Facts—Responding to a report of a weapons disturbance, Houston police legally entered Lawrence’s apartment and discovered another man and him engaged in an intimate sexual act. Both were arrested and convicted by a justice of the peace under a Texas…

Facts—The state of Washington prohibited individuals from aiding suicides (the law does not prohibit the withholding of “life-sustaining treatment”). Physicians who sometimes treated terminally ill individuals challenged the law as an undue burden on the “liberty interest” protected by the…

Facts—Pennsylvania adopted restrictions on abortions. These required informed consent and a twenty-four-hour waiting period, either the consent of at least one parent or the exercise of a judicial bypass mechanism in cases where minors sought abortions, a requirement that a…

Facts—In August 1982 respondent was charged with violating a Georgia statute that had criminalized sodomy. He had committed this act with another male in the bedroom of his home, where they had been discovered by a police officer serving a…

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113; 93 S. Ct. 705; 35 L. Ed. 2d 147 (1973) Facts—Texas statutes prohibited abortions except by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother. A woman proceeding under the pseudonym…

Facts—Statutory provisions in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia denied welfare assistance to persons who were residents and met all other eligibility requirements except that they had not resided within the jurisdiction for at least a year immediately preceding…

Facts—This case involved the constitutionality of Connecticut’s birth control law. The statute provided that “any person who uses any drug, medical article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception” was to be subject to fine or imprisonment or both.…