At least according to a website selection (the accuracy of which I can't guarantee), Thomas responded to a Biden question about abortion and privacy by saying that "My view is that there is a right to privacy in the Fourteenth Amendment," and elaborating when pressed about abortion rights particularly that "The Supreme Court has made clear that the issue of marital privacy is protected." He reinforced that later in the exchange, noting "I think -- and I think the Supreme Court's rulings in the privacy area support -- that the notion of family is one of the most personal and most private relationships that we have in our country." Later, Thomas suggested to Leahy that "the approach that Justice Harlan took in Poe v. Ullman and reaffirmed again in Griswold in determining the right to privacy was the appropriate way to go," (though the context here was a discussion of the Ninth Amendment and why Thomas was critical of Goldberg) which Thomas later emphasized restrains judges by being "tethered to our history and tradition." He later endorsed Eisenstadt "on an equal protection basis."
In Lawrence, Thomas quotes Stewart in rejecting a "general right to privacy," (though admittedly, Stewart dissenting in Griswold when arguably "marital privacy" was at issue). Though he rhetorically creeps up on it, I don't think Thomas in Lawrence is at odds with Thomas in the Senate hearings. At the hearings, Biden talked a lot about a general right to privacy and its myriad implications for abortion rights and other issues; Thomas very distinctly did not, and Biden clearly wasn't very satisfied at the time and thought Thomas at best had a very cramped notion of constitutional privacy rights. I think the real test on this question would have to come in a different case. Keith Whittington Keith E. Whittington Associate Professor of Politics Director of the Undergraduate Program Corwin Hall Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08544 www.princeton.edu/~kewhitt
