The right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut and its influence on Roe v. Wade is associated with which amendments?

• A. Fourth and Ninth Amendments
• B. First and Second Amendments
• C. Fifth and Thirteenth Amendments
• D. Eighth Amendment

Answer: (A)

The idea being tested is where the right to privacy comes from in Griswold and how that notion influenced Roe. In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court struck down a state law banning contraception by recognizing a zone of private life whose boundaries are protected from government intrusion. The way that privacy is framed in that decision rests most directly on protections in the Fourth Amendment—guarding people’s private life from unreasonable intrusions—and on the Ninth Amendment, which preserves rights not listed in the Constitution. These two amendments together support the concept of a private sphere in which intimate decisions—like marital contraception—are protected.

Roe v. Wade then extends that privacy idea within the broader liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, but the amendments most closely tied to the privacy reasoning in Griswold are the Fourth and Ninth. The other choices don’t primarily articulate the privacy framework used in Griswold.