"The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, going back perhaps as far as
Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. In varying contexts, the Court or individual Justices have, indeed, found at least the roots of that right in the First Amendment,
Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 564 (1969); in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments,
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 8-9 (1968),
Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 350 (1967),
Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886),
see Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting); in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights,
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. at 484-485; in the Ninth Amendment,
id. at 486 (Goldberg, J., concurring); or in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment,
see Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399 (1923). These decisions make it clear that only personal rights that can be deemed "fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,"
Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325 (1937), are included in this guarantee of personal privacy. They also make it clear that the right has some extension to activities relating to marriage,
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12 (1967); procreation,
Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541-542 (1942); contraception,
Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. at 453-454;
id. at 460, 463-465
321 U.S. 158, 166 (1944); and childrearing and education,
Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 535 (1925),
Meyer v. Nebraska, supra.
This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent. Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it. In other cases, as in this one, the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood may be involved. All these are factors the woman and her responsible physician necessarily will consider in consultation." There are rights not explicitly identified that, nevertheless, are protected from government intrusion. Privacy is one of those. The right to privacy includes rights that are fundamental to ordered liberty. What is more fundamental to a persons liberty than the choice of who to spend your life with; who to create a family with?
