Griswold vs Connecticut

Facts:

Appellants, the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, and its medical director, a licensed physician, were convicted as accessories for giving married person’s information and medical advice on how to prevent conception and, following examination, prescribing a contraceptive device or material for the wife's use. They gave information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. They examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use. Fees were usually charged, although some couples were serviced free. Appellant and her colleague were convicted under a Connecticut law which criminalized counseling, and other medical treatment to married persons for purposes of preventing conception.

A Connecticut statute makes it a crime for any person to use any drug or article to prevent conception.The statutes whose constitutionality is involved in this appeal are 53-32 and 54-196 of the General Statutes of Connecticut (1958 rev.). The former provides:"Any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception shall be fined not less than fifty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned."

Section 54-196 provides:"Any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender." The appellants were found guilty as accessories and fined $100 each, against the claim that the accessory statute as so applied violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Appellate Division of the Circuit Court affirmed the previous decision.

Appellants were found guilty as accessories and fined $100 each. Appellants appealed on the theory that the accessory statute as applied violated the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Appellants claimed standing based on their professional relationship with the married people they advised.

Issue:

Under constitutional law, does the Constitution protect the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on a couple's ability to be counseled in the use of contraceptives?

Held:

Yes. Under the Philippines constitution protects the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on a couple’s ability to be counseled in the use of contraception.

Philippines Constitution article XV the family :

“Section 1. The State recognizes the Filipino family as the foundation of the nation. Accordingly, it shall strengthen its solidarity and actively promote its total development.

Sec. 2. Marriage, as an inviolable social institution, is the foundation of the family and shall be protected by the State.

Sec. 3. The State shall defend: (4) The right of families or family associations to participate in the planning and implementation of policies and programs that affect them.

The Supreme Court recognized the right to privacy in the 1968 case of Morfe v. Mutuc, 1998 case of Ople v. Torres, and 2006 case of Sabio v. Gordon.“The right to privacy applies to sex, marriage, and procreation.”