Regardless of the lack of
awareness of the last two amendments, they are critical to the overall operation
of our political system. They may not be as quoted as the First Amendment, as
controversial as the Second Amendment, or as oft referenced as the Fifth
Amendment, but an understanding of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments is invaluable
to an understanding of American government.
The Ninth Amendment basically
states that people have other rights than the one laid out in the Constitution.
It’s a protection against someone claiming that the Constitution, in
delineating and protecting certain rights but excluding others, actually decreases
the rights of the citizens. The text of the Ninth Amendment reads thusly:
“The enumeration
in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or
disparage others retained by the people.”
As with many of the amendments in
the Bill of Rights, there is a particularly important landmark case based on
the Ninth Amendment: Griswold v. Connecticut. This case, argued in 1965 (the crux of the sexual revolution),
addressed a potential infraction by Estelle Griswold, the Executive Director of
the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Under Connecticut law, it was
illegal to provide counseling or other medical treatment to married couples
with the contraceptive intent. Griswold and Dr. C. Lee, a professor from Yale Medical
School, were both convicted under this law and found guilty.
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| Estelle Griswold | Courtesy of UMKC Law |
As you can guess, the two appealed,
and the case found itself to the Supreme Court in 1965. Under the Tenth
Amendment, Griswold believed that the Connecticut law was an unconstitutional breach
of the rights of married people.
In a 7-2 decision, the Court
agreed with Griswold, striking down the Connecticut law for violating the
Constitution. Justice Douglas, in the majority opinion, set a powerful precedent
for future cases, asserting that the Bill of Rights creates “penumbras”, or
extensions of the rights guaranteed to citizens by implication. He claimed that
the spirit of other amendments, such as free speech in the First, freedom from
unwarranted searches in the Fourth, and protection from self-incrimination in the
Fifth, point to an implicit “right to privacy”. Using the Ninth Amendment, one
can argue that this is one of the other rights not enumerated in the Constitution
but still retained by the citizens.
Other justices substantiated the
decision using the Fourteenth Amendment (Due Process), but Justice Arthur
Goldberg, in his concurrence with the opinion of the Court, argued that Ninth
Amendment validates the decision. He claims that the Ninth Amendment permits
the Court to identify the “fundamental right to marital privacy” outside of the
confines of the other amendments. In this way, the Court established the power of
the Ninth Amendment in adjudicating matters which may not be expressly laid out
in the Constitution however it deems fit.
I agree with you that it is easy to write off the last two amendments, but they are definitely still important in maintaining our privacy and freedom. I like that our government does not have a "one size fits all" approach because reality is much more complicated. This mindset allows us to make exceptions and changes, as the situation evolves, like the one in the case you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteThis is so interesting, I am embarrassed to say had no idea what this amendment really meant before reading this post. It can be so shocking to learn about laws in place (like the one in Connecticut) that seem so ridiculous! It is good to know the Constitution protects people though.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite thing about these amendments is that they account for the fact that the world is no where near the same as it was 200 years ago when the Bill of Rights was written. For example, the Founding Fathers never would have thought to include rights regarding air travel as this was not even a concept yet. As new technologies arise, new laws are necessary about protecting our rights regarding them, and these amendments allow us to create them.
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