Eisenstadt v. Baird

Eisenstadt v. Baird
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 17–18, 1971 Decided March 22, 1972
Full case name	Thomas S. Eisenstadt, Sheriff of Suffolk County, Massachusetts v. William F. Baird
Citations	405 U.S. 438 (more) 92 S. Ct. 1029; 31 L. Ed. 2d 349; 1972 U.S. LEXIS 145
Case history
Prior	Habeas corpus petition dismissed, Baird v. Eisenstadt, 310 F. Supp. 951 (D. Mass. 1970); reversed, 429 F.2d 1398 (1st Cir. 1970).
Subsequent	None
Holding
A Massachusetts law criminalizing the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried persons for the purpose of preventing pregnancy violated the right to equal protection. Judgment of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William O. Douglas · William J. Brennan Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Rehnquist
Case opinions
Majority	Brennan, joined by Douglas, Stewart, Marshall
Concurrence	Douglas
Concurrence	White (in result), joined by Blackmun
Dissent	Burger
Powell and Rehnquist took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. IX, XIV

Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that established the right of unmarried people to possess contraception on the same basis as married couples.

The Court struck down a Massachusetts law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried people for the purpose of preventing pregnancy, ruling that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The decision effectively legalized (heterosexual) premarital sex in the United States.^[1]