Incorporation of the Bill of Rights

584 Planned Parenthood v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 67–72 . The Court recognized the husband’s interests and the state interest in promoting marital harmony. But the latter was deemed not served by the requirement, and, since when the spouses disagree on the abortion decision one has to prevail, the Court thought the person who bears the child and who is the more directly affected should be the one to prevail. Justices White and Rehnquist and Chief Justice Burger dissented.

V. Minnesota, 193 U.S. 53 ; Gladson v. Minnesota, 166 U.S. 427 ; Missouri Pac. V. Kansas, 216 U.S. 262 ; Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Comm’n, 242 U.S. 603 ; Lake Erie & W.R.R. v. Public Util. Comm’n, 249 U.S. 422 ; Western & Atlantic R.R.

What is the Origin of Selective Incorporation?

The Court ruled that the privileges and immunities clause protected only certain narrow federal rights , not the protections found in the Bill of Rights. The total incorporation doctrine has never been adopted by a majority of the U.S. The majority opinions of the Supreme Court have instead adhered to a fundamental fairness standard or applied selective incorporation in determining whether a state has violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause. Justice Thomas, concurring, what is the difference between total and selective incorporation argued that the better vehicle for incorporation, one truer to the original understanding of the 14th Amendment, was the Privileges and Immunities Clause. Dissenters argued that the right to bear arms, « unlike other forms of substantive liberty,…often put others’ lives at risk » and was therefore not the sort of liberty the 14th Amendment protected against state enforcement. Note that there are several possible positions that could be taken with respect to the incorporation debate.

As a result, if a state were to try and pass a law that deprives its citizens of the freedom of speech or the freedom of religion, that law would be unconstitutional. A court would say that the law violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as incorporated against the states by the 14th Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment includes a clause that limits the ability of states to enact laws that deprive citizens of constitutionally protected rights. With the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Constitution limited the ability of states to pass laws that deny American citizens their life, liberty, and property without following laid down legal processes, or Due Process. In the 1925 case Gitlow v. New York, the Supreme Court held that states must protect freedom of speech.

Incorporation Doctrine

Did protecting the “privacy” of the decisions whether to have a family also include the right to make decisions regarding sexual intimacy? Although many of these issues have been resolved, others remain. In the 1833 case of Barron v. Baltimore, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Bill of Rights did not apply to state governments; such protections were instead provided by the constitutions of each state. After the Civil War, Congress and the states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, which included the Due Process Clause and the Privileges or Immunities Clause. While the Fifth Amendment had included a due process clause, the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment crucially differed from the Fifth Amendment in that it explicitly applied to the states. The Privileges or Immunities Clause also explicitly applied to the states, unlike the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV of the Constitution.

Although the extent of the rights protected by substantive due process may be controversial, its theoretical basis is firmly established and forms the basis for much of modern constitutional case law. Though application of these rights against the states is no longer controversial, the incorporation of other substantive rights, as is discussed in detail below, has been. Then, starting in 1897 and throughout the 20thcentury, the Court issued a series of decisions that held that the due process and equal protections clauses of the 14thAmendment did apply to state governments as well other governmental entities such as schools. Through incorporation, state governments are held to the same standards as the federal government with regard to many constitutional rights.