Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)

"If a law outlawing voluntary birth control
is valid, then, by the same reasoning, a law requiring
compulsory birth control also would seem to be valid."

Estelle Griswold & Cornelia Jahncke, Planned Parenthood League, Connecticut

New Haven, Connecticut, 1961. Estelle Griswold and Dr. Jack Buxton, are convicted of violating the state's birth control law. Both work for Planned Parenthood. Their crime: giving medical advice and prescribing contraceptives to married couples that ask for them.

They appeal. In 1965, Justice William Douglas writes the Supreme Court's decision: "While it may shock some of my Brethren that the Court today holds that the Constitution protects the right of marital privacy, in my view it is far more shocking to believe that the personal liberty guaranteed by the Constitution does not include protection against such totalitarian limitation of family size, which is at complete variance with our constitutional concepts. Yet, if upon a showing of a slender basis of rationality, a law outlawing voluntary birth control by married persons is valid, then, by the same reasoning, a law requiring compulsory birth control also would seem to be valid. In my view, however, both types of law would unjustifiably intrude upon rights of marital privacy which are constitutionally protected.

The federal constitution has no explicit right to privacy. But Justice Douglas refers to "zones of privacy" built on other guarantees: due process of law; freedom of association; no unreasonable search and seizure. "We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights -- older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions."

For more...

The Impact of Legal Birth Control and the Challenges that Remain

American Life League's: Pro-Life Activists

AMENDMENT 4 Protection Against Unreasonable Searches and Seizures

Passed by Congress September 25, 1789. Ratified December 15, 1791.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. [^].

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