After the Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday, denying women the right to an abortion, protesters are preparing to converge on the street where Justice Clarence Thomas lives.
In a different judgment, Thomas claimed that the same justification might be applied to legislation that supports homosexual marriage and contraception.
After it was revealed that Thomas’ wife had sought to help change the outcome of the 2020 election and retain President Donald Trump in office, Thomas became a special focus of demonstrators.
Protesters in Washington, D.C., shared arrangements to carpool together on Friday evening.
‘Enraged? Devastated? Pissed the f*** off? So, are we,’ tweeted Our Rights DC?
Tensions over abortion have spiraled ever since a draft opinion was leaked last month, signaling that the court was about to overturn protections.
On June 8, a man was detained and charged with attempted murder outside the residence of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
President Joe Biden encouraged demonstrators to maintain calm as he denounced the court’s ruling on Friday.
Regardless of how strongly someone feels about this choice, he urged everyone to keep any demonstrations calm.
Nothing to intimidate. It is never okay to use violence.
Threatening or intimidating others is not speech. Whatever your justification, we must oppose violence in all its forms.
Earlier, the Supreme Court decided to ban abortions by a 6-3 majority.
‘The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,’ the court said in its opinion.
Protesters quickly gathered outside the Supreme Court building.
In a concurring opinion, Thomas said the justices now should ‘should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell’ – three cases that use similar reasoning to Roe v. Wade.
Those rulings codify rights to contraception access, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage.
None of the other conservatives joined his opinion, however.
However, Biden himself warned of the danger to other rights when the draft opinion was leaked.
‘If the rationale of the decision as released were to be sustained, a whole range of rights are in question. A whole range of rights,’ he said at the time.
‘And the idea [that] we’re letting the states make those decisions, localities make those decisions, would be a fundamental shift in what we’ve done.’
Democrats have repeatedly called for Thomas to step down from the court as the extent of his wife’s involvement in the effort to overturn the 2020 election result have emerged.
The House January 6 committee has reportedly obtained emails between Ginni Thomas as John Eastman, who devised a plan for Vice President Mike Pence to prevent the certification of Biden’s 2020 victory.
It suggests Thomas’ involvement in the election plot was more extensive than previously known.
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) said it made her husband’s position untenable.
‘Public confidence in our nation’s highest court is at its lowest levels in generations,’ he said.
‘The American people rightly question whether rightwing jurists in our federal courts can adjudicate the law impartially.
‘Over the last few years, we have become numb to bad acts by powerful actors, but Clarence and Ginni Thomas have participated in one of the worst breaches of trust ever seen in our court system.’
Justice Thomas, he said, was not a ‘neutral actor’ but instead a ‘corrupt jurist.’
‘Clarence Thomas should have dignity and final respect for our democracy and resign.’