Two decisions by the Supreme Court during the 1920s solidified this view of the 14th amendment. They found the liberty clause of the 14th amendment to prohibit the states from trying to interfere with the private decisions of parents and educators when shaping the children’s education. During the case Meyer v Nebraska in 1923, the Supreme Court said that a state law that did not allow the teaching of German or other foreign languages to students before the ninth grade was unconstitutional.
The issue of the right to privacy regained momentum in the 1960s during Griswold v Connecticut where the Supreme Court said that the state law prohibiting the sale, distribution, possession, and contraceptives to couples who were married was unconstitutional. There were different reasons for this based on the judge, whether it was the gray area of the law or the zone of privacy created by the Bill of Rights.
In 1969, the court ruled on Stanley v Georgia in a unanimous decision staying that an individual had the right to privacy to have and watch pornography, even if the pornography could potentially be the basis for any prosecution against the distributor or manufacturer. The opinion stated that the State could not tell a person who was in his own home what he movies he could watch or what books he could read.
More recently, the Supreme Court has acknowledged the right to privacy. For example, in the 1990 case Cruzan v Missouri Department of Health, the Court found that individuals had the right to make their own decisions about terminating medical treatments that were life-prolonging. Another case was Lawrence v Texas in 2003 where a sodomy law in Texas that prohibited homosexual sodomy was struck down by the Supreme Court.
[**]