The State's Interest in Banning Contraceptives/Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

I admit to being a little weirded out by the article Maggie posted yesterday on overturning Griswold. But after reading it, there is rather less there than meets the eye. His argument is that protecting the health of the public is within the police power of the state. Therefore, if the state determines that a particular contraceptive device is harmful to the health of the public, or to the public good of marriage, and decides that these harms outweigh the benefits of the contraceptive method, then the state should be constitutionally permitted to outlaw it.

This scenario is very far from any political reality. The elected representatives of the people in a jurisdiction would have to find that combination of facts, weigh costs and benefits, and then make the case to the public at large that a ban would be on balance a good thing. Ain't gonna happen in my lifetime.
What is rather more likely is that some states will regulate some forms of contraception more than they now do (which is basically, not at all.) And rather than an outright ban on any particular form of contraception, I think it is much more likely that some states would limit access to it for certain groups, particularly unmarried minors.

I think there could easily be support for requiring some form of parental involvement in the contraceptive decisions of minors. You don't have to be even particularly pro-life to believe that the current policy protecting the privacy of minors against their parents amounts to an eggregious violation of the parent-child relationship. Most parents, pro-life or not, would want to be involved if their daughter were going to get contraception. I could support that sort of legislation.
posted by Dr J Roback Morse at 1:03 PM VOTE

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