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The State in the Bedroom: What Some Adults May Not Do Privately After Hardwick v Bowers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

A. S. Cohan
A. S. Cohan
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Commerce, University of Lancaster, Lancaster, LA1 4YG, England
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Extract

The development and evolution since 1965 of a legally recognized right of privacy through decisions reached by the Supreme Court in the United States may be seen as evidence of one of two things. It represents either the Supreme Court's further usurpation of the authority of legislatures by its expansion of rights — areas never intended by the framers of the Constitution — or it demonstrates the creativity and sensitivity of Justices of the Court in finally making explicit what has been implicit in the broad language of the Constitution, namely, that a right of privacy has always belonged to the citizen. Whichever position one holds, there may be little doubt that the Court's excursion into this previously uncharted territory, with its subsequent “stops” along the journey at questions of contraception, abortion and, of concern in this essay, “unnatural” sexual acts, has given rise to considerable controversy and, in some instances, confusion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , April 1989 , pp. 41 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

1 See Cohan, A. S., “Obstacles to Equality: Government Responses to the Gay Rights Movement in the United States,” Political Studies, 30 (1982), 59–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See Rubin, Eva, Abortion, Politics and the Courts: Roe v Wade and its Aftermath (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1982).Google Scholar See also Cohan, A. S., “No Legal Impediment: Access to Abortion in the United States,” Journal of American Studies, 20, 2 (1986), 189–205.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

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9 The Eighth Amendment says, “Excessive bail should not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

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