## Facts

- New York Education Law § 6811(8) criminalized (1) sale or distribution of any contraceptive to minors under 16, (2) distribution of contraceptives to persons 16 or older by anyone other than a licensed pharmacist, and (3) advertising or display of contraceptives by anyone, including pharmacists.
- Population Services International (PSI) disseminated birth-control information and services and owned Population Planning Associates, Inc. (PPA), a mail-order seller of nonmedical contraceptives to New York residents.
- PPA advertised in New York publications and filled orders from New York without restricting sales by customer age.
- Several individual plaintiffs, including physicians and a clergyman involved in a venereal-disease prevention program, also challenged the statute.
- A three-judge federal district court held § 6811(8) unconstitutional as applied to nonprescription contraceptives under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and enjoined enforcement.
- New York officials appealed directly to the Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether a mail-order contraceptive vendor had standing to challenge the statute on its own behalf and on behalf of prospective customers.
2. Whether restricting distribution of nonprescription contraceptives (including an absolute ban for minors under 16) violated liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause.
3. Whether a blanket prohibition on advertising or displaying contraceptives violated the First Amendment.

## Decision

- The Court affirmed the injunction and held the challenged statutory scheme unconstitutional as applied to nonprescription contraceptives.
- The Court held PPA had standing both on its own behalf and as a vendor asserting the rights of its customers; it did not reach the standing of other plaintiffs.
- The pharmacist-only distribution rule for persons 16 and over unconstitutionally burdened the protected choice whether to bear or beget a child and was not justified by compelling interests.
- The absolute ban on distribution of any contraceptive to minors under 16 was unconstitutional because it substantially burdened minors’ ability to avoid pregnancy and was not adequately justified by the asserted interest in discouraging sexual activity.
- The advertising/display ban unconstitutionally suppressed truthful information about lawful products; offense to viewers and asserted morality-based concerns did not justify total suppression.

## Legal Principles

- Regulations that significantly burden the decision whether to bear or beget a child are valid only if supported by compelling state interests and narrowly drawn.
- Limits on access to contraception can burden the protected procreative decision by restricting the practical means to exercise that choice.
- A vendor may have third-party standing to challenge a law restricting sales by asserting the rights of customers when the law directly regulates the vendor’s conduct and burdens customer rights.
- The First Amendment protects truthful, nonobscene commercial information about lawful products; a state may not impose a blanket ban on such advertising based on anticipated offense or disagreement with the conduct the information may facilitate.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated New York’s pharmacist-only distribution requirement for nonprescription contraceptives, its total ban on distribution to minors under 16, and its blanket ban on contraceptive advertising and display, holding that the scheme unjustifiably burdened constitutionally protected reproductive decisionmaking and unlawfully suppressed truthful speech about lawful contraceptives.


Carey v. Population Servs. Int'l, 431 U.S. 678 (1977)