Supreme Court Justice Alito talks landmark abortion ruling, suggests gay marriage won't be overturned

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Monday, October 05, 2026

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has reflected on the court’s 2022 landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization abortion ruling, calling it “the leading example” of a case that required courage from the justices. But he doesn't believe that the court will overturn the court's 2015 ruling making same-sex marriage a national right.

Alito spoke with CBS News’ Jan Crawford ahead of the release of his new book, So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, which is slated for publication Tuesday. In the interview, Alito discussed the country’s contentious political climate and some of the most consequential cases decided during his 20 years on the nation’s highest court.

Alito wrote the 2022 Dobbsdecision, which held that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion. He also discussed Politico’s publication of a leaked draft opinion in the case several weeks before the ruling’s official release.

“It was quite a shock,” he said. “Within a relatively short period of time, the thought occurred to me, and I think to the others in the majority that … this would endanger us and it made us targets for assassination.”

The assassination attempt against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who joined the Dobbs majority, also came up during the interview.

“According to the statement that the individual in question made to the police, as I remember, he said his goal was to kill at least one justice in the majority and preferably three and his goal was to change the decision in the case,” Alito recalled.

“Whoever leaked it had knew or had good reason to know that that would be the consequence of leaking it and Politico knew or should have known that that would be the consequence of their decision to publish it,” he added.

Despite the threats that followed the leak, Alito said he remained confident that the majority would not lose votes over concerns about the justices’ safety.

Alito said he did not regret writing the Dobbs decision “at all,” calling it “a privilege to be able to write it.”

“I don’t think I anticipated the particulars of … what it led to. I did anticipate that there would be strong opposition,” he added.

In a separate excerpt of the interview, Alito was asked whether he could think of examples of “a case that required particular courage.” He named Dobbs “the leading example,” adding, “I think that required courage by all of the justices in the majority.”

Alito also addressed another hot-button case from his tenure: Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision that held that the Constitution requires states to license and recognize same-sex marriages. Alito dissented in Obergefell. He said that, unlike Roe v. Wade, which Dobbs overturned, he does not expect the court to overrule Obergefell.

“I did not think that there was any realistic … prospect … that it would be overruled because of the passage of … time,” he said. “After Obergefell, people of the same sex got married and entered into legal contracts.”

Alito described Obergefell as “much more concrete” than Roe.

Concern that Obergefell could be overturned has lingered since Dobbs because of a concurring opinion Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the case. Thomas suggested that the justices should “reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents,” identifying the “doctrine of substantive due process” as the legal basis for Roe. Substantive due process is the legal theory that the 14th Amendment protects certain fundamental rights even though the Constitution does not spell them out.

At the same time, Thomas agreed with the majority that “[n]othing in [the court’s] opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion,” while stressing that the justices should examine “whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad rights that our substantive due process cases have generated.” Obergefell is one of those substantive due process cases.

Concerns about the impact of Dobbs on Obergefell prompted the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022. The law, signed by then-President Joe Biden, requires the federal government and the states to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other states. It does not require states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

More than a decade after Obergefell, some have called for the ruling to be overturned. Last year, Kim Davis, a former Kentucky clerk who drew national attention for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses because of her religious beliefs, filed a petition asking the justices to overturn the decision. The court declined to hear her case in November.

More recently, conservative activist Katy Faust told the crowd at the Pray Vote Stand Summit that “Obergefell is next” and argued that the decision should be reversed.