Bodily Autonomy

Item set

• State of Missouri v. Celia (1855)
  In this case, eighteen-year-old Celia was convicted of murdering her enslaver. The case considered whether Celia was guilty of murder or if she could be acquitted due to self-defense from sexual assault. The court ruled that Celia's enslaved status prevented her from being eligible to protect herself, and she was sentenced to death.
• In the Matter of the Application of Gussie Burns for Writ of Habeas Corpus (1920)
  In this case, Gussie Burns was arrested for vagrancy, found guilty, and sentenced to 30 days in the county jail. After her sentencing, she was subjected to a physical examination and reportedly found to have venereal disease. As a result, she was sent to the Omaha Women's Detention Home for treatment. After being confined to the home for four months, Gussie petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that her 30 day sentence had long since passed, the disease she was alleged to have did not exist, and that officials would not release her until she consented to "an operation for the removal of certain tubes." A writ was granted, though the outcome of her case is unknown. Cases like Gussie's illustrate the legal sophistication of women in the face of attempts to subordinate them during the Progressive Era.
• Buck v. Bell (1927)
  In this case, the Supreme Court legitimized eugenic sterilization laws. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. ruled that a Virginia statute permitting the forced sterilization of institutionalized people found to be "afflicted with an hereditary form of insanity or imbecility" was within the power of the State under the Fourteenth Amendment and did not violate the Constitution. Regarding Carrie Buck and her family, Justice Holmes declared, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." While later Supreme Court cases like Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942) established that procreation is a fundamental right, Buck v. Bell has never been overturned, leaving its precedent technically in place to this day.
• Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson (1942)
  In this case, the Supreme Court declared that the Oklahoma Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, because it was being applied unequally and was therefore unconstitutional. Crucially, the court's decision defined marriage and procreation as "basic civil rights of man," and emphasized that any state law that violated these rights would be subject to "strict scrutiny" for judicial review. In other words, in order for a criminal sterilization law to be constitutional, a state must show that it is "narrowly tailored" to a "compelling state interest." While this decision declared criminal sterilization laws unconstitutional, it did not overturn Buck v. Bell (1927), and still allowed state sterilization for patients in state psychiatric institutions.
• Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)
  In Griswold v. Connecticut, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Connecticut law that banned the use of any drug or article to prevent conception. The Court held that the right to marital privacy was constitutionally protected under the "penumbra" of the Bill of Rights, and thus that married couples could access and use contraception. The Griswold decision helped set precedent for the decisions in Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972) and Roe v. Wade (1973).
• Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972)
  In this case, the Supreme Court overturned a Massachusetts law that prohibited doctors and pharmacists from prescribing contraceptives to unmarried persons. Citing its earlier decision in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Court held that the right to privacy extended to all persons, and that a distinction between the rights of married and unmarried persons violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment. This decision added to the precedent for the right to privacy cited in Roe v. Wade (1973).
• Roe v. Wade (1973)
  Roe v. Wade is the landmark Supreme Court decision that extended the right to privacy to the ability for women to obtain abortion care. The decision was overturned in the 2022 decision of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, returning legislation on abortion care to the states.
• Doe v. Bolton (1973)
  In this case decided at the same time as Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that a Georgia law limiting access to abortions to cases of rape, fetal deformity, or extreme injury to the mother was unconstitutionally restrictive. It also reiterated that matters involving procreation fell under the right to privacy.
• Hyde Amendment (1976)
  The Hyde Amendment, first appearing as part of an appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, and Health, Education, and Welfare, prevented federal funds from being spent on abortion care. Versions of the Hyde Amendment continue to be adopted by Congress each year, though exceptions have been added to allow for the termination of pregnancies that result from rape or incest or that endanger the life of the mother.
• Bellotti v. Baird (1979)
  In this case, the Supreme Court examined the constitutionality of a Massachusetts law that required minors to secure parental consent before obtaining an abortion. The court found the statute unconstitutional because it permitted judicial authorization for an abortion to be withheld from minors the court deemed "mature and fully competent to make this decision independently," and also because it did not allow minors to receive an independent judicial assessment of their competence without parental notification.
• Winston v. Lee (1985)
  In this case, Rudolph Lee was accused of robbery and was shot during commission of the crime. The state of Virginia ordered that Lee receive surgery to remove the bullet lodged in his chest so that it could be used as evidence in his trial. Lee refused the surgery, and following a series of legal actions, the case was brought before the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Lee. The right to bodily privacy in this case was protected under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable "search and seizure." The Court found that the compelled surgery represented an intrusion of "such magnitude" that it would be "unreasonable" under the Fourth Amendment.
• Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)
  Later overturned by Lawrence v. Texas, this Supreme Court case ruled that the 14th Amendment did not prevent states from prohibiting sexual relations between same-sex couples.
• Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health (1990)
  In this case, the Supreme Court considered the case of Nancy Cruzan, who was living in a persistent vegetative state after a car accident. Cruzan's parents argued that they had the right to terminate her life support treatments, while the state of Missouri declared the need for "clear and convincing evidence" of the patient's wishes before terminating life-sustaining care. The Supreme Court held that a competent person has the right to decline medical treatment, but that a state may require "clear and convincing evidence" of an incompetent individual's desire to remove life support in order to do so. The legal legacy of Cruzan's case is the establishment of Advanced Directives, which establish a person's desire to continue or terminate life-sustaining methods in the event of catastrophic brain injuries and other medical issues.
• Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)
  In this case, the Supreme Court upheld the ruling in Roe v. Wade, but changed the scrutiny standard from "strict scrutiny" to an "undue burden" standard.
• Stenberg v. Carhart (2000)
  In this case, the Supreme Court found that a Nebraska state ban on partial-birth abortion was unconstitutional, as it failed to include a health exception and imposed an "undue burden" on people seeking abortions.
• Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
  This Supreme Court case struck down a Texas law that criminalized sexual relations between people of the same sex. Lawrence v. Texas ruled that all sexual relations between consenting adults is legal, confirming the right to privacy as it relates to private sexual activities.
• Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022)
  In the ruling it this case, the Supreme Court took away the constitutional right to abortion based on the right to privacy recognized by Roe v. Wade. This was the first time a Supreme Court decision took away a fundamental right from the people.
• United States v. Skrmetti (2025)
  In this case, the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors to treat gender dysphoria and other related conditions, declaring that the statute did not discriminate "on the basis of sex" and therefore was not subject to judicial scrutiny. Dissenting Justices Sotomayor, Jackson, and Kagan argued that the Tennessee legislation plainly discriminates on the basis of sex, because a minor's access to healthcare was dependent on their transgender identity and sex assigned at birth. Because the Supreme Court ruled that such laws are not subject to judicial scrutiny for sex discrimination, this ruling has enabled other states' restrictions on gender-affirming care for transgender individuals.