Brief Fact Summary. A Connecticut statute prohibited the use of contraceptives both by married and unmarried persons. The statute also prohibited anyone from helping couples obtain contraceptives. Griswold provided information as to the means of preventing conception and was fined as an accessory under the statute.
Synopsis of Rule of Law. A law which seeks to achieve its goals by means having a destructive impact on a relationship lying within the zone of privacy may not be achieved by means that sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade that area of freedom.
Facts. A Connecticut statute prohibited the use of any drugs or other instruments designed to prevent conception. Appellants, Griswold and Buxton, gave medical advice to married persons on how to prevent conception and thereupon were convicted under the statute. Subsequently, Appellants challenged the constitutionality of the statute. The purpose of the statute was to discourage all forms of promiscuous or illicit sexual relationships.
Issue. Was the Connecticut statute constitutional?
Held. No. Reversed.
The rights governed by the Due Process clause are those related to privacy. It is really the right people have to make decisions about highly personal matters. These rights derive indirectly from several Bill of Rights guarantees, which collectively create a “penumbra” or “zone” of privacy. Here, the person’s interest in using birth control is fundamental and the state cannot impair that interest without satisfying strict scrutiny. Strict scrutiny says that if a state or federal regulation is impairing a fundamental right, the court strictly scrutinizes the regulation. The objective pursued by the state must be compelling, and the means chosen must be necessary (nothing that would be less restrictive is available).
Various guarantees create a right to privacy. They include: the First Amendment (with the implied right of association); the Third Amendment (prohibition against quartering of troops in peacetime without consent of the homeowner); the Fourth Amendment (with the implied rights associated with the express rights to be free in our persons, houses and effects from unreasonable searches and seizures); The Fifth Amendment (right against self-incrimination), and the Ninth Amendment which provides “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Among the rights to privacy is the right to intimacy in a marital relationship.
The law at issue here interferes with an intimate relation among a husband a wife and a physician in her role as to one aspect of a marital relationship. The State does not provide sufficient justification for doing so.
Strict scrutiny says that if a state or federal regulation is impairing a fundamental right, the court strictly scrutinizes the regulation. The objective pursued by the state must be compelling, and the means chosen must be necessary (nothing that would be less restrictive is available).
Dissent.
Justice Black: The government has the right to invade a person’s privacy, unless such an invasion is prohibited by some specific constitutional provision.
Justice Stewart: Justice Stewart could find no right of privacy in the Bill of Rights, in any other part of the United States Constitution, or in any case ever decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Concurrence.
Justice Harlan: The proper question in this case is whether the statute infringes on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, because the law violates basic values implicit in the idea of ordered liberty.
Justice White: Justice White could not see how the Connecticut statute in any way furthers its purpose of preventing illicit sexual relationships.
Discussion. The right to privacy is not explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution. This case reveals that such a right extends to activities relating to marriage. Later cases will further flesh out the right to privacy.