Griswold v. Connecticut
Fifty years ago, on June 7, 1965, the Supreme Court issued the landmark Griswold v. Connecticut decision, which struck down a Connecticut law that criminalized the encouragement or use of contraception. Estelle Griswold, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut, and Dr. C. Lee Buxton, the organization’s medical director, had been arrested and fined $100 each for providing contraceptive advice to married persons. In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled in their favor, finding that Connecticut’s law prohibiting contraception violated the right to marital privacy. In 1972, in…