Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the city will continue working to support women from out of state who are seeking legal abortions and took aim at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for a concurring opinion in which he urged colleagues to overturn various cases, including the landmark ruling establishing same-sex marriage.
Lightfoot appeared on a CBS morning show Monday to talk about the court overturning Roe v. Wade and reiterated her administration’s plan to spend $500,000 on supporting travelers seeking abortions in the city from states where it’s illegal.
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“We shouldn’t be in this circumstance but this is a reality given what the Supreme Court did to American women on Friday,” Lightfoot said.
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The mayor also took aim at Thomas over the weekend, criticizing his dissent for questioning the Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage. Lightfoot has warned for months that the court may go after LGBTQ rights and was discussing Thomas’ dissent at a Pride event when someone in the audience shouted, “F—- Clarence Thomas.”
“F—- Clarence Thomas,” Lightfoot responded, drawing cheers from the crowd, according to a video on social media.
The comment is likely to be well received in Democratic Chicago but has received criticism from conservatives.
Thomas sided with the majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the decision that removed the 50-year-old constitutional protections for abortion. Though that ruling applies only to abortion, in a concurring opinion, Thomas wrote that other cases stemming from the Constitution’s due process clause should be reconsidered as well.
“Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous’ … we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents,” he wrote. He cited three specific cases: one that overturned a ban on contraception, one that decriminalized sex between same-sex couples and the 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage.
