Washington — Justice Amy Coney Barrett mentioned that the Supreme Court docket “shouldn’t be imposing its personal values on the American individuals,” because the excessive courtroom faces a longshot bid to revisit its decade-old landmark ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.
In her first tv interview since becoming a member of the Supreme Court docket in October 2020, Barrett informed CBS Information senior correspondent Norah O’Donnell that she desires People to “perceive the regulation,” which she mentioned is “not simply an opinion ballot” based mostly on the views of the courtroom’s 9 justices.
“, what the courtroom is attempting to do is see what the American individuals have determined. And generally the American individuals have expressed themselves within the Structure itself, which is our basic regulation. Typically in statutes,” she mentioned. “However the courtroom shouldn’t be imposing its personal values on the American individuals. That is for the democratic course of.”
Barrett spoke with O’Donnell forward of the discharge of her ebook, “Listening to the Regulation: Reflections on the Court docket and Structure,” which hits cabinets Sept. 9. At 53, she is the youngest member of the Supreme Court docket and will serve for many years. Barrett was appointed to the excessive courtroom by President Trump throughout his first time period, filling the seat held by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg till her loss of life in September 2020, simply weeks earlier than the presidential election.
Months after Barrett was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as a justice, the Supreme Court docket agreed to resolve whether or not to reverse Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 determination that established the constitutional proper to an abortion. The Supreme Court docket in the end overturned that ruling in June 2022, leaving selections about abortion entry to the states. Since then, greater than 20 states have restricted entry to the process.
Barrett was within the five-justice majority that voted to overturn Roe, and the choice raised considerations from critics that different precedents grounded within the 14th Modification’s Due Course of Clause — particularly these legalizing same-sex marriage and establishing the proper to contraception — can be liable to falling subsequent.
Bolstering these fears was a concurring opinion authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, which no different justice joined, wherein he mentioned the Supreme Court docket ought to rethink these selections.
However Justice Brett Kavanaugh additionally addressed precedents involving contraception and homosexual marriage in his personal solo concurring opinion, writing that “overruling Roe doesn’t imply the overruling of these precedents, and doesn’t threaten or forged doubt on these precedents.”
Barrett wrote in her ebook “the courtroom has held that the rights to marry, interact in sexual intimacy, use contraception, and lift kids are basic, however the rights to do enterprise, commit suicide, and acquire abortion usually are not.”
The Supreme Court docket has been requested to overturn its 2015 ruling that acknowledged the constitutional proper to same-sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges, in a case introduced by Kim Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky who stopped issuing marriage licenses on the heels of that call 10 years in the past.
Davis’s attraction faces lengthy odds on the courtroom. Whether or not to overturn Obergefell is one in all three questions raised by Davis in her petition, and it is unclear whether or not there are 4 votes to rethink the choice and 5 to overturn it.
Nonetheless, some Democrats have prompt that the Supreme Court docket, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, may dismantle the constitutional proper to same-sex marriage.
“My prediction is they may do to homosexual marriage what they did to abortion — they may ship it again to the states,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mentioned throughout a podcast interview with Jessica Tarlov, a co-host on Fox Information’ “The 5.”
Barrett, although, rebuffed Clinton’s prediction.
“I believe individuals who criticize the courtroom or who’re exterior say plenty of various things. However once more, the purpose that I make within the ebook is that we’ve to tune these issues out,” she mentioned.
Watch extra of O’Donnell’s interview on “CBS Sunday Morning” at 9 a.m. Sunday on CBS or at 11 a.m. on CBS Information 24/7.
