Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) Griswold v. Connecticut involved a statute adopted by the state of Connecticut in 1879 which made it illegal for any...

Question Answered step-by-step Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) Griswold v. Connecticut involved a statute adopted by the state of Connecticut in 1879 which made it illegal for any person to use, or assist in using, any “drug, medicinal article, or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception, “even among married couples. The prohibition followed a nationwide Victorian purity campaign led by Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), a politician and US Postal Inspector who persuaded Congress in 1873 to pass the Comstock Law. “Comstock laws, “as the nation knew them, made it illegal to deliver or transport both “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” material as well as any methods of, or information pertaining to, birth control. In 1965 the state of Connecticut was sued by two members of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, whose Executive Director, Estelle Griswold, had been convicted of providing contraceptive information, instruction, and medical advice to a married couple. Griswold’s conviction was affirmed by the state’s high court, but on appeal, the US Supreme Court reversed by a 7-to-2 margin. The majority determined that the statute and its Comstock basis were invalid mainly because they infringed on the constitutionally protected right to “privacy “of married persons. What made Griswold a landmark case was the Court’s willingness to explicitly invest unenumerated rights with full constitutional status. Thus, writing for five members, Justice William O. Douglas (1898-1980) referred to rights that are implicit in, or peripheral to, other express guarantees in the Bill of Rights. In his famous words, “specific guarantees…have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. “Just as the Court earlier had found that First Amendment rights to freedom of speech implied a peripheral “right to freedom of association, “Douglas reasoned, so too the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments imply “zones of privacy “that form the basis for the general privacy right affirmed in Griswold. Expanding on the status of the right of privacy, Justice Arthur Goldberg (1908-1990) said that it emanated “from the totality of the constitutional scheme under which we live.” Agreeing with the Majority, Goldberg wrote: The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure, and satisfaction of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions, and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alonethe most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men…. Adultery, homosexuality, and the like are sexual intimacies which the State forbids…, but the intimacy of husband and wife is necessarily an essential and accepted feature of the institution of marriage, an institution which the State not only must allow but which, always and in every age, it has fostered and protected. It is one thing when the State exerts its power either to forbid extra-marital sexuality…or to say who may marry, but it is quite another when, having acknowledged a marriage and the intimacies inherent in it, it undertakes to regulate by means of the criminal law the details of that intimacy. 56 While expressing disdain for the Connecticut law, the dissents by Justices Hugo Black (1886-1971) and Potter Stewart (1915-1985) denied that it infringed on any implied constitutional right. Indeed, they expressed concern that “[u]se of any such broad, unbounded judicial authority would make of this Court’s members a day-to-day constitutional convention.” Black warned of a “great unconstitutional shift of power to the courts which…will be bad for the courts and worse for the country.” Although still relatively unknown, Griswold v. Connecticut has had a profound impact on American laws and society, especially by establishing the conceptual and legal ground for Roe eight years hence, and for the intense discourse about legal abortion that continues to roil the country. Questions for AnalysisFor this work, you will first need to read the summary of the Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) case found on the bottom of page 180 and the top of page 181 of your textbook. After you have read the case discuss the following two questions:Since Griswold, the logic of privacy has been extended to protect many social relations, including women’s choices regarding abortion (Roe v. Wade, 1973), the sale of contraception to unmarried individuals Carey v. Population Services International, 1977), and relations among homosexuals (Lawrence v. Texas, 2003). Do you agree with these extensions of privacy? Would you extend privacy to all social relations, or would you limit its application?Should the government have to demonstrate why it is justified in interfering with your life rather than requiring you to demonstrate that the text of the Constitution specifically and narrowly prohibits the government’s actions?Textbook:Barry, Vincent. Cengage Advantage Books: Bioethics in a Cultural Context: Philosophy, Religion, History, Politics (p. 180- 181). Cengage Textbook. Health Science Science Nursing LB 326A Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)