The Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights and was ratified on December 15, 1791. Its text reads: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
This means that just because certain rights are explicitly listed in the Constitution, it does not mean that people do not have other rights that are not specifically mentioned. The amendment was introduced to address concerns that listing some rights might imply that unlisted rights were unprotected or did not exist. It was a compromise to reassure those worried that the government might infringe on rights simply because they were not enumerated in the document
. The Ninth Amendment protects these unenumerated rights, recognizing that individuals have additional fundamental rights beyond those expressly stated in the Constitution. Over time, the amendment has been cited in legal cases to support rights such as privacy, even though such rights are not explicitly mentioned in the constitutional text. For example, the Supreme Court referenced the Ninth Amendment in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) to uphold a right to marital privacy
. In summary, the Ninth Amendment serves as a safeguard ensuring that the listing of certain rights in the Constitution does not lead to the denial or disparagement of other rights retained by the people, affirming the existence of broader individual liberties beyond those enumerated
