Posted on 02/10/2020 4:41:27 PM PST by Kaslin
Editor's note: This column was co-authored by Tabitha Walter.
The House Judiciary Committee recently marked up H.J.Res.79, and will soon get a floor vote. This joint resolution seeks to remove the congressional deadline for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. When Congress originally passed the ERA, they put a deadline in place for states to ratify it. The ERA failed to win ratification in enough states before the deadline passed and is thus legally dead, but this stale effort is back to enshrine abortion-on-demand at the expense of hard-won protections for women.
The ERA would not only create a right to on-demand abortions in all 50 states, but it would allow for unrestricted taxpayer-funded abortions through all nine months of pregnancy. Abortion activist group NARAL Pro-Choice America states, “With its ratification, the ERA would reinforce the constitutional right to abortion by clarifying that the sexes have equal rights, which would require judges to strike down anti-abortion laws because they violate both the constitutional right to privacy and sexual equality.”
We already see this at the state level. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has encouraged lawyers to use state ERAs to strike down restrictions on abortion such as parental consent laws. They have also filed briefs in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut arguing that since an abortion procedure is only performed on women, a state’s denial of taxpayer-funded abortion should be considered “sex discrimination” under their state ERA. Pro-abortion groups have won cases in New Mexico (N.M. Right to Choose/NARAL v. Johnson) and Connecticut (Doe v. Maher) in which the state ERAs upheld this notion.
But today, the Left is unwilling to define “sex” in biological terms, arguing that the word incorporates “gender identity” as well. This redefinition has led to absurd results, allowing biological males to claim access to private, women’s-only areas in shelters, prisons, bathrooms, and showers. It has also allowed them to infiltrate (and dominate) women’s-only activities like sports. Those arguing for the ERA are certainly aware of these developments, and intend to apply this definition. Thus, while trying to protect abortion under the guise of equality for women, the ERA would erase women.
Of course, despite the wishes of its advocates, the ERA is dead. Thirty-six years after it died, proponents are trying to revive its corpse by ignoring the deadline and recognizing Nevada (2017), Illinois (2018), and Virginia (2020) as states that have ratified the ERA. Countless lawyers, the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice (OLC), and even Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg have agreed that the ERA could not be ratified unless Congress started over. Even still, the House Judiciary Committee is seeking to remove the ratification deadline in H.J.Res.79.
Thus, we have all of this congressional, political, and soon judicial havoc over enshrining abortion. Members of Congress should care about being boldly pro-life, and not so much about being perceived as anti-women for opposing H.J.Res.79. They should not be fooled. If the ERA really was about protecting women, it would define “women” by biological sex. The ERA is not about women; it is about abortion, and countless innocent lives are on the line.
U mean Greta’s being used?
So now old, failed constitutional amendments that couldn’t pass even with an unlawful extension are coming back? Plus they are submitted to Democrat rules?
Forget the biblical admonition to provide for one’s family
Forget all that Love Thy Wife, as Christ Loved the Church
Forget all that sacrifice
Narcissistic Loveless Pleasure Seeking existence here we come
should I add a /sarc tag to this missive?
Several weeks back it was revealed that 73% of all new jobs under this economic boom had gone to women.
Ivanka Trump was heralding this as the greatest thing to come down the pike in a long long time.
I thought to myself, “Can you imagine a man getting up and championing the idea men would fill very close to three out of every four new job openings?
The absurdities in life these days...
This is all about giving LGBTQI! super-rights and control over the country. And to legitimize persecution of Christians.
The majority of those attending college and graduate school are also women. You would have to give affirmative action to men.
Kipling was right...
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
Could be...
There are good reasons why Phyllis Schlafly fought to defeat the equal rights amendment. For one thing, it transfers even more power from the states to Fedzilla. It was also recognized as an attack on the family, and the unborn babies. Given the 14th amendment, it truly isn’t needed for equal rights anyway.
10 Reasons to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment:
https://eagleforum.org/topics/era/10-reasons-to-oppose-equal-rights-amendment.html
Equal Rights Amendment
We don’t need equal rights beyond the Bill of Rights and the voting rights amendments. The unnecessary ERA will give activist judges a new amendment to twist.
The current generation of legal majority citizen voters should be able to make the killing of an unpopular, proposed amendment to the Constitution one of the main campaign promises for an election.
Corrections, insights welcome.
Remember in November!
MAGA! Now KAGA! (Keep America Great Always!)
Pro-life Ping!
Please, everybody, call your House member and tell them to vote to oppose House Joint Resolution 79. The vote will be any day now.
Capital switchboard is 202-225-3121.
This would leave us worse than Roe v. Wade.
Will do.
Thanks for the ping.
Thank YOU!
My Representative posted his thoughts on Facebook today. Mick Mulvaney used to be our rep. I was glad when he was picked by Trump, as I know him to be a man of great integrity, with a passion for and knowledge of economic issues, but I hated losing him as our Congressman. Ralph Norman has proven to be a worthy replacement. Here’s what Rep. Norman posted today.
https://www.facebook.com/315402818913523/posts/884520505335082/?d=n
Back in 1972, a proposed amendment was sent out to all 50 states for ratification. It was called the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and it simply proclaimed, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
Remember, three-quarters of the states (38 of 50) must ratify an amendment before it becomes part of our Constitution. States originally had seven years – until 1979 – to ratify the ERA. However, for a variety of reasons it never passed the required 38 states, even after the deadline was extended out to 1982.
That is until last month. 40 years after the original deadline, Virginia recently became the 38th state to ratify this proposed Amendment. Which leads to these two questions:
1. Why the renewed push for this amendment almost five decades later?
2. Why did liberals in the House of Representatives introduce a resolution – which we voted on today – that would retroactively eliminate the (already extended) 1982 ratification deadline?
Well, the truth is the Equal Rights Amendment is no longer about equal rights. Not anymore… at least not in 2020. Today, the left is hoping to use it to advance the pro-choice, convenient abortion movement. How so?? Let’s just go back and read the original language: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
With this language in our Constitution, abortion advocates will immediately seek to overturn EVERY law which limits abortion on the grounds that those laws can only apply to women, and therefore are unconstitutional under the Equal Rights Amendment.
Do you see what’s happening here? This is a backhanded attempt to amend our Constitution in order to overturn pro-life legislation, and guarantee unconstrained access to abortion. The ERA could also be used to nullify any laws that prohibit taxpayer funds from being used for abortions.
As expected, every liberal in the House voted today to eliminate the 1982 ratification deadline. Fortunately this resolution will go nowhere in the Senate and would never be signed by the President, effectively killing the ERA because the deadline to ratify has long passed.
But that doesn’t mean the fight is over. Now we move over to the courts, where pro-abortion groups will challenge the validity of the ratification deadlines, hoping to strip them away to enable the ERA to become part of our Constitution. My hope is that this effort will fail. Unfortunately, it will take years for that process to play out.
Thank you. That explains it very clearly.
From your post:
“,,Well, the truth is the Equal Rights Amendment is no longer about equal rights. Not anymore… at least not in 2020. Today, the left is hoping to use it to advance the pro-choice, convenient abortion movement. ..”
My rep. seemed to be on the fence, and I think it might have been because she was afraid that some of her constituents might think it’s about woman’s rights, even though it is about abortion.
This I liked from your rep’s thoughts:
“..Fortunately this resolution will go nowhere in the Senate and would never be signed by the President, effectively killing the ERA because the deadline to ratify has long passed. ..”
But he’s right that the fight is not over.
How exactly would it do this? Abortion isn't mentioned in the text of the ERA.
No that doesn't follow at all.
Here is the text of the Equal Rights Amendment: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."
It isn't mandating equal outcomes, or public abortions, or anything like that. Honestly, I doubt that it would have any effect at all, since sex discrimination and equality before the law is already the law. At this stage, the people trying to get this passed are just virtue signaling.
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