WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
WHEN THE SUPREME COURT overturned Roe v. Wade,Kelley Robinson was running the political shop at Planned Parenthood. Like many abortion-rights advocates, she’d seen the moment looming. Still, it felt like a personal and professional thwacking.
“Up until Roewas overturned—even after the leak that they planned to overturn Roecame out—we polled folks across the country and they still did not believe it was true,” she says. “They just would not believe that the Supreme Court in our lifetime would actually overturn such a fundamental right that had been the law of the land for over 40 years.”
Robinson is now president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, and she fears she’s watching the same slow-moving car crash all over again. Before 2015, marriage rights varied by state. With Obergefell v. Hodges,the court extended the federal right to marry to same-sex couples. It was a reflection of how views of same-sex relationships had shifted, and would continue to. But while polls have moved one way, the composition of the court has shifted in the other. If Roecould fall after 49 years, there’s no reason to think Obergefellis safer after less than a decade in effect.
The legal breadcrumbs are not difficult to find. Justice Samuel Alito in particular has been sprinkling swipes at Obergefellin concurrences and dissents since 2020. And then there are the smattering of cases—mostly to do with trans rights—worki
