(WGHP) — On Friday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, ruling that access to abortion should be dictated on the state level.

In Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion released with the ruling, he writes in part that “we should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous.” Going on to say that the court has “a duty to correct the error established in those precedents.”

Each of these cases are big rulings that, if overturned, could have significant impacts on people’s lives if left up to states.

But what are they?

Birth control access

Griswold v. Connecticut

An old law in Connecticut banned the use of contraceptives, and while it was rarely enforced, it was still on the books. In 1965, a gynecologist joined up with the head of Planned Parenthood in Connecticut, Estelle Griswold, to open a birth control clinic in New Haven.

They were convicted of violating the 1879 law and their convictions were affirmed by the higher state courts. However, according to the Supreme Court website, this was part of their plan to use their clinic to challenge the statute, appealing to the Supreme Court on the grounds of the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees all citizens equal rights and protections under the law.

The ruling prevents states from making access to contraception illegal for married couples.

Consensual sex between people of the same sex

Lawrence v. Texas

Lawrence v. Texas is a 2003 ruling that dictated that a Texas law criminalizing consensual, sex between people of the same sex violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

The case springs from a dispute between three gay men in Texas. A man, upset that his boyfriend had been flirting with one of their friends, left the apartment and called the police on them. A deputy who responded to the apartment claimed the two men were having anal sex (though reports from the scene were inconsistent) and charged them with “deviant sex,” a state law in Texas at the time.

The two men pleaded no contest and were fined. The judge raised the fine to hit the minimal limit a penalty needed to meet in order to be constitutionally challenged.

The defense argued that the law violated the constitution because it treated homosexual and heterosexual couples differently, and asserted that the right to privacy means that law enforcement should not have the right to “invade” an individual’s bedroom.

Gay marriage

Obergefell v. Hodges

Obergefell v. Hodges is the 2015 case that ruled that states couldn’t make gay marriage illegal.

The primary holding of the case is “under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, all states must license a marriage between two people of the same sex and recognize such a marriage if it was lawfully licensed and performed in another state.”

The case sprang from the state making same-sex marriage illegal, and refusing to recognize the legality of marriages performed in other states. John Arthur was suffering from a terminal illness and sought to have the Ohio Registrate recognize his husband, James Obergefell, as his surviving spouse on his death certificate so that they could receive end-of-life benefits due to a spouse. They had been married in Maryland two years earlier.

The Attorney General’s Office mobilized to defend the ban when the registrar planned to certify the death certificate, and the case went to the supreme court, along with multiple other cases being argued at the same time due to same-sex marriage bans in Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan and Kentucky.

If overturned, people’s access to contraception could be challenged, people’s marriages could be invalidated and people’s right to have private, consensual sexual relationships could be called into question. These laws being turned over to the states could significantly impact the country at least, especially the LGBTQ community, which is facing unprecedented legislation and backlash across the country.