Griswold v. Connecticut: A History of the Legal Actors and Arguments that Culminated in a Constitutional Right to Privacy

Author

• Katherine E. Wurster, Claremont McKenna CollegeFollow

Graduation Year

2026

Date of Submission

4-2026

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

History

Reader 1

Professor Diana Selig

Rights Information

2026 Katherine E Wurster

Abstract

This thesis examines how legal activists and attorneys constructed the constitutional right to privacy as a litigation strategy to challenge Connecticut's 1879 Comstock statute, which banned the use and dissemination of contraceptives, culminating in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). It draws on archival materials from the Thomas I. Emerson Papers at Yale University, legal briefs, oral histories from Estelle Griswold and Catherine Roraback, and historian David Garrow's Liberty and Sexuality.

This thesis argues the right to privacy emerged not as an inevitable constitutional discovery but as a calculated legal strategy adopted by attorneys Fowler Harper, Catherine Roraback, and Thomas Emerson in collaboration with Estelle Griswold and Dr. Charles Lee Buxton. Influenced by Thomas Cooley's "right to be let alone" and Justice Harlan's dissent in Poe v. Ullman, the legal team grounded their argument in the combined protections of the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to create a zone of privacy where the government could not intrude. By deliberately violating Connecticut's statute to force judicial review, the team compelled the Supreme Court to recognize marital privacy.

While Griswold represented a landmark legal victory, this thesis contends that its dependence on implied constitutional principles, rather than explicit textual grounding, rendered it an inherently fragile precedent. Its partial unraveling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization demonstrates the long-term vulnerability of rights rooted in judicial interpretation. In a post-Dobbs era, understanding how the right to privacy was constructed remains essential for anticipating the future of reproductive autonomy in the U.S.

Recommended Citation

Wurster, Katherine E., "Griswold v. Connecticut: A History of the Legal Actors and Arguments that Culminated in a Constitutional Right to Privacy" (2026). CMC Senior Theses. 4235.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/4235