Constitutional Protection of the Right to Privacy in the United States
Constitution of the United States The Influence of the Constitution Protecting Personal Rights The Right to Privacy
The Constitution does not include an explicit guarantee of a right to privacy. No article or amendment gives United States citizens the right to act however they please in their homes or elsewhere. Indeed, the word privacy never appears in the Constitution. However, the Supreme Court has developed a doctrine known as “substantive due process” that extends constitutional protections over some types of personal behavior. This doctrine serves as the basis for the constitutional right to privacy.
The due process clauses in the 5th and 14th amendments bar the federal government and the states from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. At first, the Court applied due process only to procedures. This meant, for example, that a state could take away an individual’s property as long as it offered the person a fair hearing to block the action. In the late 19th century the Court began using the due process clauses to protect certain substantive rights – basic rights that go beyond rules to include actual results. Substantive rights include, for example, a citizen’s right not just to a fair hearing before the government takes that citizen’s property (procedural due process), but also the right to fair compensation based on the property’s value. Over time the doctrine of substantive due process grew to include many protections now taken for granted by U.S. citizens. In 1923, for example, the Court ruled in Meyer v. Nebraska that the state could not ban the teaching of foreign languages in schools. In this and other decisions, the Court said, in effect, that parents have a broad but limited right to raise their children as they see fit.
This idea – that the Constitution protects people’s right to live their lives as they desire – did not excite much comment until 1965. That year the Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut struck down a state law prohibiting married couples from using contraceptives (see Birth Control). There was no rational reason for such a law, the Court said, and it too drastically interfered with the basic intimacy of the marriage bond. Most states had laws similar to Connecticut’s, but few if any actually enforced them; so the Court’s ruling as a practical matter reflected prevailing values. But Griswold paved the way for a far more controversial case.
In 1973 the Court held in Roe v. Wade that the states cannot bar a woman from having an abortion because of the constitutional right to privacy. Because it went against the deep convictions of many people, Roe ignited a firestorm of political controversy that has continued ever since. Although the court has heard many abortion cases in the years since Roe and has changed the rules somewhat, it has declined to back away from the central point: A woman has a constitutional right to control her body. (1)
In this Section about the Influence of the Constitution and Protecting Personal Rights: Constitution Influence, Federal Government Role, Constitutional Regulation of Business and Commerce, Constitutional Protection of Personal Rights, Constitutional Protection of the Right to Privacy, Constitutional Protection of Free Speech, Constitutional Protection of Religious Rights, Constitutional Protection of the Rights of the Accused, Constitutional Protection of Civil Liberties.
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