The 1972 Supreme Court Case Legalizing Contraception for All
In 1965, the US Supreme Court first recognized the constitutional right to contraception in Griswold v. Connecticut, but only for married couples. It wasn’t until Eisenstadt v. Baird, seven years later, that the Supreme Court made clear that unmarried people have the same right to contraception. Griswold, and later Eisenstadt, are premised on the Constitution’s protection of the right to privacy: the idea that, while not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, it implicitly creates a “zone of privacy” derived from other explicitly stated constitutional protections.
The Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, however, puts a host of rights, including the right to contraception and the right to privacy itself, in jeopardy.
Case History
In 1967, at the urging of Boston University students, William Baird, the clinical director at a contraceptive manufacturer, gave a lecture at the university regarding contraception and distributed samples of contraceptive foam. Both acts violated Massachusetts state code, which barred anyone from providing contraception to unmarried people, even though married people could get contraception with a prescription.
The lecture was designed to trigger a test case to overturn the law. As expected, Baird was arrested and convicted for both exhibiting and distributing contraception. In 1969, the Massachusetts Supreme Court overturned his conviction for the display but upheld the conviction for distribution.
Baird then filed a federal court lawsuit, which ultimately made its way to the US Supreme Court. The Court overturned the remaining conviction on equal protection grounds. Namely, the Court held that there was no rational basis on which to treat married and unmarried people differently when it came to access to contraception. And, since Griswold v. Connecticut required all states to allow married people to access contraception, the Court held that states must do the same for unmarried people.
Eisenstadt and the Right to Privacy
For more than 50 years, Eisenstadt, together with Griswold, have been the legal precedents foundational to the recognition of many constitutional rights, including abortion, the rights of minors to access reproductive health care, and the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals to intimate relationships, marriage, and parenthood. Dobbs puts these rights and all that stem from the right to privacy under direct threat. The core rationale of Dobbs—that there is no implicit right to abortion because it is not “deeply rooted in history”—could certainly be said to apply to numerous other rights, including contraception. As Justice Thomas writes in his concurrence: “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”
Impact on Title X and other Safety Net Providers
While the Title X family planning program became law in 1970, and was first funded in 1971, Eisenstadt plays a fundamental role in the ability of the program to provide access to affordable, high-quality family planning services for all. Today, millions of people rely on Title X for access to contraceptive services and supplies, along with other basic reproductive and sexual health care services. Without Eisenstadt, millions of those patients could have limited to no access to this preventive health care, as states could seek to limit access to contraceptives to only married people.
Eisenstadt is particularly important for young people, who are less likely to be married and more likely to need confidential access to sensitive health care services. Eisenstadt ensures that these patients can legally access these services, and Title X and other safety net providers make that right a reality by providing low- or no-cost care in young people’s communities.