Running head: CONSTITUTION 1

American Constitutional History Griswold v. Connecticut

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American Constitutional History Griswold v. Connecticut

The U.S constitution was made to put a strong central government that would be immune

towards democratic tyranny after the events of the civil war. The constitution is a declaration of

what the founding figures saw as befitting to all individuals having natural rights that needed

protection. The national congress met at the Federal Hall in 1789 and proposed the Bill of Rights

(Magliocca, 2018). According to the bill of rights, all persons deserve certain fundamental rights

that ought to be safeguarded by the government. The rights may involve those concerned with

the common law that originated from British Monarch systems sources, or natural rights, which

descend from God the creator. The founding fathers argued that natural rights are binding to

every individual due to the virtue of consciously being human. Besides, some of the rights

cannot be alienated and should not be surrendered to the central government. The right to privacy

stands to be one of the rights that have been subjected to debate in U.S legislation history.

The right to personal privacy did not see the light of day until 1791, when the bill of

rights was ratified into the U.S constitution. The fundamental natural rights we are entitled to

people because humans are created in God's image. Privacy protection is granted in the first,

third, fourth, fifth and ninth amendments. In the first amendment, Congress shall not engage in

legislation that sees a preferential religion or restraining its free exercise. Besides, the media has

the freedom to publish articles that criticize the government. Again, the government shall not

abridge the right to assembly and petitioning the government for a redress of grievances.

Supreme Court Decision of 1965, Griswold v. Connecticut

The Supreme Court case was a turning point of the right to privacy. The court has had

similar privacy cases before, such as the 1942 Skinner v Oklahoma. It ruled that it was inhumane

to coerce prisoners to undergo surgery that prevents them from procreation. In the case of Union
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Pacific Railroad Co. v. Abbotsford in 1891, the court ruled that it was not constitutional to force

a person to disclose their medical records without consent. Connecticut was among the 24 states

that passed the Comstock act in 1873. The Act illegalized the sending of obscene or sexual

information via email. Besides, the law illegalized medical drugs and devices or other

instruments that are related to contraception.

Therefore, any individual that assists, advice, contracts or forces another to do abortion is

subject to prosecution. Charles Lee Buxton was a doctor and a lecturer at Yale University, while

Estelle Griswold was the CEO of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut (PPLC). PPLC

had opened up the clinic to give birth control services and prescribing contraceptives that

contravened the 1879 statute that illegalized the use of drugs or instruments to prevent

conception. Connecticut convicted them of having accessories and procurement of illegal

contraception to married men and women. Buxton and Griswold argued that their $100- fine was

not constitutional. The two appeared in the Supreme Court, and the court ruled in a 7-2 in favor

of the plaintiffs (Petlakh, 2019). The court avered that the law contravened the constitutional

right to marital privacy. The law was therefore enforceable against a married couple.

Substantive rights exist in non-economic fields such as the right to privacy, even if they

are not in economic activities such as the right to contract (McBride, 2006). The decision made a

course for the nearly unanimous recognition of contraception use. The court's Judges Arthur

Goldberg and John Marshall Harlan II came into a common understanding that a person's right to

own privacy was an indispensable right protected by the constitution. The right to privacy was

also subject to the due process clause in the fourteenth Amendment of the U.S constitution. In

the next two decades after the 1965 ruling, the Court further expanded the "right to privacy"
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beyond the marital bedroom to say the state cannot illegalize the use of contraceptives by

anyone. Some of the laws come from a Biblical understanding that often is out of context.

According to the Bible, in the first book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were to be fruitful, multiply

and fill the earth. However, we ought to be responsible enough to care for our own families.

The Bible does not advocate for irresponsible sex only for making babies because sex is

God's gift to marriage designed to be pleasurable. According to the Song of Solomon, God's

ideal for marriage is depicted, that marriage is meant for a deep friendship that creates an

emotional bonding and physical pleasure between man and wife. Saint Paul also speaks to

widows that cannot control their lusts of the flesh to get a partner so that they cannot fall to sin

(HCSB Study Bible 1 Cor 7:9). Therefore, it is an individual responsibility to abide by what God

puts on a person's heart to maintain a wife and husband or have children. Contraception is not

mentioned in the Bible and creates a great debate between different Christian scholars.

Most government's legislation advocates for a reduction in rapid population growth so

that the quality of life can increase and ease pressure on resources. The government leaves the

role to educate people on family and family planning to the church. In the Biblical context,

societies became like Sodom and Gomorrah that lived in sin. Some repented and turned to God,

while others refused and perished. The constitution grants people the right to live by or reject

God's teaching on family and bearing children because that is their right.

We can interpret the constitution in two ways, either loose or strict, as depicted in the

Federalists and Antifederalist idea. Both Thomas Jefferson and Spencer Roane were

Antifederalists and were supporters of a strict interpretation of the constitution. Contrary,

federalists like Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall Federalists supported loose interpretation.

Hamilton was a loose constructionist who supported the liberal side. Therefore, if a law did not
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illegalize something, a decision can be made because the federal government has broader

powers. For as long as the constitution does not state it is illegal, the court system has the

mandate to determine the case at hand. The fact that the U.S Constitution fails to outline the

rights subject to privacy laws was against the constitution to bar the married couple from

contraception. Therefore, Griswold v. Connecticut could have taken either direction.

The strict perspective implies that privacy rights would be the rights outlined in the

relevant amendments and that marital privacy is not one. All the parties assumed that the

constitution had a distinct meaning as envisioned by the framers (Meese, 1988). Regarding a

loose constructionist perspective, the verdict is based on the contravention of privacy rights to

prevent a married couple from getting contraceptives.

Wade v. Roe, 1973

Eight years after the Griswold v. Connecticut case, the Wade v. Roe case became the

turning point regarding the right to privacy. Supreme Court's 7–2 verdict avered that the Due

Process Clause has a provision to the right to privacy that protects expectant women's right to

abort the unborn child or give birth (Nunez-Eddy & Seward, 2018). Before the Wade v. Roe

case, abortion was illegal in all of the U.S. The Catholic Church had illegalized the Act in 1869

at any stage of pregnancy, while Comstock's law of 1873 had banned the distribution of

contraceptives and other related drugs by mail.

The Roe v. Wade ruling was primarily shaped by the women's rights activism of the

1960s. In 1965, the Supreme Court relaxed a law that illegalized birth control distribution to

married couples because the law impeded the right to privacy. In 1970, Hawaii was the first state

to decriminalize abortion (Chesney‐Lind, 2020). Two years later, the court also extended its arms

to slash the law that banned the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried adults. In Roe v.
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Wade, the judges could as well reverse their verdict and ban all abortion based on the original

intent of the 14th Amendment.

Privacy protections Accorded to us.

The Bill of Rights is similar to the Biblical Ten Commandments. The first of each

address worship. In both, the property rights are to be respected. The First Amendment grants us

freedom of worship. We have the mandate to deny Soldiers from entering our home for quarters

as the Third Amendment provides. The fourth Amendment protects us from illegal police

searches and seizures, while the Fifth Amendment cushions us from saying anything that can be

used against us in a court of law. According to the Ninth Amendment, all the people's rights that

do not appear in the constitution belong to the people.

Privacy Rights as Related to Biblical Teaching

Some Biblical verses support the right to privacy, such as the commandment that forbids

people from stealing and coveting other people's possessions. The Bible encourages us to seek to

live a quiet life, minding one's own business, working with our own hands, and avoiding

dependence on others (HCSB Study Bible, Thessalonians 4: 10-12). Matthew 6:5-6 tells us to

have a personal and private prayer without show. Privacy protection makes people live without

fear of the government's coercion to think specific ways. However, the issue of privacy is

becoming more dynamic, with growth in technology and social media. What a person posts in

his social media platform becomes visible by millions of people across the globe.

However, when one can manipulate what is safe, the boundaries of what is private can be

done away with. The constitution grants the rights of privacy to people. Therefore, all Americans

are entitled to a right to privacy regardless of race, social status, religion, and other affiliations.

The framers of the constitution sought to protect God-given rights with a strong government.
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References

Chesney‐Lind, M. (2020). Feminist criminology in an era of misogyny. Criminology.

Easley, K. H. (2010). HCSB Study Bible. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 1997, 19-21.

Magliocca, G. N. (2018). The heart of the constitution: How the bill of rights became the bill of

rights. Oxford University Press.

McBride, A. (2006). Supreme Court history: Expanding civil rights. The Supreme Court.

McClellan, James. Liberty, Order, and Justice: An Introduction to the Constitutional Principles

of American Government. Third. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000.

Meese, E. (1987). Our Constitutions' Design: The Implications for. Marquette Law Review 70,

no. 3 (1987): 381-388.

Nunez-Eddy, C., & Seward, S. (2018). Roe v. Wade (1973). Embryo Project Encyclopedia.

Petlakh, K. (2019). Griswold v. Connecticut. The Encyclopedia of Women and Crime, 1-1.