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Earlier this week, all eyes were on Virginia and Kentucky during their “off-year” elections, which ultimately came down to the abortion issue in a lot of cases. It’s a general trend in American politics that local elections tend to lean politically-opposite of the White House. For instance, when Barack Obama was in office, things in the states tended to lean redder, and vice versa. In these two Commonwealth elections, things stayed fairly on-trend.
Executive Director of Students for Life Action Matt Lamb noted: “Although pro-choice politicians took a majority in the House of Delegates, and Democrats now have a 21-19 advantage in the state senate, there is potentially one pro-life Democrat state senator, meaning that passing pro-abortion legislation will still face a fight. We plan on continuing to engage come January when the new legislative session begins.” Similar unfolded in Kentucky, with a Democrat Governor and Republican Attorney General elected.
They Won Some Seats, Then Waited ONE Day
Pro-abortion politicians, lobbies, PACs, and other organizations want to pass a Constitutional Amendment that would enshrine abortion in our nation’s founding document. They’re calling it the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment). But amendments require a majority, either in the U.S. House & Senate or a constitutional convention involving at least 3/4 of state legislatures to ratify.
Because they can’t do the former, the battle for the past 100 years has been state-focused. The day after the election, there were more than 28,000 headlines on the intent to double down on efforts to pass the ERA. And Virginia is the #1 state target for getting that coveted majority. The ERA was set with a seven-year deadline and even after Congress extended the deadline an additional 3 years, they still couldn’t get the 38 states needed to ratify the amendment. But when you’re pushing for abortion, there are no rules. Clearly.
What is the ERA?
The ERA specifically states that a person’s sex could not be considered in making a legal preference. With that in mind, consider the many protections designed for women that would be impacted and erased, including:
- the Equal Pay Act of 1963;
- the Civil Rights Act of 1964;
- the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972;
- the Federal Minimum Wage Act of 1974;
- the Pregnancy Nondiscrimination Act of 1964.
In fact, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in Sex Bias in the U.S. Code that the ERA will change 800 federal laws, including the elimination of social security benefits for wives and widows. The financial impact on women is incalculable, and ERA will do nothing to focus attention on sexual crimes against women, as a focus on women would be discouraged.
The BIG Problem With the ERA
It sounds straightforward, right? Who wouldn’t want equal rights for men and women? The only problem: Its secret goal is to enshrine a right to taxpayer-funded abortions into the U.S. Constitution.
We already have state and federal laws that seek to remedy inequities in education, the workplace, and the marketplace. That of course doesn’t mean that women always receive equal treatment (for example, there is a problem of a backlog in testing rape kits, which disproportionately harms female victims of crime), but those issues should be addressed when they occur, without enshrining a new right to end innocent human life at the taxpayer expense. SFLA President Kristan Hawkins said:
“The Equal Rights Amendment is a Trojan horse for taxpayer-funded abortion, sneaking it into the Constitution, and would enshrine an unlimited right to abortion. In fact, it would actually undermine women’s rights and is patently anti-woman. For example, it could affect issues such as Social Security benefits and childcare, all while ensuring that millions more babies are senselessly killed under the banner of equality.”