Example Cases About Family Privacy Rights

The Supreme Court's progression of rulings on issues affecting family privacy rights does show a fairly consistent trend. This trend expands the rights of families and individual family members: In Meyer v. Nebraska (262 US 390 [1923]), the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a Nebraska law which prohibited the teaching of any foreign language in any elementary school. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters (268 US 510 [1925]), the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional an Oregon statute which required all children to attend public schools. In Skinner v. Oklahoma (316 US 535 [1942]), the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the Oklahoma Criminal Sterilization Act. It declared that Skinner, who had two convictions for robbery and one for stealing chickens, had a fundamental right to procreate. In Griswold v. Connecticut (381 US 479 [1965]), the Court held unconstitutional a law which prohibited the dissemination of contraceptive materials to married couples. In Levy v. Louisiana (391 US 68 [1968]), the Court ruled unconstitutional a Louisiana law that prohibited illegitimate children from recovery for the wrongful death of their mother. In Glona v. American Guar. & Liab. Ins. Co. (391 US 73 [1968]), the Court ruled unconstitutional a Louisiana Law which denied the right of a mother to recover for the wrongful death of her child because the child was illegitimate. In Loving v. Virginia (388 US 1 [1967]), the Court held unconstitutional a Virginia law which prohibited interracial marriages. In Eisenstadt v. Baird (405 US 438 [1972]), the Court ruled unconstitutional a Massachusetts law which prohibited the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried people. In Weber v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. (406 US 164 [1972]), the Court held unconstitutional a Louisiana law which denied workers' compensation benefits to an unacknowledged illegitimate child. In Carey v. Population Servs. Intl. (431 US 678 [1972]), the Court ruled unconstitutional a New York law which permitted only pharmacists to sell contraceptives to adults and a blanket prohibition on such sales to minors. In Wisconsin v. Yoder (406 US 205 [1972]), the Court held that the state could not require parents of the Amish Church to send their children to public school after the eighth grade. In Roe v. Wade (410 US 113 [1973]), the Court ruled that the state cannot prohibit a woman from terminating a pregnancy during the first two trimesters of her pregnancy because it violates her fundamental privacy right. In Gomez v. Perez (409 US 535 [1973]), the Court ruled unconstitutional a Texas law which prohibited illegitimate children from claiming child support from their father. In Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. LaFleur (414 US 632 [1974]), the Court held unconstitutional mandatory maternity leaves. In Planned Parenthood v. Danforth (428 US 52 [1976]), the Court held that the state could not require spousal consent as a predicate for a woman having an abortion or give a parent veto power over a minor's decision to have an abortion (a competing rights case). In Moore v. City of E. Cleveland (431 US 494 [1977]), the Court ruled unconstitutional a housing ordinance which prohibited a grandmother and her grandchildren from living together in a single dwelling unit. In Caban v. Mohammed (441 US 380 [1979]), the Court ruled unconstitutional New York's adoption consent statute which gave the unwed mother of a child an automatic right to veto an adoption, while the father had to show that the adoption would not be in the child's best interest. In Clark v. Jeter (486 US 456 [1988]), the Court held that a six-year statute of limitations in which to establish paternity violated the Equal Protection Clause.