The Equal Rights Amendment Is a Fraud Using Women as the Prop

Townhall.com ^ | February 10, 2020 | Patrina Mosley

[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.

[rollo tomasi]

The amendment is a catalyst for the courts,; it’s the meaning behind the words, not the explicit enumeration. Wake up, because every legal scholar and pro-abortionists are salivating over the hay the courts could make with the amendment.

[rollo tomasi]

https://law.justia.com/cases/new-mexico/supreme-court/1998/23239-0-0.html

New Mexico amended their State Constitution to include language on par with the ERA. Courts used the language of the ERA provision to enact State funding for abortion. What say you?