By: Mark Glennon*
You probably recall the panicked warnings from many critics of last year’s Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, particularly Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Dobbs, they claimed, didn’t just end the federal constitutional right to abortion. It marked the beginning of the end of rights to privacy, bodily autonomy and more, they said, so freedoms on things like contraceptives, interracial marriage, same-sex marriage were all on the chopping block.
In truth, only one justice, Clarence Thomas, writing in a separate opinion, wrote that the Court should consider chucking the broader foundation that underpinned the earlier abortion right, as well as rights to privacy and bodily autonomy.
Lightfoot therefore didn’t hold back on Thomas. “F— Clarence Thomas,” she said.
And she said this to CBS:
This isn’t just a decision about abortion. It’s not and it’s never been just about the sanctity of life, or even children. It’s a much bigger and frankly scarier reality than that, and instead part of a long, demented game that a certain faction in our country has been playing, to stop at nothing to access power and dominion over other people, especially women and people of color.
But now it’s Lightfoot’s Chicago that is urging that broader assault on those underlying rights.
In the city’s federal litigation over mandatory Covid vaccines, workers who objected base their case, in part, on violation of those underlying constitutional rights — a substantive due process right to bodily autonomy. A forced jab, in other words, violated their right to bodily autonomy.
But the city is arguing that right is now entirely gone — that the Dobbs decision should be interpreted to have “conclusively foreclosed” bodily autonomy rights. Its brief filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois includes this:
In addition, Plaintiffs’ prior argument that the Vaccination Policy infringed on a substantive due process right to “bodily autonomy” … has now been conclusively foreclosed by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., so the legal basis upon which their substantive due process claims depended is even less sound. Accordingly, Plaintiffs’ 14th Amendment claims should be dismissed with prejudice. [Emphasis added.]
That’s going further than even Justice Thomas went in his Dobbs opinion. Thomas wrote that the court should reconsider the whole concept of substantive due process rights, acknowledging that the majority didn’t do that.
But the city is asking the court to say the Dobbs decision already did that. And Thomas left the door open to maintaining rights like privacy and bodily autonomy based on other theories, which the city apparently rejects.
Aside from contradicting Lightfoot’s position on where the law should go on this matter, the city’s interpretation of Dobbs is simply wrong. The majority Dobbs opinion is said to be unique in how much it devoted to explaining what it is not about, as opposed to what it is about. It says repeatedly and emphatically that it’s limited to abortion only.
Further background on the city’s brief and the litigation over its vax mandate is here, from the Cook County Record.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Illinois lost another 54,000 tax filers and dependents, net, according to the IRS. Since 2000, fleeing taxpayers have taken $94 billion of annual adjusted gross income with them.
Is Lori a possible product of Illinois schools where reading ability is zilch these days or does she just acting like she is?
I think she’s a product of the Ohio school system.
The Dobbs case was an SJC ruling, not written into the Constitution.
Chicago’s argument over what Dobbs means is a triumph of constitutional illiteracy
I think Clarence Thomas is a pretty sharp cookie, I wouldn’t argue with him over the law or a constitutional issue (or lack of).
Lightfoot doesn’t read or think—she opines!
It’s going to be 47 degrees in Chicago today (Feb 15). Where I live in Tennessee, it’s going to be 74 degrees. Life is better when you feel the warmth of the sun, you feel safe, your children are learning, your taxes are low, and the local/state government doesn’t overreach into your life. All you need to do is aim your car south and drive about 8 hours.
Lightfoot looks like Justice Thomas’s last bowel movement
Hmm, Lori giving Thomas legal advice…..
That’s funny!!