Although the United States Constitution does not specifically mention an individual’s right to privacy, most legal scholars agree that case law has consistently established that a basic right to privacy must exist in modern society. Privacy rights were established only by the courts and a representative government, not by the founding fathers and the underlying documents used to establish our republic.
In the early 1960s, a New Haven, Connecticut doctor—the executive director of the New Haven Planned Parenthood office—was arrested, tried, and fined US$100 for providing birth control counseling to married couples. On June 7, 1965, in its landmark Griswold v. Connecticut decision, the United States Supreme Court overturned the Connecticut statute that made it a crime to use—or counsel the use of—contraceptives.
The Supreme Court issued six different opinions. The majority of the Court deemed it unimaginable that the government could regulate the size of a family without violating the Constitution. The decision clearly affirms the right for couples to make decisions about contraception privately. The majority opinion, written by Justice William O. Douglas, argued that while the country’s founding documents were silent on the matter of an individual’s right to privacy, they emanated specific legal “penumbras” that established “zones of privacy.”
“We deal with a right to privacy older than the Bill of Rights,” wrote Justice Douglas in his opinion. He went on to note that many rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution are derived from certain Constitutional provisions. Specifically, freedom of association isn’t specifically mentioned in the Constitution, but has been protected as an extension of the Constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly.
Justice Hugo Black dissented from the majority opinion. “I like my privacy as well as the next one, but I am nevertheless compelled to admit that the government has a right to invade it unless prohibited by some specific constitutional provision,” wrote Justice Black in his opinion. Justice Potter Stewart was the other dissenting voice: “I can find no such general right of privacy in the Bill of Rights, in any other part of the Constitution, or in any case ever before decided by this Court.”
The other six Supreme Court justices agreed with Justice Douglas’s majority, but differed on underlying or originating guarantees for the right to privacy.
When the League of Women Voters studied the “choice” issue a few decades ago, enforcement emerged as one of the main concerns in its position supporting privacy and individual choice. The League makes a good point. If we start with the assumption that society has an anti-abortion statute in place, where and how does enforcement begin? Do we start with cameras in our hospital operating rooms (they already exist in some). In our physician’s offices? In our bedrooms?
Fortunately, the members of the League of Women Voters managed to see beyond the emotional hot-buttons of the day and look at the broader perspective.
