Lindsey Graham said Alito's abortion opinion was correct for distinguishing Roe from same-sex marriage and contraception rulings

• Justice Alito made a distinction between abortion rights and other rulings in his opinion overturning Roe.
• In a concurring opinion, Justice Thomas said the court should review same-sex marriage and contraception cases.

Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said Sunday that Justice Samuel Alito, unlike Justice Clarence Thomas, was correct for saying same-sex marriage and contraception would not be affected by the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

In his concurring opinion on the ruling, Thomas wrote "we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents" for cases regarding contraceptive access, same-sex relationships, and same-sex marriage.

Graham was asked about Thomas' opinion and whether or not it would affect moderate voters.

"I really respect Clarence Thomas.... but Alito, I think set the right tone," Graham said on "Fox News Sunday."

"He said nothing in this decision puts those cases at risk," Graham said. "The reason he decided that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided is because it deals with the potential for life."

Alito wrote that Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey dealt with the "critical moral question" of the "life of an 'unborn human being,'" which distinguished it from rulings on same sex-marriage, same-sex relationships and contraceptives.

However, in 2020 he rebuked the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized same-sex marriage in a joint statement with Thomas, saying it was a "novel constitutional right" that had "ruinous consequences for religious liberty."

Critics have said that the decision to overturn Roe could put enumerated rights, or rights not explicitly mentioned in the constitution, at risk of being rolled back.

Earlier in the interview, Graham called the decision to overturn Roe a " huge victory for the pro-life movement."