One of the more controversial and opinionated sections of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights is the right to privacy. According to the textbook, the right to privacy is a "judicially created principle" that encompasses a variety of individual actions protected by the penumbras created by a number of constitutional amendments. These amendments include the first, third, fourth, ninth, and fourteenth amendments. The right to privacy wasn't exactly enumerated specifically in the Constitution, but the Bill of Rights contained numerous indications that the Framers expected that some aspects of human life were to be kept off limits from any regulations from the government.
There are three topics that have been very controversial over the years that deal with the right to privacy; birth control, abortion, and homosexuality. Through the course of U.S. History, the amount of people that had access to contraceptives has greatly increased. At first, many states barred the sale of contraceptives to minors, prohibited the display of contraceptives, or even banned the sale altogether. Over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded the access to contraceptives through a variety of court cases, such as Griswold v. Connecticut. This court case allowed for zones of privacy to be created for married couples who wanted to plan a family. The years following this decision allowed for the Court to expand the privacy rights to include all unmarried individuals to have full access to contraceptives. In my opinion, I think it was the right decision for the government to expand access to allow anyone to have access to contraceptives. It is up to the individual whether or not they want to use contraceptives, and the government really shouldn't have any say in influencing that individual.
Abortion has been an extremely controversial issue since the 1960s. This issue has been fueled by a number of Supreme Court decisions that has allowed abortion to be legalized. The major Supreme Court decision in favor of allowing citizens to go through an abortion was Roe v. Wade. In this court case, the Supreme Court decided that a woman's right to an abortion was protected by the right to privacy that could be implied from various guarantees found in the Bill of Rights. In my opinion, I completely disagree with the ruling. I honestly believe that abortion should be illegal for all cases except for rape. Taking an innocent person's life just because the individual carrying the child doesn't "want" the child anymore is a completely irresponsible and cruel action to take. I know there is so much controversy surrounding the whole situation, but that is just how I feel about it. Hopefully the government can do something to reverse the decisions of the Court, or at least make it much harder for citizens to get an abortion (which has been happening in recent years).
The last major issue discussed in the textbook involving the right to privacy involves homosexuality. The right to privacy of personal/private sexual behavior was not enforced until recently (2003). In my opinion, everyone's sexual preferences is their own business, and that preference shouldn't be used to discriminate against an individual. I think the government is doing a decent job of enacting various acts and laws in order to protect citizens' rights to privacy on this sensitive issue.
The right to privacy among these three major issues has definitely been a point of contention in recent years. I honestly don't see an end to the controversy as there are so many differing opinions on each of the issues. Hopefully, something can be done though to at least maintain the current stances on each issue and make sure that we as a government/society don't move backwards.
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