Eisenstadt v. Baird

Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court.

William Baird was convicted for giving contraceptive foam to an unmarried woman after a lecture at Boston University, violating a Massachusetts law that prohibited distributing contraceptives to unmarried persons. Baird challenged the law as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Significance

Justice Brennan’s 6-1 opinion struck down the Massachusetts law under the Equal Protection Clause. The Court held that the law irrationally distinguished between married and unmarried persons. In a crucial passage, Brennan wrote that ‘if the right of 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.’ This expanded Griswold’s marital privacy right to individuals.

Category

US Federal Case Law