When I was a college senior researching the origins of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), there was a story making the rounds that one of Justice Scalia's clerks had walked into his chambers and asked the Justice, "What are you going to do about Roe v. Wade?" Scalia was said to have replied: "Roe? That's easy. The real question is, 'What are we going to do about Griswold?'" That summer the rumor proved accurate in at least one respect. Justice Scalia penned a concurrence in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), arguing forcefully that Roe should be overruled.
What Scalia would have done about Griswold was always a far more theoretical question. States were not falling over each other to ban condoms, IUDs, or the pill. The penumbras-and-emanations test was widely mocked, but the 1987 Supreme Court hearings of Robert Bork had demonstrated that the result in Griswold could not be seriously questioned by a nominee.
Now that the reversal of Roe appears imminent, the question of what the Supreme Court will do next arises once more. Attention is focused mostly on the precedents involving gay rights, like Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the same-sex marriage decision, and Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which recognized a right of private adult sexual intimacy. These involve matters, like abortion, not specified in the text of the Constitution.
