Ginni Thomas, the wife of conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is closely linked to a majority of the anti-abortion groups that lobbied her husband and his colleagues to take away a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.
According to an analysis of written legal arguments conducted by a nonpartisan public interest group and published by The Guardian, 51% of the amicus briefs supporting a decision to overturn Roe v. Wade were produced by right wing groups, religious interests, prominent conservative individuals and lawyers with links to Ginni Thomas.
“The Thomases are normalizing the prospect of too close an association between the supreme court and those who litigate before it,” Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University said. “This isn’t the first time that Mrs Thomas has had dealings with those who come before the court and seek her husband’s vote.”
The analysis found that Thomas is listed as a board director of the lobbying arm of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a secret Christian conservative group made up of a “few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country” according to the New York Times.
Several people who filed an amicus brief advocating for the overturn of Roe are affiliated with CNP, including former Trump impeachment lawyer Jay Sekulow, the president of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins and the chair of Heartbeat International, Margaret Hartshorn.
Leonard Leo, the founder of the Federalist Society, sits on the board of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which filed an amicus brief, The Guardian noted. Leo is also a member of the CNP.
The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June and Justice Thomas voted with the majority.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Thomas argued that the court “should reconsider” its past rulings codifying rights to contraception access, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage.
Several of the groups with ties to Ginni Thomas who filed amicus briefs to support overturning Roe have an anti-LGBTQ record.
For example, Tim LaHaye, the founder of CNP is a homophobe who wrote in his 1978 book that “Homosexuality is a blight on humanity” and that many parents would rather their child die than “adopt the unhappy wretchedness of homosexuality.”
