Chicago mayor curses out Clarence Thomas at Pride parade

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) over the weekend took the stage at the city’s annual Pride in the Park event to lash out at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for his opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion.

“We know what happened yesterday,” Lightfoot, Chicago’s first openly gay mayor, said on Saturday. 

“F— Clarence Thomas!” she shouted, receiving applause and cheers from the crowd gathered in Grant Park. “He thinks that we are going to stand idly by while they take our rights, our right to marry, our right to have children.”

In his opinion, Thomas called for the court to revisit rulings on cases that had affirmed the right to privacy, including access to contraceptives and LGBTQ rights.

Saturday wasn’t the first time Lightfoot spoke out against the nation’s highest court. After a leaked draft opinion in May, she tweeted a warning and call to action to the LGBTQ community. 

“To my friends in the LGBTQ+ community—the Supreme Court is coming for us next,” she said. “This moment has to be a call to arms.” 

Lightfoot spoke to CBS News on Monday to remind Americans that abortion remains legal in Illinois. Because of that, she added, she is “certainly” worried about the Windy City seeing an influx of patients seeking the procedure.

“I’m worried about it for the women who are now going to be forced to travel from their home state to … cities like Chicago to get the kind of reproductive care that they should have as a right in their home state,” she said. “We’ve already seen a surge in the number of people coming after the court upheld the terrible Texas law, and I think that that surge is only going to increase in the coming months and years.”

In May, Planned Parenthood of Illinois told the Chicago Sun-Times that the organization is anticipating serving up to 20 times the current number of out-of-state abortion patients.

Lightfoot called for providing additional services for travel, lodging and aftercare for patients coming to Illinois for an abortion. 

“We shouldn’t be in this circumstance, but this is the reality given what the Supreme Court did to American women on Friday,” she said.