How deeply are LGBTQ civil liberties threatened by abortion cases now before the conservative-heavy U.S. Supreme Court? Federal courts journalist Lisa Keen told Out in the Bay a draft majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, leaked May 2, is “shocking” on many levels.

“The draft shows that the majority is planning to go to an extreme,” Keen said, in its anticipated ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health, the case over a Mississippi law severely limiting abortion.

She said especially alarming for LGBTQ people in the leaked draft is language saying courts should defer to state legislatures.

“If it becomes okay for states to say whether or not a woman must carry her pregnancy to term whether she wants to or not, whether it threatens her life or not,” said Keen, “it doesn’t seem at all far-fetched for the court to say it’s okay for states to regulate other very personal decisions concerning one’s bodily integrity … who you have sex with, whether you choose to have your uterus or breasts removed, whether you request transition surgery, or use PrEP or use a condom.”

Hear much more from Lisa Keen on this week’s Out in the Bay.

Lisa Keen is national politics and legal affairs correspondent for the Bay Area Reporter and many other LGBTQ publications nationwide. See her article on “the leak” and her other reporting at keennewsservice.com.

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The Executive Producer of Out In The Bay is Eric Jansen. This edition of Out in the Bay was produced by Eric Jansen and Christopher Beale, who hosted and engineered this episode.