US Constitutional Law: Right to Privacy

Privacy Rights of United States Citizens

What exactly is the right to privacy? Does the constitution expressly state that United States citizens have a right to privacy? Do non-citizens or convicted felons also have this right to privacy? How has the law developed in this area of civil rights? Did the supreme court simply create a right to privacy as an activist court or is it a right that the founders intented to exist in the bill of rights?

 

The court first found the right to privacy in Griswald v. Connecticut. The court held that the constitution has penumbras under the first, third, fourth, fifth, ninth and fourteenth amendments to the constitution.

 

Griswald v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965).

 

The United States Supreme Court in an opinion written by Justice Douglas, held that a Connecticut law forbidding use of contraceptives unconstitutionally intrudes upon the right of marital privacy. The landmark case established a right of privacy under the constitution. The courts holdings included:

 

The First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion.

 

The right of “association,” like the right of “belief,” is more than the right to attend a meeting; it includes the right to express one's attitudes or philosophies by membership in a group or by affiliation with it or by other lawful means; association in that context is a form of expression of opinion; and while it is not expressly included in the First Amendment its existence is necessary in making express guarantees fully meaningful.

 

Specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras; one of these penumbras is privacy. United States.Constitutional Amendments. 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 14.

 

Concurring opinions dealt with due process and liberty, with dissenting opinions.

 

The holding was and is controversial to this day.

 

Post Griswald:

 

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

 

In 1971 Roe v. Wade established a womans right to an abortion. The right was found under the precedent established in the Griswald holding regarding the right to privacy. The United States Supreme Court in an opinion written by Justice Blackmun, held that Texas criminal abortion statutes prohibiting abortions at any stage of pregnancy, except to save the life of the mother are unconstitutional; That prior to approximately the end of the first trimester the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician, subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester the state may regulate abortion procedure in ways reasonably related to maternal health, and at the stage subsequent to viability the state may regulate and even proscribe abortion except where necessary in appropriate medical judgment for preservation of life or health of mother.

 

Casey v. Planned Parenthood, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).

 

The Supreme Court, Justices O'Connor, Kennedy and Souter held that: (1) the doctrine of stare decisis requires reaffirmance of Roe v. Wade's essential holding recognizing a woman's right to choose an abortion before fetal viability; (2) the undue burden test, rather than the trimester framework, should be used in evaluating abortion restrictions before viability; (3) the medical emergency definition in the Pennsylvania statute was sufficiently broad that it did not impose an undue burden; (4) the informed consent requirements, the 24-hour waiting period, parental consent provision, and the reporting and recordkeeping requirements of the Pennsylvania statute did not impose an undue burden; and (5) the spousal notification provision imposed an undue burden and was invalid.

 

Undue Burden tests (O'Connor) The state is free to regulate abortions so long as they do not create an undue burden on the woman's right to choose.

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Bill of Rights Constitutional Law long term implications (US case law & Precedent).