Eisenstadt v. Baird case brief

 Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972)

• prohibition against the use of birth control for unmarried couples struck down
• Court articulated the privacy right in terms of an individual’s life choices
• “if the right to privacy means anything, it is 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”
• focus on it as an individual rather than a marital right really sets the stage for later “intimate relationship” cases (Lawrence)