Chat with AIExam 6: Personal Autonomy and the Constitutional Right of Privacy
Justice ______________ has written that "Our society prohibits, and all human societies have prohibited, certain activities not because they harm others but because they are considered ... immoral.... While there might be a great diversity of views on whether various of these prohibitions should exist, ... there is no doubt that absent specific constitutional protection for the conduct involved, the Constitution does not prohibit them simply because they regulate 'morality'."
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Is the constitutional right of privacy only a "negative right" placing limits on government, or does it include a "positive" aspect requiring government to shield individuals from invasions of their privacy?
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Answered by Examlex AI CopilotThe constitutional right to privacy is a complex concept that has evolved over time through judicial interpretation. In the United States, the right to privacy is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. However, the Supreme Court has recognized that certain amendments imply a degree of privacy protection, leading to the establishment of privacy rights through various landmark cases.
The right to privacy is often considered a "negative right," which means it functions primarily to place limits on government actions. This interpretation suggests that the government cannot intrude on an individual's personal life, liberty, or property without due process of law, as protected by the Fourth Amendment (protection against unreasonable searches and seizures) and the Fourteenth Amendment (due process and equal protection clauses).
However, there is also an argument for a "positive" aspect of the right to privacy, which would require the government to take active steps to protect individuals from invasions of privacy by other individuals or entities. This positive right could include creating laws that safeguard personal information from being misused or disclosed by corporations, or providing remedies for individuals whose privacy has been violated by others.
The debate over whether the right to privacy includes positive obligations for the government is ongoing. Some legal scholars and privacy advocates argue that in the modern digital age, where personal information is easily collected and disseminated, there is a need for more proactive government measures to protect privacy. Others maintain that the government's role should remain limited to preventing its own overreach and that privacy protection in the private sector should be addressed through other means, such as market forces or civil litigation.
In summary, while the constitutional right to privacy in the United States has traditionally been viewed as a negative right that restricts government action, there is an ongoing discussion about whether it should also encompass positive obligations for the government to protect individuals from privacy invasions by third parties. The balance between these two aspects of privacy rights continues to be shaped by legal developments, technological advancements, and societal values.
Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) involved a challenge to a state law that criminalized the use of __________.
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Could sterilization be constitutionally imposed as punishment for a person convicted of rape?
(29) In Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), Justice ___________ majority opinion did recognize that "[t]here is, of course, a sphere within which the individual may assert the supremacy of his own will and rightfully dispute the authority of any human government, especially of any free government existing under a written constitution, to interfere with the exercise of that will."
(32) In ______________, the Supreme Court struck down an ordinance that limited the occupancy of residences to members of single families. However, the ordinance defined "family" in such a way as to prohibit a grandmother from cohabiting with her two grandsons.
(22) Proponents of a constitutional right of privacy often cite the ______ Amendment, which guarantees rights "retained by the people" even though they are not enumerated in the Constitution.
(27) In Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) the Supreme Court ____________________.
(39) In ______________, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court permitted the guardian of an elderly, retarded man to assert his ward's right of privacy and refuse chemotherapy treatment for the elderly man's leukemia.
(33) Would the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment be a sounder or a weaker constitutional basis for the Supreme Court's abortion decisions than the "right to privacy" implicit in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
(25) If you were nominated to serve on the Supreme Court, would you answer questions from the Senate judiciary committee pertaining to your predisposition to follow Roe v. Wade?
(39) In ____________, the Supreme Court upheld a federal regulation that barred birth control clinics that received federal funds from providing information about abortion services to their clients.
(40) In __________ the Supreme Court specifically held that the right of privacy "is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."
(47) In Roe v. Wade Justice Blackmun stated that the word "person" in the Constitution applied ______________.
(37) The English philosopher _______ wrote that "there is a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished from the individual, has, if any, only an indirect interest; comprehending all that portion of a person's life and conduct which affects only himself, or if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary and undeceived consent and participation."
(30) The political philosophy of _____________ holds that individual freedom is the highest good, and that law should be interpreted to maximize the scope of individual freedom.
(32) In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), Justice __________ asserted that "specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance, " and reasoned that the explicit language of the Bill of Rights, specifically the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments, when considered along with their "emanations" and "penumbras" as defined by previous decisions of the Court, add up to a general, independent right of privacy.
(28) In the first two decades of the Twentieth Century, the Supreme Court's use of "substantive due process" was by and large confined to the protection of _______.
(27) Would the right of privacy bar Congress from attempting to limit the number of children per married couple?
(40) The best-known case involving the doctrine of ____________in relation to the so-called right to die is In re Quinlan (N.J. 1976).
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