If Roe v. Wade is tossed it would mark the first time the Supreme Court overturned precedent 'to limit civil rights, not expand them,' expert says

According to a leaked draft opinion, the Supreme Court is likely to limit the rights of Americans in a number of ways.

It would be the first time in the history of the Constitution that precedent would be overturned to limit civil rights, not expand them, according to Neama Rahmani, the president of West Coast Trial Lawyers.

The court seems poised to overturn the landmark 1973 decision that gave the right to an abortion. The draft was written by Justice Samuel Alito, who was concerned that it could help set the stage for additional rights to be overturned.

Rahmani said in an email to Insider that the Supreme Court could erode Miranda rights, which require law enforcement to inform a criminal suspect of their right to remain silent.

The 1966 Miranda decision states that law enforcement must inform you of your rights.

The court overturned precedent to expand civil rights. The 1966 position held that law enforcement violated the rights of Ernesto Miranda by not telling him of his right to remain silent and request an attorney.

The Supreme Court has overturned itself in other cases.

The 1896 decision allowing segregation laws was overturned by the Brown v. Board of Education. Brown granted additional rights to Black Americans, including the right to attend schools that were previously limited to white students.

In 2015, Obergefell v. Hodges guaranteed the right for couples to marry regardless of their sex, as well as extending the right to marry to same-sex couples.

Doron Kalir, a professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, told Insider that instead of using the Constitution to expand rights to the citizens of this country, now the conservative right is starting to limit the rights of people in this country.

The Supreme Court currently has a 6-3 conservative majority with three justices nominated by Donald Trump who were against abortion.

According to Kalir, landmark decisions like Obergefell and Roe extended rights to those who wanted them, even if they were forced to get or perform an abortion or marry someone of the same sex.

The court may be open to limiting a whole host of rights that pertain to the right to privacy, as a result of the harsh language in the draft opinion.

Kalir said that in a post-Roe world, investigating criminalized abortion could involve police searching homes or internet data for evidence that a person performed or assisted in an abortion.

He said that this may be the beginning of horrible things to come.