COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The plaintiff in another landmark Supreme Court case is sounding off after Friday’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Jim Obergefell learned seven years ago this week that he’d won his case, Obergefell v. Hodges, giving people of the same sex the right to marry in all 50 states.
He said Monday that the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v. Wade makes him worry about that right being taken away.
While the majority opinion was that Friday’s decision should only apply to the right to abortions, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in his concurring opinion that other decisions, including Obergefell’s, could be revisited.
“Our marriages have no impact on another person’s life or another person’s marriage, and to see the Supreme Court signal that they are open to revisiting this topic and potentially taking away that right is a terrifying thing,” Obergefell said. “Not something I expected to experience, that’s for certain.”
In their dissenting opinion, the three liberal justices who voted against the majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health wrote that abortion rights do not stand alone and that, “The Court has linked it for decades to other settled freedoms involving bodily integrity, familial relationships, and procreation.”