The Right to Dignity Rex D. Glensy - Columbia Law School

2011] The Right to Dignity 91
noted that the criminal penalties imposed upon violators of the law
would result in a sort of scarlet letter “with all that imports for the
dignity of the persons charged.” 126 Thus, the Lawrence majority used
dignity in a manner unlike the use of the term in Eighth and Fourth
Amendment cases. Under the liberty rubric identified in Lawrence,
dignity seems to be called upon as a marker of value granted to
individuals on the ground of their status as a human being. In other
words, humans command respect for their dignity rights for no reason
other than their existence. It seems as if the Court, in this instance,
located the right to dignity outside of the constitutional sphere while,
at the same time, finding clauses, such as the Fourteenth
Amendment’s liberty clause, that embody this extrapositive source of
law.
Abortion rights cases use the concept of dignity in a manner
that mirrors Lawrence. This connection was expressed more clearly in
Planned Parenthood v. Casey, where Justice Stevens noted that
“[p]art of the constitutional liberty to choose is the equal dignity to
which each of us is entitled.” 127 Both the plurality opinion and Justice
Stevens’ concurrence connected the right to dignity to the right of
women to control their own reproductive health. Thus, the plurality
stated that the choices confronting women faced with the decision to
terminate a pregnancy are “central to personal dignity and
autonomy,” 128 and Justice Stevens noted that “[t]he authority to make
such . . . decisions is an element of basic human dignity.” 129 In
Sternberg v. Carhart, the Court struck down a statute criminalizing
certain forms of lateterm abortions, noting fears that “a law that
forbids abortion would condemn many American women to lives that
lack dignity, depriving them of equal liberty.” 130 Interestingly, not
only do these opinions characterize the idea of dignity as respect in
the form of governmental noninterference, but they also introduce an
element of equal treatment into the mix by coining the phrase “equal
liberty.” Thus, dignity also encompasses, at least in words, an anti
discrimination component.
instrumental in allowing individuals to “retain their dignity as free persons.” Id.
at 567.
126. Id. at 575.
127. Casey, 505 U.S. at 920 (Stevens, J., concurring in part).
128. Id. at 851 (plurality opinion).
129. Id. at 916 (Stevens, J., concurring in part).
130. Sternberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914, 920 (2000). The right to dignity
has not only been employed to safeguard the rights of the mother. See, e.g.,
Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124, 157 (2007) (writing about the “respect for the
dignity of human life” in reference to the fetus).