Resource: Griswold v. Connecticut
Media Type:
QuickTime Video
Length: 2m 25s
Size: 6.5 MB
In 1965, it was illegal in the state of Connecticut to provide contraceptives or offer advice about them, even to married couples. This video follows the landmark Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut, when for the first time the Court tackled what was viewed as a “right to privacy” issue, ruling that Connecticut's ban on the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy.
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Transcript (Rich Text Format Document)
Loading reviews...Teachers' Domain, Griswold v. Connecticut, published August 19, 2009, retrieved on ,
http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/bf09.socst.us.const.griswold/
- Background Essay
- Questions for Discussion
- Standards
Print Background EssayThe actions of Estelle Griswold in the early 1960s helped establish court precedents that would lead to the legalization of contraception.
In 1961, Griswold, the executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, and Dr. C. Lee Buxton, a physician and professor at the Yale School of Medicine, opened a birth-control clinic in New Haven. Griswold and Buxton hoped to promote family planning and offer counseling services for women. The clinic also offered them the opportunity to publicly protest Connecticut’s ban on birth control. In violation of an 1879 law stating that "any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purposes of preventing conception shall be fined not less than forty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days," Griswold dispensed contraceptives to a married couple. Both Buxton and Griswold were promptly arrested. The partners were convicted and fined $100, but Griswold appealed her case, which eventually reached the Supreme Court in 1965.
The court, in a 7-2 decision written by Justice William O. Douglas, overturned the conviction, ruling that the Connecticut law violated the "right to marital privacy." Douglas found a "zone of privacy" created by several amendments to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing against governmental intrusion into the homes and lives of citizens. The majority decision found a general “right to privacy,” created by the First Amendment (free speech), Third Amendment (prohibition on the forced quartering of troops), Fourth Amendment (freedom from searches and seizures), Fifth Amendment (freedom from self-incrimination), and Ninth Amendment (other rights), as applied against the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.
This decision would serve as precedent in later cases. Over the next ten years, the Court expanded the "right to privacy" ruling by decreeing that the state could not ban the use of contraceptives by anyone in Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972) and that it could not ban most abortions in Roe v. Wade (1973).
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Source: The Supreme Court : "A Nation of Liberties"
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