Eisenstadt v. Baird
Eisenstadt v. Baird is a significant Supreme Court case decided in 1972 that expanded the constitutional right to privacy to include the access to contraceptives for single individuals. Following the precedent set by Griswold v. Connecticut, which recognized this right for married couples, the Eisenstadt ruling emphasized the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, asserting that discrimination against single individuals in matters of reproductive choice was unconstitutional. Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., in his majority opinion, articulated that the right to privacy is an individual right, and should not be limited to the marital context. This landmark decision underscored the autonomy of individuals regarding their reproductive decisions, establishing a broader understanding of privacy rights that extended beyond traditional views. The implications of Eisenstadt v. Baird have had a lasting impact on subsequent rulings, including Roe v. Wade, further shaping the discourse around reproductive rights and personal freedoms in the United States.
Eisenstadt v. Baird
Date: March 22, 1972
Citation: 405 U.S. 438
Issues: Reproductive rights; right of privacy; equal protection
Significance: Based on an individual’s rights to privacy and equality, the Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts law that made it a felony to provide contraceptives to unmarried persons.
In the landmark case Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to privacy, which included the right of married persons to obtain contraceptives. In Eisenstadt, the justices voted six to one to extend the same right to single people. Speaking for the majority, Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., emphasized that the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited discrimination against single people. The right of privacy, grounded in a substantive due process reading of the Fourteenth Amendment, included “the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” Going beyond Griswold, the Eisenstadt decision explicitly recognized that the right to privacy was inherent in the individual rather than in the marital relationship, and it did not justify the right on the basis of history and tradition. The two decisions helped lay the theoretical foundation for Roe v. Wade (1973).
