Roe v. Wade
The basis for the "right to privacy" is a judicial interpretation that can be traced from an earlier case Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). In that landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled that a Connecticut law against the use of contraceptives violated the right to privacy, as found in the Constitution. However, the right to privacy is not directly mentioned in the Constitution. The Supreme Court decided that the right to privacy is implied by several amendments. In 1923, the court interpreted the "liberty" guarantee in the Fourteenth Amendment as a broad right to privacy. Justice William O. Douglas stated the guarantees of the right to privacy had penumbras (implied rights) "formed by emanations (a flowing) from those guarantees that help give them life and substance."