Nancy Northup Op-Ed: “Personal Liberties” Beyond Abortion are Enshrined in Roe

The retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy raises serious concerns about the future of abortion access in light of President Trump’s promise to nominate Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade.

In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Center for Reproductive Rights President and CEO Nancy Northup discusses how the threat to Roe is about far more than the right to legal abortion, as overturning the 45-year-old legal precedent would undermine a host of essential personal-liberty rights.

“The constitutional framework of Roe is about far more than abortion. It’s about rearing our children without unwarranted government interference. It’s about choosing whom we want to marry. It’s about deciding with whom we want to create a home. It’s about the right to use contraception. It’s about what the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey explained is the ‘promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter.’

This guarantee of individual liberty is bound together through decades of accumulated legal precedent. Within the interconnected framework of our rights, Roe is a load-bearing element. Knock it down, and the structure falls.”

To learn more, read Nancy Northup’s op-ed in The Washington Post.