Griswold v. Connecticut

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Not to be confused with Griswold, Connecticut .

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects the liberty of married couples to use contraceptives without government restriction.[1] The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception". The court held that the statute was unconstitutional, and that its effect was "to deny disadvantaged citizens ... access to medical assistance and up-to-date information in respect to proper methods of birth control." By a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy", establishing the basis for the right to privacy with respect to intimate practices. This and other cases view the right to privacy as "protected from governmental intrusion".[2]

Although the U.S. Bill of Rights does not explicitly mention "privacy", Justice William O. Douglas wrote for the majority, "Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship." Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote a concurring opinion to clarify that the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution shows the framers' view that there are fundamental rights beyond those enumerated in the Constitution. Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote a concurring opinion arguing that privacy is protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution , while Justice Byron White argued that Connecticut's law failed the rational basis standard.

Contents

• 1 Background

• 2 Supreme Court decision

  • 2.1 Opinion of the Court

  • 2.2 Concurrences

  • 2.3 Dissents

• 3 Precedent for later cases

  • 3.1 Right to birth control for unmarried couples, 1972

  • 3.2 Right to abortion for any woman, 1973

  • 3.3 Right to contraception for juveniles at least 16 years of age, 1977

  • 3.4 Right to privacy in private sexual activity, 2003

  • 3.5 Right to same-sex marriage, 2015

  • 3.6 Right to abortion overturned, 2022

• 4 See also

• 5 References

  • 5.1 Citations

  • 5.2 Works cited

• 6 Further reading

• 7 External links

Background

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Griswold_v._Connecticut&action=edit&section=1 "Edit section: Background")

Griswold v. Connecticut originated as a prosecution under the General Statutes of Connecticut. Connecticut law made it illegal to use "any drug, medicinal article, or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception". Violators could be "fined not less than fifty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned".[2]

In the late 19th and early 20th century, physicians in the United States largely avoided the publication of any material related to birth control, even when they often recommended or at least gave advice regarding it to their married patients. Then in 1914, Margaret Sanger openly challenged the public consensus against contraception.[3] She influenced the Connecticut Birth Control League (CBCL) and helped to develop the eventual concept of the Planned Parenthood clinics.[4]

The first Planned Parenthood clinic in Connecticut opened in 1935 in Hartford . It provided services to women who had no access to a gynecologist, including information about artificial contraception and other methods to plan the growth of their families. Several clinics were opened in Connecticut over the following years, including the Waterbury clinic that led to the legal dispute. In 1939, this clinic was compelled to enforce the 1879 anti-contraception law. This caught the attention of the CBCL leaders, who remarked on the importance of birth control for cases in which the lives of the patients depended upon it.[5]

During the 1940s, two cases arose from the provision of contraception by the Waterbury clinic, leading to legal challenges to the constitutionality of Connecticut statutes that banned the use of contraceptives, but these failed on technical grounds. In _Tileston v. Ullman _ (1943), a doctor and mother challenged the law on the grounds that a ban on contraception could, in certain sexual situations, threaten the lives and well-being of patients. The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the appeal on the grounds that the plaintiff lacked standing to sue on behalf of his patients. Yale School of Medicine gynecologist C. Lee Buxton and his patients brought a second challenge to the law in _Poe v. Ullman _ (1961). The Supreme Court again dismissed the appeal, on the grounds that the case was not _ripe _: the plaintiffs had not been charged or threatened with prosecution, so there was no actual controversy for the Court to resolve.

The polemic around Poe led to the appeal in Griswold v. Connecticut, primarily based on the dissent of Justice John Marshall Harlan II in Poe, one of the most cited dissents in Supreme Court history.[_citation needed
_]

[T]he full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This "liberty" is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints.

— Justice John Marshall Harlan II, dissent in Poe v. Ullman.[6]

He argued, foremost, that the Supreme Court should have heard the case rather than dismissing it. Thereafter, he indicated his support for a broad interpretation of the Due Process Clause. On the basis of this interpretation, Harlan concluded that the Connecticut statute violated the Constitution.

After Poe was handed down in June 1961, the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut (PPLC) decided to challenge the law again. Estelle Griswold served on the PPLC as executive director from 1954 to 1965.[7] Struggling through legal battles against birth control restrictions in Connecticut, Griswold and PPLC made an initial effort to financially support women who wanted contraceptives to bus to cities in New York and Rhode Island.[7] Griswold[8] and Dr. Buxton (PPLC medical volunteer),[9] opened a birth control clinic in New Haven, Connecticut ,[10] "thus directly challeng[ing] the state law".[[7]](https://en.wikipedia.org

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