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Senate Advancing Equal Rights Amendment
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Just over a week after House Democrats passed their resolution to remove the deadline of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), Senate Majority Leader Schumer has decided to place it on the Senate calendar.Â
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It’s important to remember that Congress passed the ERA over 50 years ago. Thanks to the efforts of Phyllis Schlafly and a group of dedicated moms, the ERA failed to reach the 38-state threshold needed to ratify it into the Constitution within the legislated 7-year deadline. Lawmakers and the American people became more educated on the issue attributing to its decline in popularity and even causing 5 states to withdraw their ratifications.Â
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The resolution the Senate plans to vote on is H.J. Res. 17, removes the ERA’s 7-year ratification deadline. This is clearly an unprecedented maneuver to cheat our government system. Feminist icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg indicated that for the ERA to be ratified, the process must start from the beginning. If the American people really desire the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, Congress must begin the process anew. In this manner, the people of 2021 will be represented, not the people of 1972.
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It’s clear the ERA is bad for women. Through this amendment, men identifying as women will be legally allowed to usurp women’s rights. Their access to women’s sports teams, women’s nursing rooms, and women’s domestic violence shelters (just to name a few) puts women’s privacy and safety in jeopardy. The Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County in 2020 changed the legal definition of sex in Title VII to no longer refer to biological sex. Rather, it refers to a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). Clearly, ill-intentioned men would use this amendment as a way to destroy women’s livelihoods.Â
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Unfortunately, the ERA’s negative impact on women does not stop there. The ERA will expand and mandate abortion access through tax-payer funding. This has already been done in Connecticut and New Mexico (N.M Right to Choose/NARAL v. Johnson, Doe v. Maher). The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) even encouraged litigators to use the ERA to strike down restrictions on abortion such as parental consent laws. They also filed briefs in abortion cases in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut arguing that since an abortion procedure is only performed on women, that a state’s denial of taxpayer funded abortion should be considered “sex discrimination” under their state ERA. Because a Constitutional Amendment has more authority than state laws, it will overturn every state-level pro-life protection.
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For these reasons, Eagle Forum asks for your help in contacting your Senators and ask them to vote NO on H.J. Res. 17.
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Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121
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