‘Scares me to death’: Man behind gay marriage law fears it will be repealed after Roe v Wade

The man whose emblem is US Supreme Court Case led to the legalization of gay marriage in America, the majority of the court has expressed itself Deer vs Wade “scares me to death” as fears mount that LGBT+ rights could be next to be lifted.

Jim Obergefell released a statement on Tuesday warning that the most basic of human rights are now “under siege” after leaks Monday night the bombastic opinion of the Supreme Court which threatens to destroy 50 years of abortion rights in one fell swoop.

“The extreme US Supreme Court should not overturn decades-old laws and deny pregnant people the most basic human health rights to make their own decisions about their lives and bodies,” he said.

“The sad part is … five or six people are going to run the law of the country, going against the vast majority of Americans who overwhelmingly support a person’s right to make their own health choices and a couple’s right to be married.” .

“This is a sad day, but it’s not over yet. We have fought the good fight for too long to now deny our rights.”

Mr. Obergefell found himself at the center of the LGBT+ community’s fight for legalization same-sex marriage In 2013 he married his longtime partner John Arthur.

The couple, who lived in Ohio, where same-sex marriage was illegal, had to fly to Maryland to get married.

They were married on a medical plane on the airport tarmac when Mr. Arthur was seriously ill with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – a disease of the nervous system.

Just three months and 11 days later, Mr. Arthur died and the state of Ohio refused to list his 22-year-old partner as his legal spouse on his death certificate due to the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.

A two-year legal battle ensued, culminating in the Supreme Court.

In 2015, the court delivered its landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage across the country and marked the greatest advance for LGBT+ rights in American history.

Now, LGBT+ rights activists fear that law too could be challenged after the Supreme Court ruled to scrap abortion rights across the country.

Herr Obergefell tells CNN that while the withdrawal of abortion rights marks “a dark day for women in our country,” he fears it also means “marital equality may be next.”

“It scares the shit out of me,” he said.

Mr Obergefell said that if the 14th Amendment’s protections of privacy were attacked, it could reach further than reproductive rights and access to abortion.

“Many of the rights we enjoy, particularly those of the LGBTQ+ community, are based on unenumerated 14th Amendment rights — the right to privacy,” he said.

“If the Constitution does not expressly set out in writing this right to privacy, then all the rights guaranteed to us that are based on the Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy are at risk.”

LGBT+ rights groups and Democratic lawmakers have also raised concerns that the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v Wade is targeting the constitutional rights to privacy on which many other laws are based.

Squad member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that the court is also “coming” for gay marriage and civil rights.

“As we warned, SCOTUS isn’t just coming about abortion — they’re coming about the right to privacy that Roe is founded on, which includes gay marriage and civil rights,” she tweeted.

“Manchin is blocking Congress from codifying Roe. House seems to have forgotten about Clarence Thomas. These 2 points need to change.”

In the leaked Supreme Court Opinion on Access to Abortion, Judge Alito writes that abortion rights were not “deeply rooted in the history and tradition of this nation” and “was totally unknown in American law…until the second half of the 20th century.” . – something that also applies to LGBT+ rights, which were even later established in the country as abortion rights.

However, he writes that the same reasoning would not apply to other rulings on “intimate sexual relations, contraception and marriage” as the right to abortion is “fundamentally different” in that it “destroys life”.

On Monday evening, Politically released a draft US Supreme Court majority decision revealing that the nation’s highest court had decided to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade ruling granting Americans a constitutional right to an abortion.

Written by Justice Samuel Alito, it revealed that he and four other conservative justices – Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – had voted to overturn the verdict.

Liberal Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan disagreed, although it’s unclear how Chief Justice John Roberts intended to vote.

In the statement, the majority said the verdict had been wrongly decided in the past and that decisions on access to abortion should be made by politicians, not courts.

“We believe Roe and Casey must be overridden,” Judge Alito wrote in the Majority Opinion.

“It’s time to heed the constitution and return the issue of abortion to the elected representatives of the people.”

The court wrote the opinion after agreeing to hear a case surrounding a Mississippi law criminalizing abortions after 15 weeks.

Judges heard oral arguments on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization back in December — the first major challenge to abortion rights before the new Conservative majority.

A draft advisory opinion has never been leaked in the Supreme Court’s history, and the court, which on Tuesday upheld the draft’s authenticity, has vowed to investigate how it came about.

The opinion is a draft and it is possible that the votes will change before its publication, which is expected at the end of June.

However, if released in its current form, it will backtrack on abortion rights and access to reproductive health for millions of women across America, leaving many with no choice but to either carry an unwanted pregnancy to term or seek potentially dangerous illegal health care options search.

The court’s decision will place the decision within each state’s jurisdiction to determine whether or not abortion is legal, at a time when Republican-led states have already taken steps in recent months to restrict access to abortion or to ban entirely.

About half of all US states are expected to ban abortion altogether once Roe is overturned, including 13 states with so-called “trigger” bans that would take effect immediately if the ruling is overturned.

Last year Texas led the way when it passed the most extreme abortion law in the US, effectively undercutting Roe v Wade.

The Texas Heartbeat Act bans abortions from the moment a fetal heartbeat can be detected – typically after just six weeks, before many women even know they are pregnant.

Texas law makes no exceptions for women victims of rape or incest and gives individuals the right to sue anyone who performs or assists someone in having an abortion.

While the law drastically restricted access, a woman’s legal right to an abortion in America was protected by Roe v Wade.

About two dozen other states, including Alabama and Oklahoma, have laws that effectively ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

In 1973, the landmark Roe v Wade ruling recognized for the first time a woman’s constitutional right to choose to have an abortion throughout America, effectively making it legal nationwide.

Years later, the Planned Parenthood v. Casey judgment upheld that judgment.