Whoopi Goldberg sends a warning to Clarence Thomas on his marriage rights

‘You better hope that they don’t come for you, Clarence’

Whoopi Goldberg has warned US Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas about his interracial marriage and the cause and effect the court has set off with the decision to overturn Roe v Wade.

On Friday (24 June), the court ruled in favour of a Mississippi law that outlaws abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy while also overturning key precedents established by the 1973 decision in Roe.

“What’s next? Clarence Thomas is signaling they would like to get rid of contraception. Do you understand, sir? No, because you don’t have to use it,” Goldberg said on The View on Monday (27 June).

“We were not in the Constitution either. We were not even people. You better hope that they don’t come for you, Clarence, and say ‘you should not be married to your wife,’ who happens to be white. Because they will move back.

“And you better hope that nobody says, ‘You know, well, you’re not in the Constitution. You’re back to being a quarter of a person.’ Because that’s not going to work either.”

Justice Thomas was among the five justices who voted to overturn Roe. He is married to Ginni Thomas, an American attorney and conservative activist from Omaha, Nebraska.

Clarence Thomas with his wife Ginni Thomas (centre) (Getty Images)

In May, Thomas hit out at protesters enraged by a leaked decision that would overturn Roe, saying that the Supreme Court can’t be “bullied”.

Justice Thomas, a hardline conservative, had in May made a passing reference to the outcry and protests over the leaked draft during an appearance at the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference in Atlanta.

The 73-year-old said that as a society, “we are becoming addicted to wanting particular outcomes, not living with the outcomes we don’t like”, according to Reuters.

“We can’t be an institution that can be bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want. The events from earlier this week [in May, after protests sparked by the leaked draft] are a symptom of that,” he said.

In a question-and-answer session with a former law clerk, he referred to the “unfortunate events”, referring to the protests, and claimed he worried about the declining respect for institutions.

“It bodes ill for a free society,” he had said.