Right of privacy: personal autonomy
The right of privacy has evolved to protect the freedom of individuals to choose whether or not to perform certain acts or subject themselves to certain experiences. This personal autonomy has grown into a 'liberty' protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.
However, this liberty is narrowly defined and generally only protects privacy of family, marriage, motherhood, procreation, and child rearing.
There have been attempts to further extend the right of privacy under the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution; however, a general right to personal autonomy has yet to take hold beyond limited circumstances.
The personal autonomy dimension of the right of privacy has been overwhelmingly developed in cases dealing with reproductive rights.
The Supreme Court first recognized an independent right of privacy within the 'penumbra' (fringe area) of the Bill of Rights in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965). In this case, a right of marital privacy was invoked to void a law prohibiting contraception. Later cases expanded upon this fundamental right, and in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), the right of privacy was firmly established under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. The court classified this right as fundamental, thus requiring any governmental infringement to be justified by a compelling state interest.
Roe held that the state's compelling interest in preventing abortion and protecting the life of the mother outweighs a mother's personal autonomy only after viability.
Before viability, it was held, the mother's liberty of personal privacy limits state interference due to the lack of a compelling state interest.