The ERA Is a Bait and Switch

  • The ERA promises basic legal equality, but instead provides a wide open door for the progressive agenda to be enforced by the judiciary.
  • Women already have basic legal equality, as their rights to free speech, religious liberty, jury trial, to bear arms, and others are constitutionally protected equally with men. The 19th Amendment protects women’s right to vote.
  • Sex discrimination is illegal under federal and all state laws, and unfair discrimination is already unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The Era Comes With Consequences

  • Draft and combat: The ERA could lead to women having to enroll in the military draft.
  • Abortion: The ERA could expand protections for abortion beyond the status quo under Roe v. Wade, including making it unconstitutional to withhold taxpayer money for abortion.
  • Benefits to women: The status of dozens of sex-based programs, such as WIC (Women, Infants, and Children), could be in doubt.
  • Sex segregation and safety: Many sex-segregated public facilities, such as public school restrooms, prisons, and hospital rooms, could be forced to become coed.
  • Taking power away from voters: Women make up the majority of the electorate in all recent elections. Ironically, the ERA would take decision-making power out of the hands of voters and hand it over to judges.

Ratification Faces Legal Questions

  • The Supreme Court has ruled that ratifications must be “reasonably contemporaneous” and part of a single act. It has taken several decades for 37 states to ratify the ERA.
  • Of the first 35 ratifications, four states have since rescinded their approval and one state set a sunset provision for ratification.
  • Congress had also set a deadline for the ERA’s ratification in 1972, and further extended it until 1983, but no further.