Whoopi Goldberg is among those calling out Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for saying the court “should reconsider” past rulings that secured access to contraceptives and marriage equality.
In his concurring opinion in the court’s Friday ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, Thomas said the court “should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” cases that made contraception, same-gender relationships and same-gender marriages, respectively, legal across the U.S.
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“Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous,’” Thomas wrote. “We have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.”
Since then, a number of commentators, including Samuel L. Jackson, have pointed out that Thomas’ opinion tellingly didn’t reference the Court’s ruling in Loving v. Virginia, which allowed for interracial marriages, like the one between Thomas and his wife.
Goldberg wondered where the Court would stop in terms of assessing rights that were not explicitly stated in the original version of the Constitution.
“What’s next, as Clarence Thomas is signaling? They would like to get rid of contraception,” Goldberg said, during an extended discussion on Monday’s View about Friday’s Dobbs ruling and what’s next. “Do you understand sir? No, because you don’t have to use it.… You better hope that they don’t come for you, Clarence, and say you should not be married to your wife, who happens to be white.”
She also suggested that the court might want to revive the “three-fifths clause,” applying to enslaved people.
“We were not in the Constitution either,” Goldberg said of her and Thomas. “We were not even people in the Constitution.… You better hope that no one says you’re not in the constitution. You’re back to being a quarter of a person, because that’s not going to work either.”
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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough also took issue with Thomas’ opinion on Monday’s Morning Joe, “He talked about how contraception rights should be reviewed again. He talked about marriage equality, how that should be opened up. He talked about what consenting adults can do in the privacy of their bedroom, that should be taken up. But he didn’t, for some reason, talk about Loving.… He didn’t talk about interracial marriages.”
He continued: “I saw that as being so typical of these Republicans, these so-called pro-life Republicans, and what they would do for their own children, what they would do for their own loved ones if medically necessary, if there was a crisis, and yet, what they won’t do for poor women in rural states that are thousands of miles away from where they can have a safe procedure.”
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