Jeffrey Toobin is CNN's Chief Legal Analyst and Author of "The Nine" and "The Oath." The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. See moreOpinionson CNN.
(CNN)"Believe them when people show you who they are."
Poet's Maya Angelou told Opla over 20 years ago, which has become a frequently repeated quote. But that also applies to judges in the Supreme Court.
When Trump ran for president, he went to court centrality, and to the American conservative movement in the Roe v. Wade case. I understood the overthrow. He promised to appoint a judge to vote to overthrow Rho and appeared with Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. In addition to these three, Thomas and Samuel Alito, who are also long-time opponents of abortion rights, gave Thomas the five votes needed to overthrow Law.
Of course, the question is. A majority for anything else. What else are the five Dobbs majority going to do? Arito's opinion is a broad attack on "countless" rights, the notion of rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. And here, Thomas has a point. When extending the logic of Arito's opinion in Dobbs, it makes perfect sense for the court to support contraception, consensual sex, and restrictions on same-sex marriage.
As Arito writes for the majority, "the Constitution does not mention abortion." (He has stated this point at least three times.) In light of this silence about abortion, Arito argues that the court does not have the right to grant the right to abortion. Indeed, in one of the many derogatory references to Rho's opinion, Arito said that Rho said, "The right to abortion not mentioned in the Constitution is part of the right to privacy, which is also not mentioned. ".
Therefore, it means that there is no right to abortion and no right to privacy. Like Roe, the court's decision in Griswold (contraceptive case) and Lawrence (agreeed sexual case) is clearly based on the constitutional right to privacy-this suggests that Dobbs does not exist. increase. (Obergefell is not directly based on right to privacy, but marriage is not mentioned in the Constitution and is not worthy of court protection by Alito's standards.)
Therefore, by this logic , Thomas says those cases should also be overturned. In Dobbs, Arito has some length to say that the decision applies only to abortion and not to other subjects. But more candid Thomas shows that other precedents should fall.
These careful analyzes aren't just for lawyer games. Law evolves with these leap of logic and reasoning. Thomas knows this, and so does his three opponents in this case, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. This trio knows that the court has new goals in its horizons, as Thomas knows. "No one should be convinced that this majority ends up in the job," the opposition wrote. On the contrary, courts have linked it for decades with other resolved freedoms, including physical integrity, family relationships, and reproduction. Most clearly, the right to abortion comes directly from the right to buy and use contraceptives.
Thomas has always worked with great candidness. He will tell you where the court is heading. If the judge is on the bench, we should take Angelou's advice and believe his words.