Case brief summary
A law that bans something cannot be so broad that it invades a protected zone of personal privacy, especially within marriage, even though the word 'privacy' never appears in the Constitution itself.
Facts
Clinic staff gave married couples birth control advice and prescriptions. Connecticut law made using contraceptives a crime, and helping someone else use them was also illegal.
Procedural history
The clinic workers were convicted as accessories for helping married couples violate the contraception law. Connecticut's intermediate appeals court and its highest state court both upheld the convictions, after which the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Issue
Does a state law banning the use of contraceptives by married couples violate rights protected by the U.S. Constitution, and do the clinic workers have the right to raise their patients' constitutional claims on their behalf?
Holding
The clinic workers had the right to raise their patients' claims, and the Connecticut law was unconstitutional because it violated a right to marital privacy implied by several parts of the Bill of Rights.
Reasoning
The Court said several constitutional rights together create a hidden right to privacy. Marriage is protected within that privacy, so banning contraceptive use intrudes too far into private life.
Opinions
Majority (Douglas): The Bill of Rights creates zones of privacy through penumbras, or implied protections, around specific rights, and marital privacy falls within this protected zone.
Concurrences (Goldberg joined by Warren and Brennan; Harlan; White): Goldberg relied on the Ninth Amendment to support unenumerated fundamental rights, while Harlan and White argued the law violated due process liberty without needing penumbras.
Dissent (Black joined by Stewart): No specific constitutional provision protects a general right of privacy, and courts should not strike down laws just because judges find them unwise or offensive.
Dissent (Stewart joined by Black): The law is foolish but no amendment, including the Ninth, actually makes it unconstitutional, so the Court should not invalidate it.