Meyer v. Nebraska - Greater Impact For The Future

In the words of the Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court, the Meyer decision "languished in doctrinal obscurity for forty years." But starting in the 1960s, the decision's notion of protected personal liberty helped shape the idea of a right to privacy. The Court held that the right to privacy was implied in the Fourteenth Amendment and in McReynolds' assertion that marriage, child-rearing, and other personal pursuits were fundamental, guaranteed liberties under that amendment. In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Court said privacy rights allowed a married couple to use contraception without government interference. In another landmark case, Roe v. Wade (1973), Justice Harry Blackmun again cited the Meyer decision and the protection it extended to personal, private liberty. A woman's right to privacy, Roe held, allows her to have an abortion if she chooses.