Whoopi Goldberg to Clarence Thomas: 'You Better Hope They Don't Come for You Next!'

When The View announced their trip to the Bahamas to celebrate their 25th season, they didn't know that the Supreme Court would be handing down its decision to strike down Roe vs. Wade just days prior (although any legal expert could tell you the decision was probably going to be happening in late June, so maybe they should have known).

And so it was that the ladies of The View were left to deliver their impassioned reactions to the SCOTUS ruling in set against the otherwise festive backdrop of a beautiful Bahamanian Monday morning,

Most fired up, perhaps predictably, was Whoopi Goldberg, who fired back at the notion that the six Justices who voted to overturn Roe could dictate to people how to make their own family decisions.

"Everybody doesn't agree," Whoopi said, "but we can all agree on one thing: you and your family have the right to decide what works for you and what works for your family. That you can decide. You can decide no I will never have an abortion because that's what the law allows, it says i don't have to do that. But if you find that you need one or you find that you have to do this, or there's incest — think of all the horrible things that would cause you to make this horrific decision that no one makes with a smile on their face. Nobody. That's what this is about; that's what we're talking about. This isn't 'You have to.' This is about you have the right to make the decision."

Whoopi also turned her anger and frustration to female politicians — like Arkansas gubernatorial candidate Sarah Huckabee Sanders — who oppose abortion and have championed the SCOTUS ruling as a victory for women.

"The idea that any of these female governors who are sitting there talking about they want to be a voice for the silent? Be a voice for the present! Be a voice for the ones you can also see and stop saying to people that this is a win for all women because it's not."

But Goldberg saved her most vehement ire for Clarence Thomas, who as part of the ruling wrote an opinion that urged the court to revisit cases like Griswold v. Connecticut (which allowed access contraceptives), Lawrence v. Texas (which struck down anti-sodomy laws), and Obergefell v. Hodges (which legalised gay marriage).

Reminding the 74-year-old Thomas that his Constitutional originalism could be a slippery slope, Whoopi said, "What's next? As Clarence Thomas is signaling, they would like to get rid of contraception, Do you understand, sir? No, because you don't have to use it!"

"We were not in the Constitution either," she continued."We were not even people in the Constitution. And you better hope that they don't come for you, Clarence, and say you should not be married to your wife, who happens to be white. Because they will move back. And you better hope that nobody says 'You're not in the Constitution, you're back to being a quarter of a person.' Because that's not gonna work either."

SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS ROE V. WADE: #TheView co-hosts react to the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe V. Wade, the fundamental right to abortion that has been the law for almost 50 years. https://t.co/koAvYiPacC pic.twitter.com/rsLJVuOoAF

— The View (@TheView) June 27, 2022

Sara Haines directed some of her anger and frustration at the Roe decision to the Democrats for failing to enshrine the right to abortion in federal law back when they had the chance. "I think there was a little bit of comfortable, status quo, nothing could happen here," she said.

"You go back to 1993 when the Freedom of Choice Act came through, Democrats had a supermajority, they could've pushed this through. They kinda sat back and said 'this wasn't enough' here, it wasn't enough there, and they got nothing done. Then it came back up during Obama's administration and nothing was done. The reason they needed to codify this is everyone knew from the minute of Roe v. Wade [that] it wasn't safe because of the way it was decided. That's why it became the number one question in every Supreme Court justice nomination hearing. This was the issue. All that time, people did not secure this by codifying this and making it a priority."

The ladies of The View seem determined to have their fun in the sun — Sunny and Sara went to a water park! — but expect the long shadow of the Supreme Court's decision to continue to dominate Hot Topics for weeks to come.

Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.