Talk:Griswold v. Connecticut

Errors

A landmark ruling in 1965 that struck down a state law that banned contraceptives for everyone, including married couples.

"Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors" Vandalism?Countmippipopolous 09:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

No, Connecticut actually has a Supreme Court of Errors. LoyolaDude 18:29 CST, 9 November 2006

Citation

"The polemic around Poe led to the appeal in Griswold v. Connecticut, primarily based on the dissent of Justice John Marshall Harlan II in Poe, one of the most cited dissents in Supreme Court history."

To say that something is one of the most cited in history should be cited itself, either to an authoritative legal review or journal, or to a site that has counts of citations of Court dissents with a retrieval date. I'm not familiar with the different citation formats for wiki, but I know that the Cornell law site as well as legal services like RIA Checkpoint offer counts of citations. CountryMama27 (talk) 15:56, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Mismatch between sidebar and text

The text makes reference to a concurring opinion written by Goldberg, though the sidebar doesn't mention it.

The text was correct; the sidebar originally included the concurrence, but it was accidentally omitted when it was changed to a template code format. I've corrected it. Postdlf 16:49, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Lawrence v. Texas

In the "Subsequent Jurisprudence" section I added appropriate quotations from and the citation for Lawrence v. Texas, while focusing on the legal basis of Lawrence and its derivation from Griswold as laid out by Justice Kennedy in his majority opinion. Feliciapatch 15:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

"Right of Privacy" doesn't mean what's implied here

"Privacy" as used in Griswold is based on due process and has a very particular meaning that isn't elaborated on here. It's not simply privacy in the usual sense of the word. Most of the problems even pro-choice jurists have with Roe is it's use (misuse) of the right to privacy - in effect, Griswold's dicta makes a narrow argument based on the fact that to enforce the law would violate any form of due process (that's the sort of privacy that emanates from the "penumbras" of the Constitution), whereas Roe found that some external right to privacy existed and that abortion during the first trimester was protected by that privacy. The points are very different in theory and in practice, and its distinction should be made here. Ryanluck (talk) 05:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Redundancy

The sidebar says that stewart dissented and was joined by black. Right beneath that it said Black dissented and was joined by stewart. Seems rather unnecesary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.89.50.71 (talk) 20:32, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

There are two dissents. One is written by Black and joined by Stewart. The other is written by Stewart and joined by Black.

Bias in Planned Parenthood's Origins

The first Planned Parenthood clinic in Connecticut opened in 1935 in Hartford. It provided services to women who had no access to a gynecologist, information about contraception or other methods to plan the growth of their families.

I'm just highlighting this for public review and consideration, because it feels quite propaganda-ish to me. Sure that might have been what was SAID, even then, but no one (now, or then) really "plans" their families. They might plan to NOT get pregnant, they might plan to abort a fetus if she's pregnant, but those aren't really "planning" services as the name of the organization tries to imply. I'd be willing to be the primary purpose of Planned Parenthood was to hand-out condoms and provide abortions. While this might be loosely considered to be "planning", it in now way is reflective of the full connotational load of the word "planning", although Planned Parenthood does use that as a rhetorical outpost. Using the word "plan" this loosely renders it meaningless, as well as ceding conversational territory to the pro-abortionists.Jonny Quick (talk) 02:22, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Family planning seems to be a well accepted term of art in literature around this topic. Personal opinions aside about "no one really plans their families" we edit based on the available published literature. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 23:59, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Legacy section needs productive work, expansion

came here for the first time, information searching. --did gnomish housekeeping copy edits that i couldnt resist. before I knew it, all of a sudden a sentence disapppears. I want to know why, Notecardforfree. Because it's a letter to the editor ?(thanks for the link in the edit summary, otherwise I wouldnt have known what the single crucial word in your argument, LTE, is.)

Now, by the same token you should delete all unsourced content stuff! -:)

Look, I have a different editing philosophy on WP:

• I don't remove sourced content, until I find better sourced content. BTW did you know there's a flag for that ? {{better}}
• I flag all unsourced stuff, which I think is vaguely true, or important for a page as a whole, whether I personally agree with it or not. Then you have timestamped it.
• If nobody bothers to source something in years, by all means, kick it out.

Now back to the point: this "legacy section" here is thin as a veil. And it should be solid, thick as a brick, on its 50th anniversary, dont you feel? think about it: what you put in quotes is important, this ethical discussion, society's mental digest of griswold that has happened, ending up in the present day bullshit situation. there's no hiding from that.

• Understanding is what WP should bring. I think

So, leave some thin guideposts in, young man or woman - i dont know, but i feel the aggressive energy. Or even better: find another, better guidepost in the history of the leagcy. I didnt R-evert your B-old move, hope you D-iscuss. in solidarity, hopefully, --Wuerzele (talk) 18:14, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Wuerzele, I completely agree with you that that this article needs substantial revisions. Your "housekeeping" certainly helps other editors identify areas that need improvement, but I think the article as a whole needs a lot of work. Specifically, the discussion about the Court's opinion should include citations to the case itself, and the structure of the article should be modified pursuant to WP:SCOTUS/SG and MOS:LAW. In the past, I have even considered doing a complete re-write of the article (per WP:DYNAMITE), but my attention has been focused on other projects.

Let me address the portion of text I deleted. Perhaps I should have been more precise with my edit summary, but there were in fact many reasons why I decided to delete the text.

1. The first sentence made vague reference to counterarguments raised against Griswold and its progeny, but offered no authority to support that assertion (obviously these counterarguments exist, but but they need to be described with more precision).
2. The description of Roe v. Wade as "polemic" was an incorrect and inappropriate.
3. Letters to the editor are generally only considered reliable sources for opinions stated by the author, rather than statements of fact (see also this discussion about the reliability of letters to the editor).
4. Even if the letter was a reliable source, it does not support any of the assertions made in the two sentences I removed (except, perhaps, it could serve as evidence of the fact that at least one person raised a counterargument against Griswold and its progeny).
5. There is no basis for the assertion that the right to privacy has a "voluble interpretation."
6. Criticisms of penumbral analysis and the right to privacy existed long before 1983.
7. The statement about the "'morality' of the right" was poorly phrased, and the scare quotes may have caused readers to question the normative justifications underlying a right to privacy.

For these reasons, I believed the language was far too problematic to leave in the article, so I Boldly deleted it.

Also, I appreciate the tone of your previous comments, but you should note that some people find the use of the phrase "young woman/young man" condescending, especially if that editor is not in fact a young man or woman. However, I completely agree that WP is all about "understanding," and I hope we can work together to make this article amazing. Griswold is a tremendously important case, and I hope that we can build an article that accurately conveys the case's significance and legacy. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 19:34, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Notecardforfree, thank you much !--Wuerzele (talk) 20:01, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Roe vs. Wade

This article claims Roe v. Wade established "Right to birth control for any woman" in the section header but then (correctly) describes it as about abortion. I bring this up here because for some reason my edit was undone as being a "test edit".50.157.104.147 (talk) 07:15, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Estelle Griswold.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:37, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Taking the article to GA

With how much discussion this article is getting, I think it would be a good idea to take this article to GA and then FA. Pinging major contributor White whirlwind and Alyo, who indicated interest in WT:LAW. What areas do y'all think need the most improvement? I think the "precedent" section most definitely is the area needing most urgent improvement. I also think the background section needs a bit more coherence. What are y'all's thoughts? — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 18:55, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Certainly agree re:"precedent" section, although that's mostly just based on a quick once-over of the article and not any real knowledge of the literature about that case that has come out since then. I'll start doing some reading in the legal journals I have access to and see what I turn up. Alyo (chat·edits) 19:45, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

I think the background does an okay job at describing the history of the clinic and pro-contraception organizing in Connecticut, but needs more explanation of the legal history of contraception regulation both in the US and in Common Law generally, as a start. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 21:26, 9 May 2022 (UTC)