Opinion – Clarence Thomas proves Roe v Wade impacts everyone

Sadly, Thomas’s comments are just the latest in a string of threats to LGBTQ+ rights across the States. In the past few years alone, a swathe of anti-trans legislation has fuelled anti-trans sentiment in the US mainstream.

Earlier this year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott instructed the state’s child protection agency to investigate parents of transgender children for child abuse, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ has issued two proposals that would prevent trans youth from accessing gender-affirming care.

Obergefell has stated he feels a responsibility to use his platform to raise awareness about these threats to queer rights. ‘Anything I can do to help people understand how fragile our rights are right now, I will do’.

The court’s decision to repeal abortion rights nationwide has also exacerbated the realities of US inequality.

Many have expressed concern that the ruling will disproportionately impact women of colour. On average, Black women have lower incomes, lack access to quality healthcare, and seek abortions at higher rates due to lower contraceptive access.

Due to racial disparities in healthcare and a medical industry systemically tailored for white bodies, the risks for pregnant Black women are also much higher than those for white women.

Data has shown that in the US, Black women are three times more likely ‘to die from a pregnancy-related cause’ than their White counterparts.

‘The court is on a devastating path,’ Laurence Tribe, Professor of Constitutional Law emeritus at Harvard, told TIME magazine. ‘[it] is likely to jeopardize literally all of the basic bodily integrity rights that people have come to rely on.’

Justice Clarence Thomas is neither the first nor last to throw the security of public rights into question. But the dismantling of Roe v Wade has already shown that marginalised communities will – as always – bear the brunt of this decision.

Obergefell suggests the solution – perhaps the only one we have at our disposal – is to use our voices. ‘Let people know that when any right is taken away by the Supreme Court, that puts all rights at risk’.

Never has it been more pertinent to speak up for the rights of others. For men to protest alongside the women who have lost their bodily autonomy. For straight people to support queer people facing legislative oppression. For the White population to grasp – with all their strength – to the civil rights that exist for Black America, and to fight for those that don’t.

The protection of individual liberty is a battle we can only fight together, one that spans beyond the US border and impacts the lives of each of us globally. And it is a battle we will all lose if we become complacent in our own fragile stability.