The Paths to Griswold

The goal of this Article is to develop a fuller picture of Griswold by situating the case within a series of doctrinal and jurisprudential debates and developments that were prominent at the time of the Court's decision but that have faded in significance over time. This alternative picture of Griswold shifts the focus away from viewing the case as one about birth control, sexual privacy, and women's autonomy and toward viewing the decision as one about interpretive method, constitutional theory, and the Supreme Court's role within the national political system. This alternative perspective on Griswold has by no means gone unnoticed in the massive volume of scholarship discussing the case. But for the most part, such discussions have focused on efforts to either rationalize the result of the case or to criticize its reasoning.

This Article approaches the case from a different perspective–seeking to neither rationalize nor criticize, to neither praise nor condemn–rather simply to understand.