Legal Definitions - Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)

Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) was a famous court case in the United States. The case was about a law in Connecticut that said married couples could not use any contraception. Many people challenged this law in court before the Griswold case. The Supreme Court decided in a 7-2 vote that the law was wrong because it invaded the right to privacy. The court said that the Constitution had a right to privacy, even though it did not say so directly. This case helped other court cases expand the right to privacy, like for contraception, abortion, and LGBTQ rights.

The court said that the right to privacy was not directly in the Constitution, but it was an "emanation" of other rights. The court said that the first, third, fourth, and fifth amendments all helped create the right to privacy. The court also said that the right to privacy was part of marriage, and that people had a right to privacy in their marriage even before the Constitution was written.

For example, the court said that parents had a right to decide how to raise their children, and that this was part of the right to privacy. The court also said that people had a right to use contraception in their marriage, and that this was part of the right to privacy too.

Some of the judges in the case disagreed with the decision. They said that the Constitution did not directly create a right to privacy. But most of the judges agreed that the right to privacy was important, and that it was part of the Constitution in an indirect way.