Ds are involved in planned parenthood. The give information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception.
CT statute says that any person who uses any drug for the purpose of preventing conception is guilty; also, any person who assists may be guilty as well. Ds were convicted as accessories.
Procedural History
Trial court found Ds guilty.
SCOTUS reversed, found law unconstitutional.
Issues
Is the right to use contraception a fundamental right?
Holding/Rule
The right to use contraception is a fundamental right.
Reasoning
SCOTUS does not sit as a super-legislature to determine the wisdom, need, and propriety of laws that touch economic problems, business affairs, or social condition. This law, however, operates directly on an intimate relation of husband and wife and their physician's role in that relation.
The Constitution contains an implied right to privacy. Can be seen from…
1st amendment - state may not contract the spectrum of available knowledge.
3rd amendment - not required to quarter soldiers in the home.
4th amendment - right against illegal search and seizure.
5th amendment - self-incrimination clause establishes right to privacy.
The relationship here falls within the bound of privacy created by the Constitution.
Such a law cannot stand; a governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms.
We would not allow police to search bedrooms for evidence of contraceptive use.
Dissent
Goldberg (concurring)
The right to marital privacy though not mentioned explicitly in the Constitution is supported both by numerous decisions of the Court and by the language and history of the 9th amendment.
"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
To hold that a right so basic and fundamental and so deep-rooted in our society as the right of privacy in marriage may be infringed because the right is not guaranteed explicitly in the first 8 amendments is to ignore the 9th amendment and give it no effect.
In determining what rights are fundamental, courts must look to the traditions and collective conscience of our people to determine whether a principle is so rooted there as to be ranked as fundamental.
The right of privacy is a fundamental personal right.
If a law outlawing voluntary birth control by married persons is valid, then a law requiring compulsory birth control also would seem to be valid.
Both of these laws would unjustifiably intrude upon rights of marital privacy which are constitutionally protected.
The stated state interest is in discouraging of extra-marital relations.
This is a valid state interest.
However, it could be served by a more discriminately tailored statute.
In fact, CT does have a statute which prohibit adultery and fornication; these statutes are valid and help the state to achieve its purpose.
Harlan (concurring)
The proper inquiry in this case is whether this statute infringes the DPC because it violates basic values implicit in the concept of liberty.
White (concurring)
I fail to see how the ban on use of contraceptives by married couples in any way reinforces the state's ban on illicit sexual relationships.
The sale of contraceptive devices is valid to prevent spread of disease.
Black
The Court talks about a Constitutional right to privacy as if there was a provision granting such a right. There is not.
Privacy is great, but the gov't has a right to invade it unless prohibited by some specific constitutional provision.
It is impossible to pick out fundamental rights using the reasoning employed by the Court.
The scientific miracles of this ages have not yet produced a gadget which the Court can use to determine what traditions are rooted in the collective conscience of our people.
The framers did not intend to vest such awesome veto power over lawmaking in the Court.
Use of such broad, unbounded judicial authority would make the Court into an everyday Constitutional Convention.
The framers knew that the Constitutional would need to be changed with the times; there is a mechanism for that -- the amendment process.
Stewart
It is our duty to subordinate our own personal views about what legislation is wise and what is not.
It is the job of the people of CT, not for this Court, to get the law repealed through appeals to the legislature.
Notes
Married couples' right to contraception is a fundamental right.
