When the Virginia legislature convenes on January 8, 2020, one of the first items of legislative business will be the Equal Rights Amendment. After a bitter loss this past session in passing the ERA, Democrats campaigned on the promise that Virginia will be the final and 38th state needed to enshrine women’s “equality” in the Constitution forever if they take the majority. However, this claim is simply not true.
On March 22, 1972 the Equal Rights Amendment was sent to the states for ratification. 38 states needed to approve the amendment within seven years. In that time frame, only 35 states passed the ERA and Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota ultimately rescinded their ratifications. The 1982 Supreme Court decision in NOW v. Idaho ruled the ERA was dead. The steps to ratify the amendment must begin anew in the US Congress. On this, both Phyllis Schlafly and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg agree.
Even if the deadline hadn’t passed, the ERA is still a bad policy that harms women. There are many unintended consequences of not distinguishing between biological males and females. The clause “on account of sex” will surely be interpreted to provide for men identifying as women. Indeed, at the Federal level, the Equality Act and the Violence Against Women Act include provisions allowing men to take advantage of women’s only institutions, like women’s prisons, shelters, sports teams, restrooms, and locker rooms.
In addition, the amendment removes all protections for women merely because men don’t need those same protections. These include workplace practices that accommodate pregnant women, state labor laws for women who do heavy and manual work, government programs that support mothers, like WIC, and laws and presumptions that support women in the areas of alimony, child support, and the requirement of husbands to pay the medical bills of dependent wives. The ERA is sex neutral.
More importantly, the ERA will expand abortion. In both New Mexico and Connecticut, the state’s ERAs were used to overturn abortion restrictions and mandate taxpayer funding of abortion (N.M Right to Choose/NARAL v. Johnson, Doe v. Maher). Virginia Democrats are radically pro-choice and will be overjoyed with the possibility of making abortion on demand a reality. In response to the last session’s House Bill No. 2491, which lifted restrictions on third-trimester abortions, Governor Ralph Northam (D) suggested the use of infanticide when he said:
“The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
The ERA is dangerous and threatens the well-being of women and unborn children. Please ask your Representative or Senator to vote NO on the ERA.
Click here for more information on the ERA.