Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965
Birth control and the constitutional right to privacy: Americans value privacy as one of their most cherished rights, yet the word “privacy” is not even mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.
It took the Supreme Court’s ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) to grant constitutional protection upon this right. Estelle Griswold was the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Appellant Buxton was a licensed physician and a professor at the Yale Medical School who served as Medical Director. They gave information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. They examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use.
At the time, a Connecticut statue made it a crime for any person to use any drug or article to prevent conception. Appellants claimed that the statue was unconstitutional as applied violated the fourteenth amendment. The statue read as follows, "Any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception shall 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."
The appellants were found guilty as accessories and fined $100 each, against the claim that the accessory statute, as so applied, violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The question at stake was, "Does the Constitution protect the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on a couple's ability to be counseled in the use of contraceptives?"
The supreme court ruled that allthough the Constitution does not explicitly protect a general right to privacy, the various guarantees within the Bill of Rights creates zones that establish a right to privacy. Together, the First, Third, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments, create a new constitutional right, the right to privacy in marital relations. The Connecticut statute conflicts with the exercise of this right and is therefore null and void.
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