President Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court does not bode well for the future of sexual life in America. It has been widely reported that Kavanaugh, as a federal judge, sought to prevent a 17-year-old unauthorized immigrant from receiving an abortion, but was overruled by other jurists on the D.C. Court of Appeals.
Much of the current debate about Kavanaugh – and the previous appointee, Neil Gorsuch – focuses on the Court’s likely reversal (if not significant weakening) of the landmark 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade. The decision granted each woman the right to personal privacy, to decide the outcome of her pregnancy.
Over the last-half century, many of the Court’s most consequential decisions have involved the sex life of Americans. Abortion is but one. Gay rights and marriage, youth sex education and contraceptive use, and rights of transgender people are three others. Still others involve prostitution and sex trafficking, public media obscenity and zoning restrictions of commercial sex businesses (e.g., sex-toy outlets, “gentlemen’s” clubs). And then there’s the Internet, facilitating any and every conceivable sexual indulgence. Cumulatively, these decisions have helped profoundly transform the nation’s sexual culture.
Personal privacy is at the heart of the debate over Roe as well as many of the other…