Do we have such a right?

Who wants to know?

The answer, on all the evidence, based on at least some selected judicial precedents, may be reassuring:

In a Supreme Court case, Meyer v Nebraska, 1923, Justice McReynolds perhaps said it best:

"While this court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty thus guaranteed, the term has received much consideration and some of the included things have been definitely stated. Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."

Seems simple and straightforward, and of course Roe v. Wade was decided based on a right of privacy lurking in the penumbra of the constitution . . .

Whatever that means.

But would it be true in general, would a sweeping, unconditional right of privacy be found today?

And would we want it to be?

Not sure.

Judicial activism is what judicial activism is, sometimes much to be praised, sometimes much to be reviled, depending on where you sit and what a possible right to privacy may be protecting from interference by the statist types.

As no rule of law ever should, but ours increasingly does, the result in the case, then, would depend on the context and the politics of the times.

And in that, at least, I cannot, and do not, concur.

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