Supporters of Roe v. Wade are spreading fears that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s draft decision overturning the landmark abortion case would mean that other Court precedents, including interracial marriage, could also be canceled.
The Republicans won’t stop with banning abortion. They want to ban interracial marriage. Do you want to save that? Well, then you should probably vote. https://t.co/MRytdsjUBP
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) May 3, 2022
The right to an abortion has about as much legal precedence in America as the right to interracial marriage, which is to say, apparently, none at all.
— Derek Johnson (@derekjGZ) May 3, 2022
This is not a singular issue but a turning back of what generations of Americans recognize as our rights. This is a step toward the undoing of our country as we know it by the same people who condone child marriage, say lay back & enjoy rape & want to outlaw interracial marriage.
— Senator Jim Ananich (@jimananich) May 3, 2022
Mr. Alito? You know what else the Constitution doesn’t reference? Racial equality, the right of Black people or women to vote, desegregation, LGBTQ rights, including to marry, and interracial marriage. Yet all of those things were affirmed by previous SCOTUS decisions. Oh, right. pic.twitter.com/LPMpowxzGN
— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) May 3, 2022
The right to an abortion has about as much legal precedence in America as the right to interracial marriage, which is to say, apparently, none at all.
— Derek Johnson (@derekjGZ) May 3, 2022
After abortion, what will the GOP go after next?
They are attacking history, a woman’s bodily autonomy, trans people.
Next up, interracial marriage?
Criminalizing the LGBTQ community?
Believe them when they tell you who they are. #RoeVWadepic.twitter.com/imHPGvso4Y
— Jamie Carter 🇺 (@JCTheResistance) May 3, 2022
You don’t need to read too far between the lines of Alito’s draft to see a rationale for overturning or weakening
Griswold (the right to contraception)
Obergefell (same-sex marriage)
Loving (interracial marriage)
Lawrence (consensual sex acts)And a host of others
— Elliot Williams (@elliotcwilliams) May 3, 2022
BREAKING: Speaker Pelosi sounds the alarm about the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, says it could “pave the way” for Republicans to “obliterate even more of our freedoms.” Gay and interracial marriage could be next on the chopping block. RT IF YOU PLEDGE TO VOTE BLUE!
— Occupy Democrats (@OccupyDemocrats) May 3, 2022
Many commentators focused on a paragraph in the opening summary of the decision, which was published by Politico:
This portion of Alito’s opinion striking down the right to abortion (about Due Process rights under the 14th Amendment) would also apply to the right to contraceptives, interracial marriage, sexual freedom, same sex marriage. All are at risk if 4 justices join Alito. Stunning. pic.twitter.com/IO041UGJeV
— Robert J. DeNault (@robertjdenault) May 3, 2022
One more thing. If this paragraph actually survives into the final opinion than a lot of rights that people take for granted will have the ability to be overturned
Birth control
Interracial marriage
Gay marriage
Sodomy lawsIf this paragraph survives, states can overrule all pic.twitter.com/l9zxaZXmgl
— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) May 3, 2022
However, they appear not to have read the entire opinion. As Breitbart News noted in a fact check, Justice Alito specifically distinguished abortion from all other cases — including Loving v. Virginia (1967), which struck down Jim Crow laws against interracial marriage — since of these issues, only abortion involves the potential taking of what might be a human life:
What sharply distinguishes the abortion right from the rights recognized in the cases on which Roe and Casey rely is something that both these decisions acknowledged: Abortion destroys what those decisions call “potential life” and what the law at issue in this case regards as the life of an “unborn human being.” See Roe, 410 U.S., at 159 (abortion is “inherently different”); Casey, 505 U.S., at 852 (abortion is a “unique act”). None of the other decisions cited by Roe and Casey involved the critical moral question posed by abortion. They are therefore inapposite. They do not support the right to obtain an abortion, and by the same token, our conclusion that the Constitution does not confer such a right does not undermine them in any way.
…
And to ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to case doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion
One of the conservative justices who apparently joined Alito’s opinion is Clarence Thomas, who is in an interracial marriage.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
