The Right to Privacy and Reproductive Rights

Question 1

Griswold v. Connecticut

Answer 1

Griswold executive director of planned parenthood. He and the med director gave advice to married couples about birth control. Convicted under connecticut law. gave medical advice about preventing pregnancy.

Question: Does theConstitution protect the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on a couple’s ability to be counseled in the use of contraceptives?

Court:Yes. No explicit right to privacy in constitution. But bill of right created a penumbra that establishes right to privacy. Together, the First, Third, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments, create a new constitutional right, the right to privacy in marital relations.

Question 2

Roe v. Wade

Answer 2

Landmark abortion case. Roe, a Texas resident, sought to terminate her pregnancy by abortion. Texas law prohibited except to save mothers life.

Question: Does the Constitution embrace a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion?

Court: Yes. Falls within right to privacy. Gave woman autonomy over her pregnancy in first trimester. And provided states interest in later trimesters.

Question 3

Planned Parenthood v. Casey

Answer 3

The Pennsylvania legislature amended its abortion control law in 1988 and 1989. Among the new provisions, the law required informed consent and a 24 hour waiting period prior to the procedure.

Court: Can a state require women who want an abortion to obtain informed consent, wait 24 hours, and, if minors, obtain parental consent, without violating their right to abortions as guaranteed by Roe v. Wade?

Court: The Court again reaffirmed Roe, but it upheld most of the Pennsylvania provisions. the justices imposed a new standard to determine the validity of laws restricting abortions. The new standard asks whether a state abortion regulation has the purpose or effect of imposing an “undue burden,”

Question 4

Meyer v. Nebraska

Answer 4

Nebraska, along with other states, prohibited the teaching of modern foreign languages to grade school children. Meyer, who taught German in a Lutheran school, was convicted under this law.

Question: Does the Nebraska statute violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process clause?

Court: Yes, the Nebraska law is unconstitutional. Nebraska violated the liberty protected by due process of the Fourteenth Amendment. Liberty means more than freedom from bodily restraint.

Question 5

Gonzales v. Carhart

Answer 5

In 2003, Congress passed and the President signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Question: Is the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 an unconstitutional violation of personal liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment because the Act lacks an exception for partial-birth abortions necessary to protect the health of the mother?

Court: No. The Court ruled by a 5-4 vote that Congress’s ban on partial-birth abortion was not unconstitutionally vague and did not impose an undue burden on the right to an abortion

Question 6

Ferguson v. City of Charleston

Answer 6

Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) started to cooperate with Charleston to formulate a policy to prosecute mothers whose children tested positive for drugs at birth. MUSC obstetrical patients were arrested after testing positive for cocaine. They filed suit challenging the policy’s validity on the theory that warrantless and nonconsensual drug tests

Question: Is a state hospital’s performance of a diagnostic test to obtain evidence of a patient’s criminal conduct for law enforcement purposes an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment if the patient has not consented to the procedure?

Court: Yes. In a 6-3 opinion delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court held that the diagnostic tests constituted an unreasonable search if the patient has not consented to the procedure.