GOP Aims to Outlaw Birth Control After Overturning Roe

In the past year, a more clear picture is emerging: Not only do conservatives want to criminalize abortion—some appear to seek a return to criminalizing the sale of birth control pills and condoms.

Some history, first: Estelle Griswold was the local director of Planned Parenthood in New Haven, Connecticut. Dr. C. Lee Buxton was a licensed physician and a professor at the Yale Medical School, and served as Medical Director for the local Planned Parenthood chapter.

Both were convicted of violating the state’s anti-contraception laws, specifically:

“Any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception shall be fined not less than fifty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned.”

Also: “Any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender.”

They were convicted and fined for giving birth control advice to married people. In this case, they examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use.

The Supreme Court in 1965 overturned their convictions and found a right to privacy in the 14^th Amendment Due Process Clause (a state shall not deny a person of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law”).

The majority opinion said: “The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees.”

Seven years later, Roe v. Wade extended that right of privacy to a woman who sought an abortion.

During confirmation hearings in September, Brett Kavanaugh was asked if he considered Griswold settled law. It was a bit of a trick question: If he answered yes, he would imply a “yes” to Roe being settled law. Kavanagh refused to answer the question—a clear hint that he harbors not only strong views against abortion but contraception.

Chief Justice John Roberts—also Catholic— was asked the same question in 2006.

He said “there is a right to privacy protected as part of the liberty guarantee in the Due Process Clause” and he was explicit that he agreed with the court’s decision in Griswold, stating unequivocally, “I agree with the Griswold Court’s conclusion that marital privacy extends to contraception and the availability of that.”

This week, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a bizarre 20-page concurring opinion in a case involving Indiana’s aggressive anti-abortion law. He did not take aim at Griswold there, but he disparaged the reasoning behind the right to privacy in contraception and abortion cases.

Many years ago, the NRA was a sportsmen’s and collectors’ gun club. 
It morphed into a group that recognizes no bounds at all to gun restrictions. Everyone has a Second Amendment right to own armor penetrating, rapid firing military weapons.

Similarly, the right to life group is not likely to stop with anti-abortion laws. Any group that legislates a 99-year sentence for a woman who has an abortion has a bigger agenda. That agenda appears to include a return to laws that made purchase of condoms and birth control counseling a criminal offense in Connecticut and other states.