NCJ Number
117170
Journal
Law and Contemporary Problems Volume: 51 Issue: 1 Dated: (Winter 1988) Pages: 79-122
Date Published
1988
Length
44 pages
Annotation
Following a review of doctrinal aspects of U.S. Supreme Court treatment of State interests, this article examines the constitutionalization of family law and vice issues under 14th amendment privacy rights.
Abstract
As the result of a limiting principle to the right of privacy, most of the burden of limiting this right has been placed on State-interest analyses. However, the Court's analyses in privacy cases in both family law and vice issues has been marked by a repeated failure to define either a standard or its component parts, coupled with its uncertain handling of empirical evidence. In addition, the Court has shown a tendency to see statutes concerned with social issues in isolation from their legal context and has shown an insensitivity to the social, cultural, and political contexts of privacy disputes. From this perspective, privacy rights cases often do not appear to serve compelling State interests. However, viewed in context, statutes prohibiting fornication, prostitution, pornography, and abortion attempt to influence behavior indirectly by reinforcing attitudes that encourage restraint in sexual and family settings and affirm strategic moral prohibitions. By reinforcing a constraining system of morality, such statutes serve two State interests: deterring destructive behaviors within families and in sexual behaviors, and inhibiting the growth of an offensive social environment -- areas in which it can be argued that the State's interest is compelling. 139 footnotes.