be at risk.
Critics of the majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, which is not final and could change, said it cast doubt on other civil rights that Americans have come to expect, in some cases, for decades.
“The theoretical basis that they seem to be taking in this opinion would be equally applicable to LGBTQ rights, interracial marriage, contraception, a whole host of other rights that have been established over the past 70 or so years,” said state Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, co-chair of the legislative Reproductive Rights Caucus.
In the 98-page opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which challenges
the constitutionality of a Mississippi law banning abortion after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, Alito wrote that Roe was “egregiously wrong from the start.” But he also asserted that overturning the 1973 decision would not jeopardize other decisions by the courts based on the “right to privacy.”
“It's impossible to see how those rights could be upheld consistently with his decision here,” said Anne Dailey, a professor of law at the University of Connecticut.
Dailey compared the decision Roe to the Supreme Court's 2003 ruling in the case of Lawrence v. Texas, which established that criminalizing gay sex was unconstitutional.
“They both draw on notions of individual liberty, and in some sense, privacy, and the ability of a person to choose how to lead their life,” she said.
Those cases drew on a precedent established in Griswold v. Connecticut, in which the Supreme Court in 1965 struck down a state ban on contraceptives.
In the wake of the leaked opinion, many in the LGBTQ community expressed fear that their rights would soon be eroded. On social media, some samesex couples said they were considering drafting a power of attorney and other documents to provide added protection against any potential future challenges.
“We are afraid that things like marriage equality would be next on the target list,” said Juancarlos Soto, deputy director of the New Haven Pride Center. Soto said he read the entirety of Alito's opinion, which he called a “blatant attack on civil rights.”
Dailey said conservative states would likely start challenging same-sex marriage and other major rulings, setting up “test cases,” similar to what's happened in the lead up to the Supreme Court decision with anti-abortion states moving to pass laws seeking to criminalize the procedure beyond their borders. Legal scholars expect inter-state conflicts to erupt if the federal right to abortion goes away.
A bill approved by the Connecticut General Assembly, which Gov. Ned Lamont has vowed to sign, seeks to combat actions by anti-abortion states by creating a legal safe harbor for abortion providers and patients. The measure also protects access to birth control and expands who can provide aspiration abortions in Connecticut.