Griswold V. Connecticut: A Case Study

The right to privacy is a complex issue due to its lack of definition in the Constitution. There is no direct Amendment that spells out what privacy is to be expected. The most important case for setting the standards of privacy Griswold v. Connecticut explored this problem. In this case Justice Douglass listed the origins of the right to privacy from coming from the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Ninth Amendments and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Douglass stated “ The Ninth Amendment obviously does not create federally enforced rights … but a catalogue of these customary, traditional, and time honored rights, amenities, privileges and immunities… Many of them in my view come within the meaning of the term ‘liberty’ as used in the Fourteenth Amendment.” (1314) The Ninth Amendment sates that the list of rights in the Constitution is not all of the rights that are held by the people. This was created because there was a fear by Madison and Jefferson that the Bill of Rights would be used to constrain the liberty and privacy of …show more content…
This has been used in conjunction with the penumbras of the Bill of Rights. This is one of the basis of the decision in Roe v. Wade, Griswold v. Connecticut, Moore v. City of East Cleveland and Lawrence v. Texas. In Moore v. City of East Cleveland Justice Powell stated “This court has long recognized the freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” (1375) Justice Kennedy in the Lawrence v. Texas case ruled against Texas citing previous cases such as Griswold v. Connecticut which protected a right to privacy. He also used Eisenstadt v. Baird which used the Fourteenth Amendments Equal Protection Clause which prohibited laws that impaired the exercise of personal