Constitutional Rights: The 14th Amendment
Is this a reasonable classification or distinction? (Y or N)
1. ___ Teens pay higher car insurance premiums.
2. ___ People with red hair are not permitted to vote.
3. ___ Smokers pay taxes on cigarettes and cannot smoke in restaurants.
4. ___ Handicapped citizens must have an accessible entrance to all public facilities.
5. ___ Longer prison sentences are given to those who commit “hate crimes”.
6. ___ Out-of-state students pay higher tuition.
7. ___ African Americans must ride in the back of buses and trains.
8. ___ Those with military backgrounds get discounts.
9. ___ Students whose parents attended a school are given automatic admittance.
10.___ A law requires that applicants take a test to be hired on a police force; women have consistently
done poorly on the test.
11. ___ A verbal ability test is required for those who wish to become naturalized citizens.
12. ___ A zoning ordinance permits only single-family homes to be built.
13. ___ An apartment owner does not allow tenants who have pets to rent.
14. ___ Level I students are not permitted to use notes on tests while Level II students are.
15. ___ Gay couples are not permitted marriage licenses in Pennsylvania.
What constitutional rights does the 14th Amendment protect?
The 14th amendment defined citizenship as any person born or naturalized in the U.S.
The 14th amendment includes that all states must guarantee the rights and freedoms found in the
Bill of Rights. A process known as incorporation has extended the Bill of Rights to protect
individuals from all levels of government. Exceptions to nationalized or incorporated freedoms
include the 2nd, 3rd, 10th and parts of the 5th and 6th amendments. Incorporation is important because it
means that all citizens have the same basic rights.
The due process clause of the 14th amendment also protects citizens from state laws that might
inhibit their rights to free speech, free religion, reasonable searches, seizures, access to lawyers and
protection from cruel and unusual punishment.
The 14th amendment also guarantees every person equal protection under the law. (this is also
included in the 5th amendment) This means that state and local laws cannot make unreasonable
distinctions between people. While some distinctions must be made, courts must determine if these
distinctions are reasonable.
How is the 14th Amendment used to determine the constitutionality of classifications or distinctions?
The rational basis test is used to uphold a state law if the state can show good reason to justify their
classification and how it relates to a goal of the government.
A suspect classification is made on the basis of race or national origin and is subject to additional
legal scrutiny. In order for these distinctions to be upheld, there must be compelling public interest to
justify the law and the classification.
How has the 14th Amendment been used to fight discrimination?
Discrimination is when citizens are treated unfairly by laws that unreasonably classify them.
Discrimination is not always ease to prove and one must prove that intent to discriminate motivated
the state’s actions. “The 14th amendment guarantees equal laws, not equal results.”
The court justified segregated Jim Crow laws in the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson stating that the 14th
amendment allowed separate facilities as long as they were equal.
The Separate but Equal Doctrine was reversed in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka, Kansas. Based on schools, this ruling stated that the 14th amendment should protect the
rights of all citizens to have equal facilities and that segregation inherently created inequality.
Roe v. Wade (1973)
One of the most controversial Supreme Court cases involves the 14th amendment and its protection against
state laws that obstruct a person’s constitutional rights.
Case Summary: An 1854 law in Texas made it a crime to get an abortion unless it would save the life of the
mother. Most states had similar laws in the US at the time. Jane Roe was a single woman who filed a federal
lawsuit against Wade, the district attorney of the country in which she lived, seeking a judgment that the
Texas law was unconstitutional. Being unmarried, Roe wished to terminate her pregnancy by a “competent,
licensed physician, under safe, clinical conditions” in Texas without having to travel to another state or
without having to endanger her physical well-being by having an illegal abortion. She claimed the law
violated her rights to personal privacy supported by the 1st, 4th, 9th and 14th Amendments.
Related Court Ruling:
Griswold v. Connecticut, (1965) was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court ruled that the
Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of
contraceptives. By a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated
the "right to marital privacy". Although the Bill of Rights does not explicitly mention "privacy," justices
wrote that the right was to be found in other constitutional protections; to include the 9th Amendment and
the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.
Questions:
1. Does the Constitution embrace a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion?
2. Is privacy a right? (Should people be able to make their own health care decisions?)
Conclusion:
The Court (7-2) held that a woman's right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy protected by the
Fourteenth Amendment. The decision gave a woman total autonomy over the pregnancy during the first
trimester and defined different levels of state interest for the second and third trimesters. As a result, the laws
of 46 states were affected by the Court's ruling. Since this 1972 ruling, states have successfully passed many
restrictions to abortions which have generally passed legal battles.
Below is a quote from the case summary that describes the ruling made by the court:
State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only
a life-saving procedure on the mother's behalf without regard to the stage of her
pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a
woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy. Though the State cannot override
that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and
the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a "compelling"
point at various stages of the woman's approach to term. Pp. 147-164.
(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion
decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant
woman's attending physician. Pp. 163, 164.
(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State,
in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the
abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health. Pp. 163, 164.
(c) For the stage subsequent to viability the State, in promoting its interest in the
potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion
except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the
life or health of the mother. Pp. 163-164; 164-165.
Abortion Laws Today:
Laws vary from state to state but no state can make all abortions illegal.
In 2003 Congress passed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban which was upheld by the Supreme Court in a
5-4 decision in 2007. Because the ban allowed for a number of medical exceptions the Court ruled in the
laws favor.
Pennsylvania’s Abortion Statute was challenged and upheld in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1994)
Minors must have permission of at least 1 parent unless a judge rules that minor as competent
to decide herself
24 hours prior to an abortion, women must be informed of: gestation (age), development of
preborn child, physical dangers to mother, and alternatives available to her including financial
assistance. An abortion can not be performed before 24 hours after this information is
provided.
Abortions are legal for any reason during the first six months of pregnancy.
During the last trimester, abortions are only permitted where the life of the mother is seriously
threatened of if a continued pregnancy could result in irreversible bodily damage.